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Just off the truck. I'm looking forward playing with this stuff...

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A little group photo of my first MagnaCut knives. Bottom to top, a complete 240 gyuto, a 210mm custom for one of our members, that's fresh off the grinder with a very rough looking 300 grit finish. A heat treated 240mm blank destined to become a left handed knife, and a heat treated 290mm blank.

I like this steel, it grinds fairly easily, and frankly it's just well balanced across the board.
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The completed 210mm MagnaCut gyuto. Burned cherry, and a 1200 grit hand finish...which I may never do again on MagnaCut. The 320 and 600 grit weren't so bad, but at 1200 grit this got just a little ridiculous. I'm never underestimating a new high alloy steel again. Otherwise, a straightforward project, a fairly thin knife with good balance and decent food release, the new owner should be very happy with it.
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Next up....fresh out of heat treat

An unprofiled O1 225mm gyuto, two 52100 225mm gyuto, a 175mm 52100 nakiri, and what should turn into a 250-270mm O1 gyuto (once its profiled) that sort of got away from me while I was drawing it down. I still have two pieces of MagnaCut to process, but one of them may or may not be spoken for, so I'll take a short break from those and knock these guys out. If I try to finish another high alloy blade right now, I swear my elbows are going to unionize on me.
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Well, here's one for the books....an auto hamon in O1 tool steel. Occasionally you see auto hamons (a hamon produced without the use of clay) occur in thicker blades made of a shallow hardening steel, or sometimes when a maker (usually accidentally) has his temperature just right. I've never seen one in a deep hardening steel like O1 before though. I knew that hamons could be formed in deeper hardening steels like 52100, O1 and 5160, but I never suspected that they could auto hamon. It surprises me especially given that is was quenched in warm Parks 50, which is a fast quenching oil, and O1 only needs a slow oil, I've even heard that it will air harden in thin cross sections.

I would leave it as is and finish the knife just because it's such an anomaly, but it looks like there were a couple of spots where the edge didn't harden, so I've got to re-heat treat this one. Good thing the edge is still fairly thick, It has good odds of survival.
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Well, I for one am in a trance like state, after having spent a few hours playing with one of your M4 240’s. Such great work with steel choice and heat teeat. I want to ask if you have done smaller blades like steak knives?
Also very sweet quartz spacers!!
P.S. I let a friend use the knife you made me, there was some negotiating for right price before I said no way it’s one of a kind!
 
Well, I for one am in a trance like state, after having spent a few hours playing with one of your M4 240’s. Such great work with steel choice and heat teeat. I want to ask if you have done smaller blades like steak knives?
Also very sweet quartz spacers!!
P.S. I let a friend use the knife you made me, there was some negotiating for right price before I said no way it’s one of a kind!
I'm very happy you're so enamored with that knife! It's very encouraging to hear my work is well received, and a little flattering to hear that someone tried to poach off of you. I may have to make more with that taper profile, which if I'm being honest was almost completely accidental. I had some deep peen marks to remove from straightening, and well, that's basically how that taper came to be.

I haven't done smaller blades really, though I have done a retrofit for a folding knife once. I would give steak knives a shot, but it's really hard to tell what direction to take when I decide I want to try a new blade style. Not seeing many of a given style up for grabs could mean that there just isn't any interest in them as easily as it could that the people who have them like them so much they never sell them. It's for that reason I stick primarily to gyutos.

Personally, if I were doing smaller, low impact knives like steak knives, I might be tempted to try some ridiculously high wearing steel like S90V or 10V. I think steels like that would excel in that sort of application.

And those stone spacers have to be some of my favourite pieces of work, though it's a real pain to use them. I have to cut the stone and metal simultaneously on a diamond disk, which isn't so bad, but the wood really likes to gum it up, and the heat generated can make to epoxy fail completely so it's a very slow and careful process. And then finishing them so everything is flush fit is another challenge, since the wood, metal and stone all abrade at drastically different rates. The results though, oh they're gorgeous. I got my hands on some tiger iron to use for exactly those kinds of spacers, but I've been so busy I just haven't had to time to put one of those knives together. They're very labor intensive.
 
I'm very happy you're so enamored with that knife! It's very encouraging to hear my work is well received, and a little flattering to hear that someone tried to poach off of you. I may have to make more with that taper profile, which if I'm being honest was almost completely accidental. I had some deep peen marks to remove from straightening, and well, that's basically how that taper came to be.

I haven't done smaller blades really, though I have done a retrofit for a folding knife once. I would give steak knives a shot, but it's really hard to tell what direction to take when I decide I want to try a new blade style. Not seeing many of a given style up for grabs could mean that there just isn't any interest in them as easily as it could that the people who have them like them so much they never sell them. It's for that reason I stick primarily to gyutos.

Personally, if I were doing smaller, low impact knives like steak knives, I might be tempted to try some ridiculously high wearing steel like S90V or 10V. I think steels like that would excel in that sort of application.

And those stone spacers have to be some of my favourite pieces of work, though it's a real pain to use them. I have to cut the stone and metal simultaneously on a diamond disk, which isn't so bad, but the wood really likes to gum it up, and the heat generated can make to epoxy fail completely so it's a very slow and careful process. And then finishing them so everything is flush fit is another challenge, since the wood, metal and stone all abrade at drastically different rates. The results though, oh they're gorgeous. I got my hands on some tiger iron to use for exactly those kinds of spacers, but I've been so busy I just haven't had to time to put one of those knives together. They're very labor intensive.

K390 steak knives! :)
 
This week's projects. A 52100 honesuki for one of our own, the same O1 gyuto I had to re-heat treat last weekend, 2x 240mmX55mm gyuto, and 2x sujihiki, all from AEB-L.

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I'm experimenting with a new grind on these gyuto. After hearing how elated @pentryumf is with his M4 laser I've been compelled to replicate the grind. I just wanted to adjust it to try to maximize food release, which isn't so easy to accomplish with a thin blade, but I have a theory that I'm going to try out. This blade is just rough ground so far out to 300 grit, hand finishing comes next.

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Something of an unequal taper on the blade. The inside face is cut with a straight taper, but the outside face is cut so that that rear half of the blade is tapered more aggressively than the front. How much of a difference will it make? I can't say for certain, but I get the feeling it will be negligible, except maybe on the hardest of veggies. Still I want to see what I can get.

The current blade taper is 2.70mm @20mm back from the heel, 1.75mm @13cm, and .8mm @1cm., and it will probably lose another .15mm-.25mm during hand finishing.
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On the outside face of this blade I went with an almost fully convex grind. I'd like to see how it compares to a blade with the same taper that has a more abrupt 8-10mm of convexity, but a thinner pre-convex edge thickness.
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This week's projects. A 52100 honesuki for one of our own, the same O1 gyuto I had to re-heat treat last weekend, 2x 240mmX55mm gyuto, and 2x sujihiki, all from AEB-L.

View attachment 183209

I'm experimenting with a new grind on these gyuto. After hearing how elated @pentryumf is with his M4 laser I've been compelled to replicate the grind. I just wanted to adjust it to try to maximize food release, which isn't so easy to accomplish with a thin blade, but I have a theory that I'm going to try out. This blade is just rough ground so far out to 300 grit, hand finishing comes next.

View attachment 183210


Something of an unequal taper on the blade. The inside face is cut with a straight taper, but the outside face is cut so that that rear half of the blade is tapered more aggressively than the front. How much of a difference will it make? I can't say for certain, but I get the feeling it will be negligible, except maybe on the hardest of veggies. Still I want to see what I can get.

The current blade taper is 2.70mm @20mm back from the heel, 1.75mm @13cm, and .8mm @1cm., and it will probably lose another .15mm-.25mm during hand finishing.
View attachment 183211

On the outside face of this blade I went with an almost fully convex grind. I'd like to see how it compares to a blade with the same taper that has a more abrupt 8-10mm of convexity, but a thinner pre-convex edge thickness.
View attachment 183212
It also helps that the feeling I had when first experiencing Crucibles REX CPM-M4 was not just a one off or my dellusions....which I admit can cause a bit of bias...
My feelings were based on ‘in hand feeling’ and on stones....which Mr.Dover stated on BF way back in ‘09. Probably not ‘RR’ anymore but possibly ‘flying B’.

It also helps that MSicard is a gifted maker.
 

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Personally, if I were doing smaller, low impact knives like steak knives, I might be tempted to try some ridiculously high wearing steel like S90V or 10V. I think steels like that would excel in that sort of application.

I think they would cut plates. I don’t think its wise to use high carbide steels on steak knives. I can’t recall the HRC on glass/ceramic, but I think its somewhere in the low 60’s and surely varies by product. Wood plates are another matter.
 
It also helps that the feeling I had when first experiencing Crucibles REX CPM-M4 was not just a one off or my dellusions....which I admit can cause a bit of bias...
My feelings were based on ‘in hand feeling’ and on stones....which Mr.Dover stated on BF way back in ‘09. Probably not ‘RR’ anymore but possibly ‘flying B’.
That post was actually one of the ones I read that lead me to include CPM-M4 in that steel order. I'm still very impressed with how the edge feels and sharpens. It's very toothy and very crisp.
 
I think they would cut plates. I don’t think its wise to use high carbide steels on steak knives.
I'm skeptical, but I think it's worth looking into. Wouldn't the enamel on the plate be more the concern than the composition of the plate itself though?
 
So on a whim I tried scratching a Corelle bowl/plate with several knives and had no luck. I started at Blue 2 steel at HRC61 and ended with Rex121 steel at hrc67 with some SRS15 and Hap40 in the mix and saw no scratches.

I didn’t put that much pressure into the effort to avoid damaging blades but I am surprised at the results.
 
Thanks undertaking that yourself! I haven't got any seriously high wear knives on hand at the moment. Good to get that cleared up.
 
Ceramic and glass would be a lot harder than the 72HRC equivalent. Maybe some vanadium carbides might scratch them but plain steel knives, I doubt it.

You can also try scratching your phone screen with keys and other steels. You might scrape the oleophobic coating but on the glass itself, scratches aren't going to happen. Now sand on the other hand will tear it up.
 
:LOL:I couldn't help myself.

One my favourite practical jokes is when I have someone around who knows little about knife making, to take a blade that's cracked in the quench, but not tell them it's a failure, then explain how hard and brittle an as quenched blade is, and how careful you need to be, and then in handing them an "example" of one, fumble as I pass it to them and watch the look of horror when it shatters completely on the concrete floor. Oh! It's priceless! And I explain it all after but for a few seconds, the jaw is on the ground.
 
I've been experimenting with torrifying wood. It seems to create greater contrast in the grain and provide some depth of colour to otherwise fairly light woods. It really seems to work well with an oil finish too, torrifying and oil seem to be a good combo. I think I might just use it as a standard process with more common woods from here on out.

These two are cherry
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