Passaround WIP

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Was able to get both knives profiled out today. The smaller stainless will go into heat treat tonight, but the carbon still needs quite a bit of work before I'll be able to go that route. The handle material is shown with each knife. Going with Chinese pallet and buffalo horn for the stainless, and Bocote for the Western Carbon. The stainless is my normal profile, while the larger carbon will be more masamoto ks.

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Thanks for watching!
 
ExistentialHero said:
I 100% forgot to ever take a picture of my hand. I assume you don't need it now, but can I still get on the passaround list? I'd love to check out your work even if it's not a custom fit 😀
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Absolutely. It's going to take a good chunk more time to get the other done. And I still need to do the finishing touches and test cutting.
 
Very cool to watch you move through the whole process. The two of yours that I have are used frequently and I can't say enough about the quality of your work. Glad to see so many others will soon find out for themselves.
 
Finally able to get some more work done. The laser is just shy of being done. Just need to clean up the blade and handle a bit, and then give it a good sharpening. Here's some pics of some of the process.

Blade fitted up to the material.
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Everything cleaned, and drying for glue up.
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Handle shaped.
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Handle burnt, and drying again, waiting for final glue.
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There's a crack near the bottom. I'll put a few drops of CA glue to help sure it up. Don't mind the mini frisbee in the background.
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Taped and ready for attaching.
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Everything attached. Just need to clean up the blade, handle, and give it a sharpening. Then I'll test it out while I get the other knife ready. I'll post some final stats on this one when it's ready.
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Thanks for your patience!
 
One is finished, and the other is ready for heat treat. Probably won't get to heat treat till Monday, but who knows. I'm going to use the laser for a bit, and let you know my thoughts, and try to get the other one finished up next week, so I can play with it over the weekend, and then send it out on the Monday following.

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So, I've gotten to use the laser for a bit. Cuts well, but excels at pull cutting. Wouldn't want to use it for a shift, as the thin spine would most likely cut into my hand and cause a nasty blister. Overall, performs rather well, but food release isn't great.

Had a few hiccups with the other one. The steel was a bit too thick upon the initial heat treatment, and didn't realize it until I started grinding away, and the hamon was closer to the edge than I wanted. Decided to anneal, normalize, and re heat treat. A bit tricky, and warped a bit due to having ground in a hollow on the right face. Managed to attach bolster, get most of the grinding done, and partly fit the wood to the handle.

I'll hopefully get all the grinding done tomorrow, and start working on fitting up the wood so I can start shaping that next week. Will also polish up the knife next week, but if all goes well, I can get everything done by end of next week.

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Don't mind the other knife. It's a single bevel utility out of AEB-L that I use for odd jobs, like scraping epoxy and cutting cardboard. Thanks for watching!
 
Have everything ready to attach the handle to this knife. Going to just permanently attach this handle, as getting everything perfect is not my strong suit at this moment. . Not pictured is a brass rod that will serve as a nut on the back end, so everything is not just chemically bonded, but mechanically sound. Also not pictured, is that the tang is shorter, as to allow the brass nut to enter the wood. Should be able to start shaping the handle tomorrow, and then start to polish everything up, and ship out.

Pic of tang sticking out of the back hole.
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Just a pic from the side.
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Starting to get everything square here. Will most likely put a liner between the bolster and handle.
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And then, with getting all of this ready, a client dropped off some blanks for me to heat treat and grind. So now, I get to juggle a couple projects. All 25 blades are now heat treated (1095 @~59hrc). These will get flattened now, have bevels ground in, and polished up to 220 grit so they can be cerakoted. Then back to me to put handles on, and sharpen. Sorry for the squirrel (distraction).
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I swear it these will be ready someday ;).
 
Since I had to run the oven today anyway, I decided to make some stock. That got turned into ramen. Oh, and the handle is all glued together. I'll be the first to say it doesn't look too comfy right now, but I'm hoping to change that in the morning. So tomorrow, the goal will be to finish shaping the handle, and flattening the other knives. I may get more than that done, but hate to over promise.

Using felt as a spacer. I like the way the brown works with the bocote and brass.
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Carmelized onions, bok choy, zucchini, pork loin in homemade teryaki sauce, and green onion.
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All put together. The 10 month old was a big fan of the broth :).
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Was able to get the handle shaped today. Now I just need to polish up the blade, sharpen, and she'll be done. Though going to start on flattening the other blades for the client tomorrow, so we'll see how far I get on this front.

Don't mind the 70's linoleum. It's there until we can remodel ;).
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The under-counter lights are horrible for these kinds of pics, but sometimes you have to make due.
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A choil pic just for fun. The knives in the background are, from left to right: Takeda nakiri, Devin Petty, Damascus collaberation between Devin and myself gyuto, Custom chef's knife by me with stubby handle, TF with custom handle by HattoriChop, Damascus petty by Delbert Ealy. Just in case you're wondering.
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Again, thanks for your time!
 
I hate being a perfectionist. There's a number of things that bother me about this one, but I think it's time to get her out of the house. I'll be doing some minor touch ups, and putting both knives on the stones. I'll get in touch with each of you shortly to figure out order, but these should be packed up and ready to ship tomorrow. Didn't cut much yesterday, except a couple zucchini and some garlic, but I like the way this one feels much more than the laser. I like slightly heavier knives, so that's not completely far fetched. Hopefully, all of you will enjoy using them, and get a taste for what I can do :).

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So, the knives are off to the first contestant :). Figured I'd write down what I was expecting, so we'd all be on the same page. Basically pretty simple, keep the knives for one week, use them as much as you can, and I would appreciate some feedback. I'm pretty aware of some problems, but it'll be nice to see if anyone else notices them or not, as we're our own worst critics sometimes.

Go ahead and post your reviews here. I'll try not to take anything personal ;).

Next, after you're done with the knives, it's your responsibility to get them to the next person on the list. Which is as follows:

1. M1k3
2. Chang
3. Existential Hero
4. Ian
5. applepieforbreakfast

If you know how to sharpen, please feel free to put either of them on the stones. If there's more damage than you feel comfortable dealing with, feel free to send them back to me, so I can refresh them for the next person (I know this would add extra time to the process, so you can always chat with the next person to see if they feel like dealing with it themselves). I insured the package for $500, so feel free to do the same. It cost less than $20 to ship.

If there are any questions I haven't answered, please feel free to ask here. And thanks for taking part.

For those of you that had to back out. I hope one day we can do this again. And for those not in the US, I'll figure out a way to get stuff across the boarder without dinging anyone too harshly for customs.
 
The Edge said:
I'm pretty aware of some problems, but it'll be nice to see if anyone else notices them or not, as we're our own worst critics sometimes.
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Let's start off with this. Both blades have a few low grit scratches near the edge.
The laser one's finish is uneven. Some j-hooks/swirling shows up if you really inspect the finish.

I think that's it? None of these things made me think "You call yourself a knife maker?" though.

Now with the good. Spine is straight. No sharp edges. Everything minus the cutting edge was nice and smooth. No overgrinds or holes in the edge. And no rough cheese grater finish either.

The Wa handled laser one was quite thin. Really light. Not to flexible either. Balance point right about pinch grip. As expected, it flew through food. Food release not a strong suit for lasers. But an excellent example of one well done.


Now the Western handled workhorse one. This handle was done nicely. Very comfortable, even using a pinch grip. The hamon is quite nice to look at. The s-grind was well executed. Excellent food release and separation. I used this one the most.

Besides the criticisms I responded about, I don't have any complaints. I liked both knives. I definitely liked the workhorse one better. Felt better in hand a long with the better food release.

Than you @The Edge for letting me participate. The knives have been mailed out.
 
Thank you @M1k3 for taking the time and effort to write up your experience. I appreciate it.

On another note, add one more to the list for the passaround:

1. M1k3 - leg one completed
2. Chang
3. Existential Hero
4. Ian
5. applepieforbreakfast
6. LostHighway
7. mise_en_place
 
Thanks for the update. Not really worried about it. The first person on the list was usually only a couple days out for me normally, but took over a week to get there. I know it'll get there eventually.
 
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