WIP - Forging

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Im going western on this one with a lovely piece of dark maple burl and mokume i made a while back.

 
Shape appears quite precise and spot on. What you use for template or did you just eyeball it?
 
The shape has been evolving from my "not a gyuto" handle and the Bread knife handle. In this case i took the cad file for Gandknife as that handle feels the best and tweeked it a bit and arrived at this shape. The cross section also takes from my birds beak paring knife which i will show in the finish assemble. So i kind of had a template made up of several knives with handles i liked but wanted to improve. So i kind of free hand it but start from a general idea.





 
Thanks. I drove 2 hrs to get the wood and ill go back for more for sure
 
Dang that handle is slick! Great looking shape and contours on some really attractive wood. :doublethumbsup:
 
I did a count and including the knlife that broke at the begin of this forging thread i've made 15 knives. This being the 15th. Now that i've found a new local source of stabalized woods i don't wanna stop! Lol
 
Thanks Matus. I think i found my flow with this one.

Also, cleaned up the makers mark as it was obscured in the last photos.



 
Really nice! I would love to give this knife a go in the kitchen.
What length did you manage to get the blade? And do you heat treat in the forge?
 
it's 210mm long and 52mm at the heel. The new forge did the heat treating and I'm pleased with the even heating I can get with little gas usage.
 
That knife is very droolworthy... :doublethumbsup: Hope you don't stop making them; if this is knife number 15,then I'm curious to see what your 100th knife will look like.
 
I tried a few finger stones on this blade and i suspect they're best used on bi-metal or honyaki blades as they didn't seem to produce any results on this mono-steel fully hardened blade. In a pinch though i cut up some 320 sanding discs into triangles to use in a finger stone like application. The hook and loop backing gives your fingers something to connect to went wet sanding. Worked pretty well in the end. Ill go pick up some finer grits for later.

 
Found a 41lbs post vise for under $200 canadian. Pleased.

 
Working on the 4th starter stick i cut near the begining of this thread. More emphasis on thinness for this one. It will be a cousin to the last one as i'll use stabalized maple burl and mokume but i hope to improve on several aspects.



I did the heat treat late at night and turned the forge on low. I was careful to get even colour and i caught the blade just after i saw the wave pass through and it was no longer magnetic.

The mokume will be interesting as i used a long cutoff from the first mokume about 2"x1/4"x1/4" but turned it on end and flattened it out. I risked opening up the seams by forging it, which i did a bit but only around the perimter where It will be trimmed off. The grain of the mokume will be more burl like and not perpendicular to the blade like that last. My hope is it will more closely resemble the burl wood of the handle.
 








Some inclusions in the mokume but i like it, mimics the spalting in the maple burl.
 
Thanks Matus. More focus on thinning the blade and getting out all the scratches. I put a lot of time into getting the lines on the handle where i wanted them.



 
This is really nice, you did great.
It kind of reminds me a bit of Billipp's style.
 
I do like billipp's knives but never held one. Having made fully polished knives and a few like this i can say this takes a lot more time and consideration, for me at least. I find these more challenging and will likely continue. My bench grinder broke so i finished this one on the old 3x18 belt sander. For $60 that thing can do a lot. Think i might buy a kmg grinder.
 
Great looking knife! Looks like you're really in the flow with the last couple ones you finished.

How are you experimenting with the handle shape? Also, what are the major differences between this knife and the one you finished last month?
 
Great looking knife! Looks like you're really in the flow with the last couple ones you finished.

How are you experimenting with the handle shape? Also, what are the major differences between this knife and the one you finished last month?

The differences are subtle and hard to capture on camera. The lines are cleaner on this one and the cross section is more trapazoidal than the previous one. The swell at the butt is also more pronounced on this one. You might say this handle is more Kardashian.

The blade itself is 209x49 and made from thinner stock than the previous one. The spine is 1mm thick 25mm from the tip. Also, looks like there was some copper left in the forge from the mokume as the blade picked up two little beads of copper. I must have grabbed these during the final stages of heating and straightening.

 


Made a little drive out to Woodstock. This 2hp puppy jumped in my car.
 
nice grinder!
Will bee sell direct?
I always thought them to be very pricey.

This may be a noob question but, do you mostly hollow grind? Just noticed the wheel.
 
Bee will sell direct if you ask nice. It comes with wheel and platton, visible just below. The platton is four tools in one having the plate, slack belt, 2" wheel and 1.5" wheel. Comes with motor and to me is best bang for buck compared to KMG.
 
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