What's on my Bench Today?

The thick one is definitely something that I'm looking out for. Can't wait to see what's the performance like when there's an edge on it. And I agree that piece of koa really goes well with that gyuto.

 

Thanks Jayson! The challenge is maintaining my standards for thinness, my general geometry, and still maintaining the forward weight that the thicker material can afford. With no handle, the current balance is nearly 40mm in front of the heel. I'll check the thinner 200mm gyyto today and see how it compares.

 

So...20lbs of tomatoes cut into 3/4" cubes, 2 onions, red, green, yellow, and orange bell peppers, 2 packages of mushrooms, garlic and misc herbs, and two loaves of French bread later...my from scratch spaghetti sauce was a hit, and the beastly little gyuto handled it with ease. I also cut two heads of lettuce, a bag of carrots, two cucumbers, and sugar snap peas for the salad. even cut some more sweet potatoes just to see. The results there were interesting. One potato (the largest and easily the most dense) cut cleanly, no wedging or even drag. Just slid right through on every cut. Another produced very mild suction wedging if I didn't cut with some authority. The third and smallest in diameter cracked on every cut before the knife even got 1/3 of the way through, lol. It cracked cleanly without tearing, but the sound on every cut was like snapping a carrot. Kinda strange.

Anyhow, the tomatoes were a dream. Just dropped right through, and even 1/16" thick slices (yes, I sliced a few...after all, the spaghetti was simply an excuse to test the knife lol) stuck to each other rather than to the knife. The onions were HUGE, and a 'tip cut' horizontally required half the blade. Even so, it wasn't too thick and cut very cleanly with no drama.

I'm pretty happy with it...now I just need to finish it off so someone ELSE can be happy with it!

 

Now I'm hungry for spaghetti!

 

Before cutting lol...


Patina! After the tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, and herbs.


The result of all the hard work lol. I started cooking at 10:30am, and the noodles were done at 5pm. I pretty much didn't sit once.


Blade after all the work.


Wiped down with a wet towel. Keep in mind that this is only 600 grit, so it patinas REALLY quickly, and is harder to clean up. At 3000 grit, the patina is a bit less aggressive, and cleans up more easily if you choose to do so. It also patinas more evenly.

Anyhow, I mostly posted this to say...my dinner was probably better than yours .

 

Oh no you didn't.

 

Mhmm!

 

Sorry Jason...my lunch was probably better than yours too....!

 

Couple blades I got to 600 grit tonight .


This one is 170m x 50mm tall, and belongs to @coexist44.


This one is 207mm x 49mm, and was ordered by a young lady in LA who does a cooking show on the Hallmark Channel. This one is getting a live edge handle somewhat like the one I did for James . The buckeye burl is from the same tree, but is much more blonde in color. Hopefully I can make it work. You never know what you're going to get when you start cutting into a rotted out old chunk of wood with holes in it .

Anyhow, these three top me off for blades to handle (I try to do these things in batches of three lol)...so it'll be wood work and handles for the next few days starting tomorrow. I've got two buckeye burl pieces, and a wicked piece of spalted deep compression koa. I'll be sure to share...hope you guys and girls enjoy!!

 

Oh also!



These just finished their final temper cycle tonight. The top one will be available (can't remember the size...like 180mm if I recall?), the second one is Anton's, the two big 270's below that are available, and the bottom one is a custom order I'll be sharing more of here in the next batch .

 

Ahh...handles!!

I started out today verifying my wood selection for the live edge handle:


Pretty...and should work out nicely for my plans!


Rough cut it to shape and square it up...then check to make sure the handle has a chance of doing what I want as far as interacting with the live edge after it's sculpted, lol.


Then I got everything cut and squared for glue, rough fit to verify how it looked, and cut the tang slot.



Glued!! I'd be back to this one 8hrs later, lol.


While I was waiting for that one to glue, I decided to check the new wrought iron bar I got for pattern. I took it to 600 grit and etched it in ferric chloride:


Not bad!! This batch of wrought is very high phosphorous as well, which basically means if you hit it with a hammer at anything less than 9 billion degrees, it's going to split and crack.

Which is exactly what I want .


Soooo...light the forge....


Cut off a few pucks and forge them close to the thicknesses I want for spacers. Note the cracks? SCORE.


Scale removed and ground flat roughly on my belt grinder. Before fit up I run everything over a diamond plate by hand to verify flat/square.


All the pieces for the next handle of the night ready to go!



And glued up! I know it's not much to look at now...but this is one gorgeous piece of wood. If it works out as I hope, I'll be filling you guys in on it tomorrow . This one's going on the beastly 200mm gyuto.


After that, I went ahead and got all the spacer pieces finished for the little 170 ko-gyuto, then decided I'd waited long enough and cut over to finishing the live edge buckeye burl piece!



So first, I like to cut off all the crusty glue and excess wood, to get a nice square blank to work with. I'll usually take it up a few belt grits and buff it to see what the handle has the potential to look like when I'm done lol. As you can see, this one just might turn out....



Alright, as far as I'm concerned...it DID turn out. As I said on Instagram, I'm really loving the effect of these live edges running through the butt of the handles and cutting through the sculpted lines! Like Mother Nature taking back her own .

Anyhow, more tomorrow on the other two handles. It's time for me to shower and get a few hours sleep, lol.

 

Cool pics of the handle making process!

 

Thanks Jason!!

I got the handle out of koa and wrought finished today as well!



This is just rough fit of course. I'll be finishing another handle tomorrow, and beginning the saya for all three blades as well. After that, it's final polishing for the lot of them, etching my maker's mark, fitting the handles one last time, then picture time and down the road they go! I'm hoping to have them finished by Sunday, and be started on the next batch of three as of Monday.

 

So...yeah. I decided if I went ahead and knocked out the final handle tonight...I could sleep in tomorrow and then work on the three saya inside where I have AC, instead of having to finish a handle in the 115°F heat (with 30% humidity thanks to all the rain lol), I think it turned out rather well myself!!


Keep in mind, the wrought will look like it does on the above koa after a few dozen etch cycles in ferric chloride. I'm really loving the way these three handles turned out .

Oh, and a sneak peak on the little 170mm ko-gyuto it belongs to:




Anyhow! I'm off to shower and catch a bit of sleep. Thanks for looking!!

 

Very nice Cris! You've got an excellent profile on the belly and tip. Looks like it will flow really well.

 

Really liking the new handles. Can't wait to get my hands on the passarounds.

 

Thank you two...very much appreciated!!

Lucretia, I may be having it sent back to me in between east coast and west coast for touch up...so you guys get a fresh polished knife...lol. If so I'll only have it a day or two. I'm thinking about doing a poll on the passaround thread to see if you guys might want me to change it to the new dual tapered handle style. As a matter of fact, I'll probably do that tonight lol .

 

Saya work is done .

 

Nice, me likely!

 

I know mine wouldn't be the only one forever, i just didn't think it would happen so soon. it looks great though, great job Cris