project knife

picking up a knife like an old Forgecraft might be fun.

But there are many makers I've not heard of. I don't know how to tell if the knife is of good enough steel to invest the time in. Can you recommend some makers current and out of business that would be good?

Also, I see some knives with defects possibly from over use or improper sharpening. Like uneven sharpening where the belly has been reduced and sometimes even curves inward. Are these deal breakers?

thanks
Mike

 

Yamawaku. Affordable knives with a decent steel and grind.

 

Protruding heels, recurve bellies and damaged tips are very common and easily repaired. A deel breaker to me would be an overgrind, hard to recognize from a photo, though.

 

@MotoMike - There should be lots of old carbon steel Chicago Cutlery brand knives in your neck of the woods.

Old Dexter, Lamson, Robinson, and Old Hickory would be similar to the Forgecraft blades. All of those brands were popular in the midwest. A word of caution about the Old Hickory knives: they are still making carbon steel knives. However, the newer/recent OH blades do not have the traditional roll marked blades or Old Hickory stamped on the handles.

 

thanks

that is grist for the mill.
Benuser, I am not sure I know what an overgrind is.

 

This article is nearly 10 years old.

 

?

 

Ahhhhh I see, so this was the Big Bang message that created all of KKF

 

An overgrind is a place on the blade where to much steel got abraded. If it is near to the edge and deep enough it will eventually become a hole, a place where the edge doesn't touch the board. Hard to see, sometimes you can feel it. It becomes obvious during thinning as the overground area won't touch the stone and show a different scratch pattern.

 

Benuser
I see now. Is that from user or original grind?

 

Poor factory grinding. As with vintages, these often were sharpened on coarse grinding wheels by guys going along the streets with their cart. Respecting the blade's geometry wasn't understandably always their first preoccupation.

 

Even reputable Japanese knives can has overgrinding issues. Here's a picture of my Watanabe 150mm knife:

Small area near the heel. It's pretty minor and will be gone with a few more sharpening sessions, yet it's still an example of overgring.


Also I'd like to extend my original answer a bit. "Project knife" means something different for each of us, and I was suggesting buying a new inexpensive knife from a Japanese maker Yamawaku. They are made from V2 core with iron cladding. Imho they offer great value for the money considering both used materials and F&F. With some minor thinning and rehandling they can outperform many more expensive knives.

 

thanks Anton.

 

Don't get too concerned with details, just get some knives and start working on them! If you start with inexpensive old knives even if they don't pan out you will gain valuable experience. There is nothing like making shavings (or metal grindings) to learn about what works and what doesn't!

 

sounds like good advice spike