What's on my Bench Today?

Adventures in heat treating .

 

The activity in that one just above looks pretty sick! At least the left side, hard to see what's happenin on the right, to my untrained eye at least.

Was that one done with some fresh Parks 50 or did that come in yet? Man 8 months sounds pretty crazy to all the sudden have it stop "workimg" like that, way too soon. I have heard that flare ups can deteriorate it much faster if you if you just let it stay on fire without putting it out fairly quickly, but even so you should ask around on a few forums, like D Fogg's, even bladeforums, they have good guys too! Or google somthing like "parks 50 not working!" lol sorry, jus trying ta help!

Hope you're able to figure it out soon bud, especially being a full timer.. I have a lot of respect for ya guys, even more so for those like yourself that forge everything and don't have at least a power hammer... (not to metion you not even having a proper belt grinder for years lol) So yea, hand forging super thin, super shallow hardening steels, and being able to do it consistantly and beautifully enough to make a living doing it... mucho respeto uch lol

Oh yes! one question still, so where do you usually get your wrought from, and what types of shapes/sizes do you normally get? Like big anchor chain pieces, other round stock sizes or thick bar stock etc. The reason I'm asking is cause I'm trying to find bigger stock sizes that can be used for guards and such by using purely stock removal, so as to not have to refine the grain, which can lessen the character a bit sometimes.. Anyway, If I'm buggin ya with this , just tell me ta "shut it!"

~Paul

 

Heya Paul!

It was the same Parks 50 actually. I changed some other things to get it working...which it seemed to do last night. However, I couldn't repeat it today...but I've only tried once...so we'll see. As far as flaring goes, I never have....and trust me, I'm exhausting every resource I have in figuring this out. I'm 90% sure it's temperature related...but I'm still working on that.

As for forging...the truth is, if I didn't have to, I wouldn't. I AM a bladesmith, and I enjoy forging certain things...it gives a connection with the steel that is necessary on some projects (particularly swords and thicker blades). Kitchen knives just don't give that kind of feedback under a hammer. As far as the steel itself, and the heat treat goes...if its properly thermal cycled, it doesn't care if it's forged, ground, or dropped from a B10. The grain structure is either right, or it's not right...and it doesn't matter how the blade was shaped...as long as you put it in the right condition to harden. The ONLY reason I forge my kitchen knives is because customers want a hand forged blade. It takes more time, but if it makes you all happy, it's what I'll do. The end result is the same either way.

On the wrought...I get it wherever I can lol...in whatever form I can. I keep my eye on my local craigslist...watch eBay, and have feelers out with other bladesmiths and my customers. every once in awhile I catch a lead, and follow up on it. I know that's not a huge help...but it works lol.

Oh, one other thing by the way...

 

Heat treating oven at 1650°F. This is the beginning step in my roughly ten hour thermal cycle process. The blades will soak for 10-15 minutes at this temperature in order to completely dissolve all the chromium and vanadium carbides. The grains of the steel grow HUGE in this step...but I'm not worried about grain size...I'm worried about the condition of my carbides . From here the blades go through four more steps before they are pre-ground for heat treat. In this picture are @apathetic's 330mm suji, and his 280mm gyuto. I still have six more knives...three more cycles...to go at roughly an hour per cycle...before I can even start the next step in the process. With this many knives, each step in that five step process takes roughly the same amount of time, except the last step, which takes roughly 2hrs per group of knives (8 knives is 16hrs).

This thermal cycle process, for me...is absolutely mandatory.

 

Just won a bunch of eBay auctions for unstabilized wood blanks...


Flame box elder. I might have this dyed black when I send it to K&G .



Spalted hackberry...


Curly cottonwood...


He didn't even know what kind of wood this was, lol. He called it 'spalted mystery wood'. I figure it should stabilize up nicely though...so it works for me .

I also bought a bunch of unstabilized Norfolk Pine from Danny at Islewoods. He's a great guy and actually the first person I ever bought handle wood from, lol. Still haven't used that piece, but it's easily one of the most beautiful pieces of wood I own.



Anyhow, I thought some of you guys might find these interesting lol. I'm most interested in seeing how the Norfolk polishes up once it's stabilized. Seeing the piece Stefan did was hugely inspirational! I hope this turns out half as beautiful .

 

Those eyes are crazy cool.

 

The orange eyes are why bowl turners go nuts for norfolk pine lol. That big piece with two eyes may not be turned into a handle. I see a wolf or tiger on one side, and a bird of prey on the other.

 

My worry with this one is that you might not be able to make a handle or anything that actually looks cooler than the block looks all by itself in this photo.

 

Exactly!!

 

I would actually keep it as is and put it on display. Plus makes a great model for photography practice

 

Unfortunately, the entire auction for that piece ended up being posted by mistake, lol. So I never got it. I ended up with a cool piece of Asian Ironwood which is probably a good bit more practical in its place:



It's actually a bit more beautiful in hand.

As for me...sorry for the lack of posts! I've been buried in developing a new heat treat procedure to accommodate the slightly different chemistry of Aldo's newer W2. It's mind blowing what a few points of chromium and a bit more carbon can do to a guy's process .

That said...I've pretty much got it ironed out lol. As a matter of fact, I ironed it out so well it's forcing me to apply my clay in a completely different manner!


This clay layout would normally give me a line much like Robert's ko-gyuto, with a few cutouts of hardened material on the spine, and perhaps some wispy activity near the nose of the clay.

With my newly worked out process however...lol....


Hmm. Anyone want their name in a hamon?? We have the power!!

More seriously though...this does present its own difficulties, and my style is much more organic and random...which this is pretty much the polar opposite of, lol.

That said...I've worked things out...at least a little...






I'll probably be nailing this down completely over the weekend, then be back to working on my order list next week. Pictures to follow .

 

Hmmmmm, very interesting! op

 

I think this will do . Watch in 1080 btw, if you can. This blade is also for sale.

 

200mm gyuto



Best viewed in 1080p. To switch, click the little gear next to the 'YouTube' grapic...then select the resolution you want.

 

A few pictures of the little stock 175mm ko-gyuto in process tonight .


Roughing in the eased spine and choil...



All polished and round like! To me this is something that just can't be skipped. The difference in comfort is night and day.



Finish ground to 120 grit. Still need to do a LITTLE more work behind the edge (as you'll see below)...but otherwise this one is ready for polishing.



A quick dip in ferric chloride to see the hamon.



And the choil. The grind on this one is pretty beastly for a laser. You can see where there's a bit more work on the 120 grit belt behind the edge before I can start polishing.

Thanks for looking guys. More to come tomorrow now that my head isn't buried in Satanite and my forge for heat treating lol.

 

op

 

So...I've ground three knives in the last few days. Two 200ish mm gyuto (one tall and thick at 54mm and 4.5mm on the spine, one standard at 50mm tall and 2.5mm on the spine), and a 175mm ko-gyuto. I will usually take them right off the grinder at .10-.14mm edge thickness and cut some harder produce to see what the grind feels like with no edge. Tonight I thought I'd make a video for you all so you could share in the fun, lol.



Product is a sweet potato and a rutabaga. If you watch in HD, you can actually see the visible edges...and if you listen to the difference in the sound of the knife contacting the board between the sharpened Kochi, and mine, you can plainly hear how completely dull they are also, lol.

Anyhow, I learn a lot through this process, and it helps me make a knife that doesn't struggle through harder, more dense materials. Later, once the blade is at 400 grit and I finish the handle, I sharpen it and cut softer produce to make sure that there are no compromises in performance for either type product.

Thanks for looking .

 

So, I thought I'd share a quick rundown of the culmination of a few day's work for you all .


Out of the quench, pre-tempering. This is just a quick 36 grit pass to see what the line roughly looks like. This was actually the other day...but I thought I'd give some back story here .


Post temper check for a few more details in the hamon. I make a few passes with a 120 grit belt to knock the top off of the 36 grit scratches, then hit it with a 600 grit 3m belt to bring out a bit of the activity.


Cleaned up profile with the tip ground in. I've also flat ground it to take out any small warps from heat treating.


Here you can see the spine (top), and edge (bottom) guide marks for grinding. This is the first step in grinding the actual knife. Both photos show the original thickness of the knife. The top photo shows the original distal taper that was first forged, then ground into the blade, and the bottom picture shows where I will grind my edge two horizontally.


Just a few pictures to show how thick the rest of the knife actually is. The spine on this blade is a whopping 4.8mm at the ferrule. The edge in these pictures is something like 1.3mm if I recall.


After six hours of grinding and easing/polishing the spine and choil. The video in the previous post was taken before I did the polishing lol. You can get a pretty good idea of the grind from this picture...though a few key elements aren't pictured.

Btw, those aren't scratches in the choil. They're reflections .


A quick dip in ferric chloride gives me an idea what the hamon is going to shape up to be like. This one should be rather beautiful. I'm a big fan of the organic randomness of hitatsura. Many people want controlled, regimented hamon. I prefer to guide it instead. My newly worked out process actually makes this kind of difficult, lol. Always a learning curve!


Annnnd the blade at a diagonal 120 grit. I know it looks pretty smooth in the previous pictures, but there's a TON of deep belt gouges and scuff marks that have to be taken out. In addition, this step lets me blend the bevels for smooth transitions and a more pleasing canvas for the hamon to be displayed.

https://instagram.com/p/4d46HwmOtO

^^^ short video of the blade at 220 grit horizontal.

From here, I'll polish up to 400 or 600 grit, and start handle work (I have three other knives to get to 600 grit before that though, lol). After the handle is done and pre-fit, I will do saya for whichever blades get them. At that point I go back and finish polish the blades to 3000 grit, etch my mark, and final fit the handle. Then it's photo shoot time, and off to the new owners .

Anyhow, there you go...a few days work condensed into one post for you all .

 

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

 

600 grit on the little 200mm beasty tonight! You can see it here with the block of koa I've chosen for the handle .


The customer has asked for wrought iron and nickel silver in a similar arrangement to James' copper and wrought configuration on the last knife. I still have to decide exactly how I want to orient the block, but I absolutely LOVE how the spalting somewhat mirrors the randomness of the hamon! If I can pull it off it should be quite beautiful when completed.