26C3 Stability/brittleness at 66-67 HRC ?

Your photo brings back a great old memory.

I had a take down kiridashi when I was younger. It was a gift from some Japanese friends for my birthday. My son and their daughter, Miwa, were inseparable friends when they were little kids. It was for household tasks and sharpening pencils. The simple blade and about 1.5" long including the nakago. The 3" tsuka was plain ho-wood (or similar), but was channeled about half the way down. The blade could be inserted in the front opening and locked with the mekugi to be used as normal. It could be inserted backward, making the tsuka become the saya.. The mekugi would hold it in place safely. I was told that this was so the kiridashi could be carried in a pocket with no need for a separate saya. My son had it and it disappeared with his stuff after he died.

I my have to make some of these as gifts. A 40X8mm piece of 1.5mm W2 or other high carbon steel and a small piece of stabilized curly maple are all I need. One handle block and a 1.5X1.5" piece of steel should make four kiridashi.

This 43 year old photo makes me happy to remember Chris and Miwa.
Miwa fell off a swing and broke her arm. Chris was so worried about her. The next day we went over to see her and the kids sat on the grass out in the front yard. He gave her a hug and Michio (her mother) took this photo. Miwa found me through Facebook a while ago and sent me the photo, which she found in her mothers stuff.
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Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Your photo brings back a great old memory.

I had a take down kiridashi when I was younger. It was a gift from some Japanese friends for my birthday. My son and their daughter, Miwa, were inseparable friends when they were little kids. It was for household tasks and sharpening pencils. The simple blade and about 1.5" long including the nakago. The 3" tsuka was plain ho-wood (or similar), but was channeled about half the way down. The blade could be inserted in the front opening and locked with the mekugi to be used as normal. It could be inserted backward, making the tsuka become the saya.. The mekugi would hold it in place safely. I was told that this was so the kiridashi could be carried in a pocket with no need for a separate saya. My son had it and it disappeared with his stuff after he died.

I my have to make some of these as gifts. A 40X8mm piece of 1.5mm W2 or other high carbon steel and a small piece of stabilized curly maple are all I need. One handle block and a 1.5X1.5" piece of steel should make four kiridashi.

This 43 year old photo makes me happy to remember Chris and Miwa.
Miwa fell off a swing and broke her arm. Chris was so worried about her. The next day we went over to see her and the kids sat on the grass out in the front yard. He gave her a hug and Michio (her mother) took this photo. Miwa found me through Facebook a while ago and sent me the photo, which she found in her mothers stuff.
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That is a touching story, I have never seen anything like the reversable kiridashi acting as a saya, very cool.
 
Mizu Honyaki top Abura Honyaki bottom
https://imgur.com/a/FVD7mh6

Rough stone sharpening stage 1 complete, 150 grit moving to 200 next up to about 3k.


So both of these were done without clay so they are all hard. Next batch will have 1 cm more height and be clay tempered Yaki ire.
 
Prepping to clay these 2 blades up, the skyline hamons will be on mount Snowdonia in Wales, and Mount Ben Nevis in Scotland, I thought it would be more personal to copy the mountain outline of peaks i've actually been up myself, instead of doing a typical mount Fuji or similar.
Honyaki santoku and usuba mountain hamons
https://imgur.com/a/OC4hkMn
 
Horsewright said:
Aye, Nevis. Use to live in the Highlands no far awaw!
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Oh really, my family married into a Scottish family from Inverness. My mother's sister, and now all of their children are half Scottish, I have no other connection to Snowdonia though except I got stranded up there once haha.
 
Lived on an estate outside of Aviemore, just down from Inverness. Inverness was where we did our shopping. Fenced with the Laird’s daughter down the middle of the high street, stopping traffic one time. She didn’t need to be fencing though to stop traffic.
 
When I was in high school back in the 60's, I got into fencing. I had a good set of gear and my buddy and I would fence until we were worn out. We started fencing in the gym, but were told that it we could only be there after school if it was a sanctioned school club. So I got my Spanish teacher ( a former fencer from Cuba) to be the sponsor and we formed a fencing club ... with two members ( Mr. Acosta only came once). We would fence up and down the two lines on the side of the basketball court. When the team wanted to practice, we would fence on the bleacher seats, first longwise and then going up and down the rows (easy if you are advancing, hard if you are retreating ... Errol Flynn eat your heart out). Eventually, the school decided that foils were weapons and told us we couldn't fence there anymore.
There was a local hamburger Drive-In called Doumar's (the original owner is the fellow who invented the ice cream cone). It had roller skating waitresses, cars with the hoods up, and all the high school kids hung out there. Rick and I would occasionally fence from trunk to hood up and down his old Belaire while parked under the big canopy. Everyone would bail out of their cars to watch the two guys swordfight. After a while, Rick would do a backflip off the hood and we would fence up and down the parking lot with a crown lining the sides. Old man Doumar finally made us quit after we did it a little too often. I don't blame him, we stopped his business cold when fencing.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
When I was in high school back in the 60's, I got into fencing. I had a good set of gear and my buddy and I would fence until we were worn out. We started fencing in the gym, but were told that it we could only be there after school if it was a sanctioned school club. So I got my Spanish teacher ( a former fencer from Cuba) to be the sponsor and we formed a fencing club ... with two members ( Mr. Acosta only came once). We would fence up and down the two lines on the side of the basketball court. When the team wanted to practice, we would fence on the bleacher seats, first longwise and then going up and down the rows (easy if you are advancing, hard if you are retreating ... Errol Flynn eat your heart out). Eventually, the school decided that foils were weapons and told us we couldn't fence there anymore.
There was a local hamburger Drive-In called Doumar's (the original owner is the fellow who invented the ice cream cone). It had roller skating waitresses, cars with the hoods up, and all the high school kids hung out there. Rick and I would occasionally fence from trunk to hood up and down his old Belaire while parked under the big canopy. Everyone would bail out of their cars to watch the two guys swordfight. After a while, Rick would do a backflip off the hood and we would fence up and down the parking lot with a crown lining the sides. Old man Doumar finally made us quit after we did it a little too often. I don't blame him, we stopped his business cold when fencing.
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Thats a cool story Stacy. While both of us were adept fencers (I still sport some epee scars) what made this deal funny and I forgot to mention was we wern't using foils or any gear. We were going at it with rolls of wrapping paper. Don't remember who won. This would of been the late 70s. More 26C3 for London:

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I find it a strange coincidence that we are all fencers, and all make knives with hamon, quite a small pool to land in with those 2 niche fields.
 
Not to take over your thread. But I was curious on how 23C3 would work on a 8" chef ground thin with a very thin edge on it? This seems to be the steel for it from what I can tell and that you can have it treated to 64-65 with no issues in chipping?
 
Diego_B said:
Not to take over your thread. But I was curious on how 23C3 would work on a 8" chef ground thin with a very thin edge on it? This seems to be the steel for it from what I can tell and that you can have it treated to 64-65 with no issues in chipping?
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Oh yeah kinda rocks for that:

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These three knives are the only kitchen knives I've done with it but they were very well received by the chef that they were made for.

Londinium Armoury said:
I'd be up for learning the ropes of being a cowboy, it looks intense.
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Sure can be and other times not so much, quien sabe?
 
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