Another kitchen knife in damascus

tryppyr

tryppyr

Joined
Feb 5, 2010
Messages
3,911
For over a year now I've held on to a piece of damascus waiting for the right project to come along. Today I just decided to end the waiting and make a damascus version of one of my wife's favorite knives. Here's a picture of the original and the rough cut out of the blade I'm making.You can see I left some margin from the original scribed lines.

DSCN8819s.JPG


DSCN8818s.JPG
 
No, this is a piece of damascus I bought from a fellow forumite that makes damascus (HHH I think).

I spent some time at the grinder today and did the full flat grind treatment. I thought I was getting both sides pretty even, but as the third picture will show my dominant right hand resulted in a dominant side of the grind. In any case, I have the edge section down to 0.022 inch (original billet thickness was 0.126 inch). If I remember correctly this is where I'm supposed to stop before HT. Or I may have already pushed it too far.

DSCN8823s.JPG


DSCN8824s.JPG


DSCN8826s.JPG


Anyway, on to hand sanding to get out the gouges and further flatten the FFG.
 
is that stainless damascus?
How about a transparant handle to show the damascus in the handle?
 
.022" is OK for the edge. If you get too thin, just sand/file the edge back a tad. It takes no more than a few file strokes to greatly thicken it.

You can just sand the tang a bit on the over-ground side to make it look even. Or, you can sand down the weak side to make the plunge match and then adjust the edge thickness as above.
 
Hengelo_77 said:
is that stainless damascus?
How about a transparant handle to show the damascus in the handle?
Click to expand...

It's a pretty standard damascus mix, 1080/15N20, so not stainless. I haven't given a lot of thought to the handle treatment yet. Not sure what might ve available in transparent material, but I don't have anything like that today.

And Stacy, thanks for the advice. I was leaning toward flattening the tang on the dominant side, if the quality of the cutting edge wouldn't be impacted.
 
DSCN8899s.JPG


DSCN8900s.JPG


I've sanded the blade to 400 grit. Now I need to figure out the handle and drill holes accordingly.
 
Today I got real, and decided I had to do what Stacy suggested and knock back that lopsided plunge. Needless to say, doing so means I have to resand the blade to 400 grit again. That's fine with me. I think it looks a lot better now. I'll post pics again after it's sanded.
 
While I was considering the handle, I noticed I had a hunk of old ivory that was the right size, so I split it into scales to see if it would work. I'm thinking it will work just fine.

DSCN8901s.JPG
 
I went ahead and shaped the scales (leaving extra material in all directions) because ... well ... why not. Here's a preview. When finished the color will be more uniform and the shine will return to the handle.

DSCN8902s.JPG

DSCN8906s.JPG
 
How long is the blade and overall? Very interesting knife design, but there is nothing in the photos for a size reference.
 
The only thing I accomplished today was to refine and flatten the scales a bit. I noticed that one of the scales had an uneven bottom side, so I mounted a large flat file in my vise, and slowly/carefully used it to refine the underside of that scale. The same scale also had some cracked bark covering the tapioca material, so I spent time sanding that off. Once that was done I sanded the other scale down to about the same thickness. They both still have a substantial amount of extra material to sand off, but I wanted to make sure they would be able to be even.

DSCN8910s.JPG
 
Thanks Mark.

I have a bit of a confession. Historically I have had a problem drilling holes in scales that line up perfectly with the holes in the tang. That is one of the reasons I often opt for hidden pins. Today I tried something different. First, I'll explain the problem I was worried about.

Usually I would have simply marked the scales using the holes in the tang, and then drill the hole into the scale. Sounds simple enough ... except that the scales are only flat on the side that will be glued to the tang. The other side is anything but flat. So there was no easy way to mark the outside of the scale and drill to the inside. And marking/drilling from the inside would be made challenging by the fact that the scale would not lay flat on the drill press, which would result in an angled hole.

So what I did this time was use some Elmer's glue to very temporarily secure one scale at a time to the tang. Once it was dry enough to work I took it to the drill press, made sure it was level and drilled through the holes and the scale. The pre-drilled holes in the tang helped keep the bit moving in the right direction. Once the first scale was done I removed it and repeated the process on the other.

The result was certainly superior to any such effort I have made in the past. Having done this now I can work on shaping the scales while the blade is being sent out for HT. I'm also still considering whether to use Corby bolts or peened pins.

DSCN8911s.JPG


DSCN8912s.JPG
 
I have held off sending this blade out for HT because I wanted to figure out how I was going to attach the handles and drill properly sized holes first. Today I received a large sampler of the Corby bolts offered by Jantz. Nice selection of the sizes and styles, sticking with the stainless and brass varieties (none in nickle).

Now I got two of everything, so I have a lot of choices. One thing I was considering was putting a smaller bolt in the back and a larger one up front. Any thoughts about that?
 
Last edited:
I vote larger in the front.

Another trick with drilling the scale is to start as you did, but don't remove the first scale after drilling it. Glue the second one in place and use the holes in the first scale to drill through the whole assembly. After the first hole goes through, place a snug fitting pin though it and then drill the second hole. Remove the scales, place pins through them and hold snug together with tape. Sand and polish the front end while together. This gives perfect mirror image fronts at the ricasso that are guaranteed to line up.
 
I elected to us the dissimilar sized bolts, but did so in a way that could be reversed later, should I change my mind. I redrilled the holes, and countersunk the holes in the scales. Now I'm ready to send this off for heat treatment.

DSCN8932s.JPG


DSCN8934s.JPG
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top