I've been busier than usual lately.
I just finished this knife. The edge was thinner than it should have been when I did the HT and the blade warped pretty bad, especially the edge. I couldn't fix it completely and I didn't want to spend a whole lot of time sanding it if it wasn't going to come out right anyway. So I etched the hell out of it with bleach (thanks, samurai stu), kind of hoping I could make it really ugly and have it as a cautionary tale. The first etch was around 10 hours. I wanted more of the blade surface etched, though, so I washed it off and put it in for another 8 hours or so. It went in a third time for three or four hours, which left only a few spots of un-etched metal I only sanded the blade to 80 grit before I etched it so they're not very shiny but they do stand out in the light. Rather than making the blade ugly, I think it looks really cool (it's still badly warped, though). I went ahead and polished the spine to 1500 grit (hard to see in the pictures), and rubbed the face a few times with 1500, too. As usual, the spine is filed to a ridge, but a little shallower than usual.
As I said, the blade is really thin; there's almost no secondary bevel.
The menuki are big onyx cabochons. They make the grip feel pretty good, since it's pretty thin otherwise.
Thanks for looking,
Chris
I just finished this knife. The edge was thinner than it should have been when I did the HT and the blade warped pretty bad, especially the edge. I couldn't fix it completely and I didn't want to spend a whole lot of time sanding it if it wasn't going to come out right anyway. So I etched the hell out of it with bleach (thanks, samurai stu), kind of hoping I could make it really ugly and have it as a cautionary tale. The first etch was around 10 hours. I wanted more of the blade surface etched, though, so I washed it off and put it in for another 8 hours or so. It went in a third time for three or four hours, which left only a few spots of un-etched metal I only sanded the blade to 80 grit before I etched it so they're not very shiny but they do stand out in the light. Rather than making the blade ugly, I think it looks really cool (it's still badly warped, though). I went ahead and polished the spine to 1500 grit (hard to see in the pictures), and rubbed the face a few times with 1500, too. As usual, the spine is filed to a ridge, but a little shallower than usual.
As I said, the blade is really thin; there's almost no secondary bevel.
The menuki are big onyx cabochons. They make the grip feel pretty good, since it's pretty thin otherwise.
Thanks for looking,
Chris
