Forging a gyuto

Greenberg Woods

Greenberg Woods

Joined
Dec 27, 2013
Messages
2,695
Hey again guys. A very close friend of mine wants me to make a gyuto for her. I have the W2 steel I plan on using, but I have an issue. Its 2 inches wide and 1/8th thick and this knife needs to be about 2.5 inches tall. I havent forged out any knives this long "about 9.5 inch blade" before and I was wondering how you think I should do it. So people have said when its this long you need to pre curve the blade really far, some people have said don't pre curve it at all if it starts to bend just forge the edge flat down onto the anvil. I was wondering if someone could tell me how they would do it. I also plan on doing several practice pieces first
 
I don't think the math works out. It would have to be pretty dang thin at the ricasso and with the distal taper it would only get thinner. I would stretch it as much as I can and call it good. I may be wrong. But I think that's about right. When I do any type of kitchen knife I leave my tip a little thick because it cools so fast on those long thin blades and I have cracking problems. I just work my bevel in and straighten as I go, but I'm definitely not a pro. The old pro I go see every once in a while will forge a Bowie about in a horse shoe then it all straightens out perfect. I tried and it didn't work out quite well. It all goes back to experience I reckon. So I say go start hammering on it and see where it goes.
 
Do you know how wide a 2.5 inch wide 240mm gyuto will be? IIRC, this is one that I made a while back that was actually over 250mm if you include the ricasso (240mm cutting edge) and was about 48mm tall at the heel or sightly under 2 inches. it was forged from a 7/8 or 1 inch round bar, but lets be honest. The reason that we have 1/8 Aldo W2 is so that you don't have to forge it down. Just grind away like 20% of the steel and be happy. :D
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the easy way to do it is to get a 15 inch piece of your steel. forge bevels into 9.5 inches then forge in some distal taper. keep the edge at least .060 thick. find a gyuto pattern that you like and trace it onto your forged steel cut out the pattern grind harden and finish the knife. you are probably not going to be able to get wider than about 2 1/4 wide but that is a wide gyoto. If it absolutely has to be 2 1/2 inches wide then you will need wider steel unless you are a really good forger.
 
Either made a slightly narrower blade or buy wider steel. 50mm (2") gives you a pretty large gyuto
 
Hellspawn, I would like to see your progress with it, wanna take a few pics along the way during the forging process and post em? I have trouble with getting them thin enough. I'm trying to make one from a file and want to retain file marks on the ricasso, can I forge the ricasso thinner and retain the file marks?
 
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