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[mpcoppin]

A little sushi knife for a friend. I’m pretty sure the handle is too big but, other than that, I’m pretty happy with it.

 

[Ken H>]

That blade looks good - tell us a bit about the blade AND handle. Is the blade stock removal or forged? What metal? Is the handle round? OR, do it have a nice oval so it's easy to index blade position?

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Overall, from what I can see in the photo, it looks like a serviceable knife.

That style is called yanagi-ba. It is a sashimi knife ( not a sushi knife). Yanagi-ba is normally single bevel, but can be made in a Western double bevel grind and would be called a gyuto.
Your handle looks a bit too round and fat in the middle. The blade should have less drop from the spine and more edge rise at the tip.

Handle should be Wa- octagonal
D - oval with a ridge on the use hand side
Oval - oval around a 3:2 ratio.
Here is a classic yanagi-ba:

 

[mpcoppin]

Your handle looks a bit too round and fat in the middle.

I saw that. I wanted to take it down more but I was afraid I’d start to get into problems of exposing the dowel I used in the middle. Lesson learned.

The blade should have less drop from the spine and more edge rise at the tip.

I know. Get this... The spine bowed on me in the quench. It was straight as an arrow side to side and the blade was clean but the tip took a nose dive and I didn’t want to wreck the whole thing trying to correct it. If you’ve got to have something go wonky in the quench, I’ll take that over a twist or a bacon edge but it was weird.

 

[mpcoppin]

tell us a bit about the blade AND handle.

I started with a piece of 1” x 8” x 3/8” 1084 that was leftover from another disaster. I had to draw it out to about 1.5 x 13 x 1/10. The rest was done on the grinder. The blade ended up about 9.5”.

Heat treat w/ my propane forge and canola oil. Temper in the kitchen oven.

The handle is canarywood & redheart. It’s kind of a square with the corners rounded off. I like a flat top and bottom edge on the handle to index.

The tang is about 3/8” sandwiched between two sides of a 3/8” dowel that I cut a slot into. Then I drill a 3/8” hole down the middle of my handle pieces and glue it all up.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Just grind the edge rise up a bit as it approaches the tip. That will change things a good bit.

Don't be afraid to make post-HT corrections.
Saturday I went over to Steve's with Zephen (Steve's step-son/my grandson) and we all forged/ground for eight straight hours. Steve quenched a simple EDC with full tang. It warped. He pulled it out of the oil quickly clamped it in the vise, and grabbed the tang to try and straighten it - PING! - right through the middle rivet hole of the handle. He said a few words, tossed it in the slack tub, and grabbed a new piece of steel. I fished it out when he wasn't looking and reground it to a stick tang. A few other changes corrected some other things at the ricasso and tip that needed to be moved a bit. We welded about an extra inch to the tang and put a sambar stag handle on it. Steve came up with a really cool idea for the butt, added a water buffalo bolster, and steel guard. It is 100% nicer than it would have been before ... and he was going to trash it.
Later on, I was working on a fancy mokume san-mai chefs blade. I accidentally overheated the tip a bit when forging the bevels, and squirted liquid metal from the mokume layer on one side at the tip. When I hardened it, the tip peeled back on that side about an inch. It looked like a ruined knife from some very expensive steel to steve and Zeph. I went to the grinder and ground off the tip, angled the spine down, adjusted the edge curve, and make a bunka-bocho shape. It ended up a much nicer knife when the sides were finished.
Point is, a messed up knife after HT isn't a ruined knife, it is just a knife shaped object that needs a bit of adjusting.

 

[golfer1]

Stacy, I have to hand it to you, you are a walking encyclopedia. Really appreciate all the info you share with us.