How would you make this knife?

[Natlek]

I'd do it from thick bar stock, personally

Me to , but it will cost me liver ........and I don t think that I am capable to forge stainless steel .
I will use idea for bolster and how wood is attached on handle for small hunting knife from 52100 .I have that steel in any thickness ,I can even make ax just with belt grinder

 

[Natlek]

Guys , I can convert one of my tube furnace in 10 minutes to use Argon. I set it to a vertical position, supply argon from the bottom and it is ready . That furnace will heat steel on temperature in two minutes .What i see problem here is that it is air hardening steel . Even if I successfully weld a bolster, the whole steel will harden? I don't care at all with the steel heated to 1100 degrees Celsius being out in the air for a minute , I'm worried that it will harden?
What i have in that situation ?

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Do isothermal annealing after the weld.
Place in a foil packet or argon oven.
Heat to 850°C.
Cool slowly to 690°C at 20-25°C/hour and hold for 4 hours.
Hardness will be around Rc25

 

[Natlek]

Why not pin and epoxy/solder the bolster on? Use 416 stainless for the bolster and pins?

I will quote you again I missed that solder part of your post .When i read pins ....epoxy I didn't think further
Soldering could work , I can open slot on wire EDM tight fit as it can be .Maybe fraction of mm. smaller and little heat to fit it on knife and solder after that , it probably wouldn't even be noticeable if it was soldered ?
Do you know how many times a day I wonder if I need all this ? You don't know!

 

[Taz]

I was thinking pins and epoxy after heat treating and then just grind the radius of the front of the bolster to the blade when you grind the bevels? Even just pins should be enough to secure it and will be very hard to see when peened over properly? The epoxy or solder (low temp solder after HT?) is more to seal any gap there to make it look more seamless, but if the 2 surfaces are extremely flat, you may not see any line without that step.

Many Japanese kitchen knives with a bolster have it tack welded or pinned on to the blade and there is little to no seam visible. I have seen some where they mill a groove in the blade and the bolster has a lip that fits down into that groove too and are then attached to the tang. I have seen both welded and pinned bolsters and some are even hollow bolsters, too! I have removed bolsters of the pinned and welded variety on Japanese knives without issue and I didn't know they were pinned until I went to remove them (or removed the handle and saw the pins through the hollow bolster) since there wasn't a seam visible.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Natlex, don't make the joint too snug if you will be soldering. The solder needs about .1mm/.005" to flow by capillary action..

 

[Dominick Maone]

 

[GABaus]

I can't describe how much I like the design of this knife. If it is offered in better steel I would buy it tonight no matter how much it would cost !
From stainless steel ? If I have a thick enough piece of stainless steel it would be easy , but very expensive . Forge welding an additional piece of steel / of the same material / where thickness is required ? But stainless steel harden in the air , so during welding whole steel will harden ???
Any idea how ?

I would make the bolsters like full sized handle scales which I would solder to the tang to add the extra thickness without wasting too much time or steel. After the bolsters are blended into the blade you can mill or file away the material in the handle area to create the surfaces you can attach the handle scales onto. The result wouldn't quite look as seamless as it would if it were forged from a single peice but it could still look pretty good if you are decent at soldering and your bolsters would be secure without having any potentially visible pins in the bolster.

 

[Natlek]

Nice knife ! I watched that long time ago , easy to grind when you have one piece steel enough thick .This knife I grind from 20mm. thick 52100 steel and that was easy .But here I have other problem , how to add steel to ricasso so can grind that bolster like on knife on pictures in first post .......

Grinding steel is easy when you have thick steel to grind