Ibuki blade blanks? (Updated with pics of first finished knife)

TRfromMT

TRfromMT

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I am looking at a few blade blanks from ibuki and putting my own handles on them. Are the decent quality steel for home use?

I'm interested in any other blade blanks of decent quality that I can put handles on. Not really interested in cheap stuff just for the fun of putting a handle on it and trying it. I make custom knife handles for lots of knives (not just going to try this and see if I like it), I want to make a nice set of kitchen knives for myself. I am interested in decent quality, if not premium quality, something that will last with care and perform well, worth putting some ironwood or koa on.

Thanks,

TR
 
They look like great knives,using the best of Japanese steel
Well worth putting good handles on and thinning and sharpening to your taste
Blue steel will take and keep an edge for long time,white will get scary sharp but not for as long.im sure you know this already
 
I ended up ordering 3 blanks from ibuki.

After ordering I got a notification from the Royal Post in the United Kingdom that they had my package and I needed to pony up for duties and taxes. Ummm, I live in the United States so I contacted ibuki and asked them to sort it out.

They kindly agreed to do so and fully admitted they mistakenly entered UK instead of US in the shipping label.

But the knives remain in the UK (according to the last Royal Mail update), waiting to be re-exported to Japan. Ibuki says they will forward to me when they are returned to them.

On the one hand I get it, and I'm not in a hurry for these blanks, but on the other hand it seems they could simply send me new blanks and get theirs back.

So the little snafu will take 4-6 weeks additional to the ship time which would have been about 2 weeks. *sigh*
 
The blades finally arrived, all I. Good condition. They appear to be some good quality blanks. Blanks are 180mm, 165mm and 105 mm.

Started planning out the build last night. I'm planning to do a frame around the tang in micarta with a micarta bolster and ironwood scales.

View attachment 1228803
 
I was finally able to work on this last night. This is my first kitchen knife. I tried a frame style hidden tang. I have to do 2 more of these for an auction, so this was a test mule to work out all the problems and make the mistakes (of which there are a few).

Comment, critiques and questions are welcome.

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