Kamidog Sashimi Slayer

[ndoghouse]

This project is kinda special to me because of all the projects I've done this is the first one that is my own blade from scratch. Well that is if you don't count the pizza cutter. It btw is still undergoing some artificial aging then ill post some final pics. This next knife is for cutting sashimi or raw fish. I suppose you could use it for many other things as well. The plan is to make a Tako Hiki which is a Japanese Knife made to cut octopus specifically for sashimi. Raw octopus! YUM YUM YUM!!! great stuff! It can be used for cutting tuna, salmon and other fish in thin slices. The tip is much like a sword tip or Katana. The angled cut tip is used as a spatula sort of to scoop up the slice of fish and drop it on a sushi roll. To start with I used a Nicholson made in the USA file. I have noticed that the new ones are made in Mexico and of inferior steel. The files themselves don't last near as long as the old USA made ones. I have no idea what kind of steel they are made of but I assume it is similar to 5160,1084,1095 or the like. Since its a file the tang was in the middle and needed to be moved to the top so the handle can be justified to the top for knuckle clearance. I cut the corner off the top where the tang is and hammered it flat to the top.

Next cut out that area marked to form the full length of the tang. The handle is traditionally made in an octagon or hex shape with a matching bolster and pommel. It will be a short rat tail and epoxied into the handle.

After much hammering I got the edge hammered to the shape I want it. I did notice that all Japanese cutlery that i have seen has a straight spine so as I hammered the edge to shape and also had to continually hammer the blade back straight again as it bent from shaping the edge. I found out that you need to keep the edge thick so you can hammer it straight without folding the edge over. There's probably methods smiths use to keep it straight but I dont have a clue what it might be? Just trial and error so far. I do need some good hammers! anywayz this is what i got. At this point i didnt have any tongs so vise grips have to work. Did you know that vise grips were invented by a blacksmith with the intention of adjustable tongs? They are too short and you will cook your hands.

Distal tapered it down slowly with my crappy hammer but got it done. Hammering the taper did counter the bend associated with hammering the edge so that helped.

I got carried away and even peened the edge to see how sharp I coud get it and it was very sharp at this point without any grinding. I put me a couple nails on the side of my stump to hang my hammer because I couldnt remember to put it back in the same place twice

OK heres where things went wrong! A traditional Tako Hiki has a single edge. In other words if you are right handed the left side of the knife is flat all the way across the width of the knife and the right side has the bevel cut. I put the edge on the wrong side. That was a traditional disaster i guess. I figured id heat it up and hammer it flat on the backside and the edge would be on the other side. Yep it worked but the knife is now bent and I cant straighten it becauase the edge is already too thin to hammer on to straighten it. Don't know if this makes any sense but im stuck with what i got so I now I have a bent knife I cant straighten with a convex edge on both sides and its going to look like a micro Katana! Sounds pretty cool to me so im gonna keep going.

I didn't like the rounded overly convexed edge so I thinned and flattened it out a bit. Much better!
More later. I'm cleaning up the blade some and getting the handle ready. The handle will be made from highly figured stabilized Maple from Oregon.

 

[Bookie]

Ahhhh, Grasshopper. If the Mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed must come to the mountain. There are tricks and hammers......think about the order of your steps. Bookie has a blacksmith's library. If ye need information, ask and ye shall receive, little brother.

 

[ndoghouse]

Ahhhh, Grasshopper. If the Mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed must come to the mountain. There are tricks and hammers......think about the order of your steps. Bookie has a blacksmith's library. If ye need information, ask and ye shall receive, little brother.

Ah but grasshopper dont even know where the mountain is? Tell me master splinter! Tell me anything! Pepperoni, anchovies and peanut butter?

 

[gurkha berserka]

Super cool blade and nice work Kamidog. I love the shape of it... looks like a giant razor blade. Cant wait to see it done with wood. You should consider selling it to me when you are done

 

[J W Bensinger]

Nice! That's a really nice curve.
I almost bought one of those big (24"!!!) tuna knives when i lived in Osaka back in the '90's, just because...

 

[greenwoods]

HAI! Sashimi r-u-u-u-nnnnnnnnn!
Nice work. Glad to see someone can get into their shop. I've got projects telling me they'll help me shovel sno and pick axe the ice on the way to my shop...lol

Beautiful wood, I am excited to see the shape and inner 'pop' of that block.


Mark

 

[Shavru]

Taco is one of my 3 favorite Sashimis right behind Saba and Hamachi. When done right it is not tough at all and has a great flavor.

That knife looks great Ndog, not quite traditional as you say with that type of grind. But beautiful anyways.

 

[philllll]

Nice job dude!

To straighten it you can try heating it up in the forge then clamping it between two plates and letting it cool like that.

 

[Bawanna]

I can't get over how excited the doggie is about that new blade. Hyper to the max.

 

[ndoghouse]

Taco is one of my 3 favorite Sashimis right behind Saba and Hamachi. When done right it is not tough at all and has a great flavor.

That knife looks great Ndog, not quite traditional as you say with that type of grind. But beautiful anyways.

Not tried Saba but I would. Thats Mackerel right? Hamachi is amberjack. I love amberjack anyway you slice it or cook it. Its very oily and many people dont like it just for that reason. I like to boil the heads on the big ones and the meat around the eye sockets is to die for. Kingfish are good that way too. Also the thigh meat. Not sure what people call it but the belly meat under the gills by the fins. Yum friggn A:thumbup:
Another fish I like a lot sashimi style is Bonito. Its from the tuna family and dark oily meat with a big bloodline and is rich and pure ecstasy. When I lived in the islands they cautioned of eating certain migratory fish because they would eat the coral polyps from the reefs near the copper mines. It was like a heavy metal poisoning cumulative thing you get from concentrations in the meat so you had to be careful what you eat. The locals would do an ant test. They kept an active ant pile nearby and as they cleaned the migratory fish they would throw the guts in the ant pile. If the ants dont eat it you dont eat it. They were sensitive to the metals I guess. I aint dead yet so it must have worked. Now that Im taking up blacksmithing i have another chance to suck up some more heavy metals

Nice job dude!

To straighten it you can try heating it up in the forge then clamping it between two plates and letting it cool like that.

Thanks phillll. It was supposed to be straight down the spine. Its not warped just has negative drop you might say. I normalized it twice after shaping it and it stayed that way so I think im gonna call it done. I tempered it last night and am polishing it a bit now.

Bawanna: I rescued me a new puppy today 6 month pitbull/boxer mix. He is super hyper. Only had him for two hours so far. My Jack Russell is still apha dog and has been growling constantly. Guess his couch potatoness is over for a while. Should be fun trying to sleep tonight.

 

[philllll]

What are you planning for the handle?

Good luck with the new doggy!!!!:thumbup:

 

[Moonw]

I got the impression that you like to slay things twice before eating them. (Must be something you Texans do?)

 

[ndoghouse]

What are you planning for the handle?

Good luck with the new doggy!!!!:thumbup:

Still working on that. I know i want to do the handle octagonal. Im not sure about the bolster and pommel yet. Probably copper and/or brass. Ill have to form up something or I could leave them round? Nahhh. round id too easy. Im thinking square off that block and take down the corners to octagon. Ill play around at work today and bend some copper and see how it turns out.

Well the dog (named Deisel) seems to very trainable. He slept all night without a hitch. Im keeping him in the house for a few weeks and walking him on a leash till he gets bonded to the pack. Very handsome pup. Bout time to have his nads whacked too I didnt tell him that yet. Ill get some pics up soon as i can get him to be still Up to three dogs now. One more and it will feel more like normal. This pack has been going for about 22 years so far. Its gone from 14 down to 2 and back up to 3. There has always been years of overlap which is nice because they train each other that way.

 

[Shavru]

Yep Saba is Mackerel and I am betting you would love it. It is one of the oilier sashimis out there. Deliciously fishy LOL. As you say probably not most peoples favorite because of the very strong flavor. it is technically not raw as it spoils really fast so they cure it with salt then rinse it in rice vinegar. I have had it truely fresh and raw and it is totally different flavored very "creamy" texture and mild sweet oily flavor.

Hamachi is a yellowtail usually farm raised and Buri which means it is over 4 years old. Yellowtail has subnames according to it's size and age. The best being the Buri the adult. Yellowtail amberjacks are called Hiramasa which is slightly less oily than the Hamachi and a slightly milder flavor and then there is the Amberjack themselves which is the mildest of the 3 "Yellowtails" of Sushi/Sashimi These are called Kampachi. Slightly confusing but tasting each you definately can tell the difference between these "cousins". I am a bit of a Sashimi nut and have yet to find a version I don't love with the exception of Fugu. Aside from the slight tingling of the mouth the flavor of ToraFugu is very bland almost nothing. I certainly don't get the point of it so I leave it alone LOL.

Yes the handle HAS to be octagonal, it does help with controlling the cutting action when cutting really thin even slices. Can't wait to see what you work out for a bolster. Betting it will be something unique and interesting, based on your recent works.

 

[Bawanna]

Darlin, I have no idea what you just said. I'll reread and maybe it'll come to me.

 

[ndoghouse]

Shav. Have you had uni? Yum! with real wasabi:thumbup: I even like shrimp. Hard to find shrimp around here that is sashimi grade but when im on the coast i can find it no problem. Most of the shrimp or some call them prawns is actually cooked or soaked in lemon or something. Not sure what they do to it but real raw gulf shrimp is buttery and creamy and so good.
So amberjack is a yellowtail cousin? I didnt know that but by the meat color and such it makes sense. I used to spearfish for them under the oil rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico so i knew they were fresh. Lots of big red snapper also. Red snapper is pretty mild. I still eat Salmon and Tuna raw regularly. I dont even bother with the sushi rolls but i probably should play around with that some. Kinda like rolling a big doobie I guess. Shouldnt be too hard This is giving me the munchies just talking about it. I better finish my knife soon:thumbup:

 

[Gehazi]

I only eat catfish, all the other stuff is like speaking another language to me, a cool language, but I really do not understand eating anything raw for any reason , dog you are really becoming very good at this, makes me think you always tinkered well and you have misrepresented your experience, the stuff you make is too cool to be a novice's work!

 

[ndoghouse]

I only eat catfish, all the other stuff is like speaking another language to me, a cool language, but I really do not understand eating anything raw for any reason , dog you are really becoming very good at this, makes me think you always tinkered well and you have misrepresented your experience, the stuff you make is too cool to be a novice's work!

Im sandbaggin yall! I was a master swordsmith in my last life! Knives are kinda new to me as far as the smithing part part goes. I know it takes too much of my time but the more you do it the faster you get. I always have some projects going on. I dont post them all. Posting everything would cut into my tinker time and that cant happen Speaking of which. Its tinker time!

 

[Shavru]

Love Uni, such a unique flavor, impossible to describe though because it doesn't taste like any thing else at all. And true wasabi? WOW that is so different than the green stuff they serve at Sushi restaurants. Unfortunately I can rarely afford real wasabi these days it has gotten pretty pricey. But man it is good stuff, though I don't really mind the horseradish and green dye they use in the powder to make "wasabi" these days.

Yeah spearfishing for your own is the best way I have ever eaten fish less than an hour out of the water, slice some up for sashimi and then fry up the rest in panko. Though I haven't been diving in years. Last time I was spearfishing was in the 80s. Had a ling cod we speared swim back up the line and take a bite out of my diving partner. Serious big bite too. His shoulder was a mess and blood all over. Fortunately no sharks bigger than dogfish in the Puget Sound, but the resident wolf eal was sure paying attention to the drama. Then I moved to Europe again and half my diving gear got sold off and my certification expired, so can't get the tanks filled even if they would pass testing after all these years. Amazing how I let certs elapse because I couldn't maintain them. Private Double engine prop license, Padi Diving cert, SCCA Comp license Damn I let a lot of hobbies gather dust LOL. Good thing I never seem to get bored with Shooting, Swords and Hubby. Not necessarily in that order

 

[ndoghouse]

Pretty much done with the blade cept for some finishing touches so heres what going on with the handle. I used a split piece of maple I had cut for another knife that didnt work out so the scales get used for this project.

I cut the tang hole a little too deep because thats how wide my dremmel bit was but no problem. Ill just add a few washers between to keep things alingned when I fill it all up with epoxy. Should work.

I hammered out an octagonal bolster of copper and will epoxy it on and fill it with black pigmented epoxy on the the knife side to finish it out. I think I got all the parts ready to poxy and clamp. Im thinking I may spot CA glue the scales together and cut the octagonal shape first then bust them apart. Might make the sanding easier without the blade attached.

I did treat myself to an early Birthday present with a set of DMT diamond hones. Im hoping it will reduce the amount of sandpaper and trips to the auto parts store till I can make me a suitable grinder and sander. They will also be used to put the bevels on this blade like I want them.