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- Jan 10, 2010
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I decided to just start a new thread since the 'blade' turned into 'blades'. This a continuation from this thread: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...atch-A-Peak-into-a-Process-(TEST-blade-added)
As a recap.. I built a 'teko-gane' billet from home smelted (by Mark Green) bloomery steel, orishigane steel from wrought iron nails (by me), shear steel (by me) and W2. The original blade from the billet had a fatal fukure (trapped flux pocket) which caused me to cut the tanto into two kwaikens. I decided to treat each kwaiken differently.. one polished and etched to show the hada (grain structure) and one polished for the hamon. It now turns out that a nihonto blade polisher has offered to give the other blade a traditional polish and I'm very excited to see the results.
But here is the first blade... polished to 1000 and given a more aggressive etching in ferric to show the hada. It is fitted with copper seppa, guard made from the shear steel I made at Ric Furrer's, and American osage orange. You can still see the hamon, but it does not have the frosty highlights and reduced grain structure that the other blade will show. An interesting surprise came from my shear steel treatment. I decided to heat the fitting with torch and then do a quick dunk in ferric chloride.. thinking that I could speed up the etching process. It turned it very black and is a very a resistant patina. I like it! I wonder if modern steels will do this?
Anyway... Here is the knife:
This is my first time making this style of knife and I have to say that I love how it feels! It's kind of a kwaiken/puuko hybrid. I think this would be a great general use outdoor/woodcraft knife design and plan to more.
As a recap.. I built a 'teko-gane' billet from home smelted (by Mark Green) bloomery steel, orishigane steel from wrought iron nails (by me), shear steel (by me) and W2. The original blade from the billet had a fatal fukure (trapped flux pocket) which caused me to cut the tanto into two kwaikens. I decided to treat each kwaiken differently.. one polished and etched to show the hada (grain structure) and one polished for the hamon. It now turns out that a nihonto blade polisher has offered to give the other blade a traditional polish and I'm very excited to see the results.
But here is the first blade... polished to 1000 and given a more aggressive etching in ferric to show the hada. It is fitted with copper seppa, guard made from the shear steel I made at Ric Furrer's, and American osage orange. You can still see the hamon, but it does not have the frosty highlights and reduced grain structure that the other blade will show. An interesting surprise came from my shear steel treatment. I decided to heat the fitting with torch and then do a quick dunk in ferric chloride.. thinking that I could speed up the etching process. It turned it very black and is a very a resistant patina. I like it! I wonder if modern steels will do this?
Anyway... Here is the knife:
This is my first time making this style of knife and I have to say that I love how it feels! It's kind of a kwaiken/puuko hybrid. I think this would be a great general use outdoor/woodcraft knife design and plan to more.
I think you might be stretching it a bit on that designation as well. This blade came from the tip of a hira-zukiri style tanto that I had to cut... so it is what it is. Kwaikens seem to be too diverse in form to really nail them down and I did mention puuko as well. ;-)