make-by-numbers: a start to finish project

koyote

koyote

Joined
Mar 29, 2007
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So, I've been meaning to do a start to finish photo series, and here's a great time to do it.

I have an order for a kitchen set- a veggie knife in a "sorta santoku" theme and my warrant knife. The warant knife is a bit of a joke- Japanese knives tend to include something called a petty knife, a paring length knife that has the pattern of a french chef blade. I enjoy a slim 5 inch version of the best, and the next step up in the navy from petty is...warrant.

For there knives I decided to use some of the recycled bandsaw material I have gotten in the past from Dan Gray (I knew I was saving this piece for the last year and a half for a reason)- it's 15N20, ever so slightly thinner than my regular stock, I get a read of .088 instead of .095. perfect for kitchen knives!

Of course, being bandsaw material I have to mark it and cut it:

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and anneal once I've cut pieces that will fit in the forge:

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I never have trouble recognizing annealed stock in my shop:

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nice powder gray finish!

Now, we all know that the profile is the easy part:

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The major hours in the next little while are going to be in forming the full tapering convex on thin stock- mostly hand work.
 
The warrant is a nice shape. it's a lot like a chef's utility but a tiny bit more breadth in general. If I was doing a single knife for travelling I'd but a bit more belly in. With the chopper it's needing a bit more of a paring point.
 
Looking great so far although I can't get your camp knife outta my head now....that is definitely one that I'll be rooting for when Brian starts the testing !!!
 
I'll probably do one of these for the camp knife later on. This one, next steps are coming later this week.
 
pitdog said:
Looking great so far although I can't get your camp knife outta my head now....that is definitely one that I'll be rooting for when Brian starts the testing !!!
Click to expand...

I think I'm a step ahead of you there Pit...;)
 
Here I've got the undercut of the larger blade done, and everything is sanded to 220 grit. A few passes with 320 and it's off to the forge for nromalizing and a quenching heat.
You'll notice some remaining forge scale, a lot of that is due to the nature of the material, but a lot of it is on purpose. I'm going to make a clean and brig finish on the extended bevels, but leave a vinegared forge finish on the flats, which should give them a really good rustic look, but still clean (all the black will be gone)

Note, no tips- that's for the heat treating stage. Once the heat treat is done I will use hand sanding to do the final shape.


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Out of heat treating and a vinegar soak, this is what they look like. The prcoess is to normalize and straighten the blades out, then do a quenching heat, do an interrupted quench and massage them straight as needed (not much, one spot on the tang of the larger blade is all).

get them down to room temp and wash them with a scrubbie and lot sof soap because they've got seasoned oil on them at that point.

Then I hit them with some crocus cloth and stuck them in vinegar soak for 9 hours.

And here they are, ready for some polish and handle materials to be cut:

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hard to photograph straightness.....

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next up will be differential tempering, which I don't really need on the santoku, but it doesn't hurt! The warrant is more likely to be used in spots where some flex will happen and I wouldn't ever not differential temper a blade like that.
 
koyote said:
Out of heat treating and a vinegar soak, this is what they look like.
Click to expand...

Christof,

When you do to the vinegar soak, do you hang them vertically in an upright tube of vinegar? I've been messing around with vinegar, but have only laid the blades in flat, or laid them on plastic tubes to suspend them in the vinegar. The problem is that where the blade has contacted the tubes or the container edge, there is a color change line or some other mark that doesn't look random.
 
I suspend from a beeswax coated string, yeah. often in batches, even.

One thing that helps a bit is to 'prime' the vinegar with a small scrap of steel. for my 5 gallon bucket a new batch of vinegar will get a silver dollar sized scrap.
 
here's the warrant getting ready to have the scales drilled. by the time I get the photos up it will be glued.

2009-11-26-0005.jpeg


and here's the santoku (with a random kitchen knife for sierra in the background) gettign final touches on the bevel before being glued up.

2009-11-26-0006.jpeg
 
Very nice :thumbup: I really like the profile of the smaller one, it seems as though it would be really nimble. Maple is great too.
 
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