My recent work

[Daniel Fairly Knives]

I haven't posted any of my work here in a long time and thought you might enjoy seeing my most recent knife. Here's a little about the making of this knife...

This was my third attempt at a hamon and I'm happy how my progress is going on them. There are some great tips posted here and I tried to use them all in my chase for those elusive clouds.

This one is W2 steel, I originally tried quenching it in 11 second oil but as I assumed it did not get hard enough. After that I made up a warm brine quench with soap in it and it worked great! I left the blade very thick because I had a feeling I was going to water quench. I'll get some Parks 50 if I plan on using a lot of water quenching steels in the future.

For the hamon I hand sanded up to a clean 1000 grit and used some 2000 to check for scratches. I then boiled some vinegar with a few drops of soap in it and tried soaking the whole knife as well as applying the vinegar with cotton pads. I think I did about 10 soak, clean, and sand cycles to get this look, it took me the better part of two days just for the hamon. I still have a ton to learn and I anticipate them going much faster in the future.

Next I need to work on setting up my photo area for photographing the hamon, I had a really tough time getting it to show up at all in the photos. It looks a lot better in person.

I cut and polished the menuki myself, it is made from local area dinosaur bone.

Check it out, I hope you guys like it!

You can see a glimpse of the clouds in the hamon here...

 

[AVigil]

Very nice Daniel,

I like the design, what is so attractive about your work is your knives are meant to be used. They look nice as well as work nice.

 

[b_rogers]

Looks great! I had two visits from the "TINK water fairy" last night..sigh

Try lemon juice for etching, takes longer, but it makes the hamon darker instead of lighter most times.

 

[jwalk84]

Very nice! Always like your work!

 

[Salem Straub]

You've come along nicely Daniel, your grinds in particular look professional these days. I like this knife, my only advice is to maybe apply the clay higher up- the hamon is a bit low. I like the wrap, looks like you used real same.

I know guys get great results with many cycles and vinegar, but if you're making a user and only sanding up to 1000, ferric chloride is going to get you more dramatic results with less time involved. Try it if you haven't. DHIII etches in ferric...

 

[Daniel Fairly Knives]

Very nice Daniel,

I like the design, what is so attractive about your work is your knives are meant to be used. They look nice as well as work nice.

Thanks! That is great to hear.

Looks great! I had two visits from the "TINK water fairy" last night..sigh

Try lemon juice for etching, takes longer, but it makes the hamon darker instead of lighter most times.

I know the feeling, I had one snap a couple of nights ago. I might try the lemon juice, I have used it a bit before for etching blades but not for hamon. Dark sounds great!

Very nice! Always like your work!

Much appreciated!

You've come along nicely Daniel, your grinds in particular look professional these days. I like this knife, my only advice is to maybe apply the clay higher up- the hamon is a bit low. I like the wrap, looks like you used real same.

I know guys get great results with many cycles and vinegar, but if you're making a user and only sanding up to 1000, ferric chloride is going to get you more dramatic results with less time involved. Try it if you haven't. DHIII etches in ferric...

Salem, that means a lot to hear that. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

I'll try the ferric on the next one, I want to go for a much darker look. Less clay and higher up as well, the hamon came out a bit below the clay. I'm not sure if hamons generally do that or it was because I left the steel very thick before quench but either way that will help out a lot.

Thanks everyone for the comments!

 

[BePrepared]

god i wish i had money.... i want to buy several of your knives