Redwood Burl, Forged W-2, and a Hamon

silver_pilate

silver_pilate

Joined
Oct 30, 2002
Messages
3,974
This is a little knife I delivered today. I forged it out of Don's W-2 and clay quenched the blade for a hamon. It has a full distal taper and a gently tapered tang and the balance is just right. The handle scales are made from some of Mark's (Burl Source) amazing redwood burl with red spacers and corbys. Unfortunately, I let it go before I took a ruler to it for specs, but it's going tobe similar to my other EDC's at 3.5" blade and around 4" handle. Thanks for looking!

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--nathan
 
I always love seeing your work Nathan. I love your designs, combinations of materials, sheaths, all of it just works :). Being a hunter, I'm a huge fan of hunting style knives (skinners, capers, etc).

Since I'm still new to most of this hobby, what is a "full distal taper?" Is that where the blade's spine begins tapering to a point closer to the ricasso rather than the last 1/4 of the blade?

One other question, on the clip on the back of the sheath. What is the circular extension for?

Keep up the good work, I hope to be able to put out similar pieces one day!

-Craig
 
Thanks Craig and BJ. Craig, a full distal taper basically starts at the ricasso and tapers all the way to the point. The way I made this one, the tang taper extends to include the ricasso, and the blade starts tapering from the front of the ricasso. I forged it in along with the bevels and cleaned it up on the grinder. As for the clip, no point to it really, I guess it's just the design of the clip itself.

--nathan
 
Nathan, I really love the style of this knife. I'm in the process of designing my own right now. My first will be a drop point hunter and yours is a beautiful example. I'm curious, other than aesthetics, do the liners serve any other purpose? This may be a super dumb question, but can you get a hamon using the stock removal method or does it have to be forged in?
 
childzplay, the liners are purely aesthetic, and they do set off the redwood nicely. I'll be switching to super thin G10 in the future for it's better strength and epoxy grip. This one has corbys, though, so I'm not too worried, and I drill shallow divots through the liner and into the scales to help improve the epoxy purchase.

As for the hamon, the first hamon I ever made was a stock removal 1095 blade. So yes, it can be done. :D Really, forging only serves to shape your steel using heat and hammer with less waste than grinding everything that isn't a knife into a pile of dust. It's also a lot of fun ;).

The hamon is created during the heat treating cycle. The clay on the spine of the blade holds the heat in during the quench, allowing the exposed steel to fully harden while preventing the steel underneath the clay from hardening. This works well in "shallow" hardening steels like W2, 1084, 1095, etc. However, I don't necessarily think a hamon creates any kind of superior blade. I do it just because I love the look of a hamon. The same idea of differential hardening can be accomplished without a hamon by fully hardening the blade and then drawing back your temper on the spine (which probably makes a slightly stronger blade in the end).

--nathan
 
silver_pilate said:
Thanks Craig and BJ. Craig, a full distal taper basically starts at the ricasso and tapers all the way to the point. The way I made this one, the tang taper extends to include the ricasso, and the blade starts tapering from the front of the ricasso. I forged it in along with the bevels and cleaned it up on the grinder. As for the clip, no point to it really, I guess it's just the design of the clip itself.

--nathan
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Hi Nathan,

I won't even pretend to understand what you meant by a full distal taper starting at the ricasso and tapering all the way to the point. I'm going to assume that is the top of the blade where the taper begins and goes to the point. Assuming that, how do you keep a steady taper all the way to the point without any anomalies? Is it just eyeballing it, or pure artistic genius?

Thanks,

Jeff
 
Jeff, I like to think that it's absolutely unadulterated pure artistic genius :D ;).

The ricasso is the flat area just in front of the handle scale. It goes from the end of the scale to the plunge where the blade bevels begin. Basically, from the point of the plunge, if you're looking down onto the top (spine) of the blade, the spine gets smoothly and progressively thinner all the way down to the tip. This helps mostly with balance.

Getting it right is just a matter of forging it in straight and cleaning it up well with the grinder.

--nathan
 
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Man Nathan, I was looking at the knives on my laptop at work. :) I got home and checked them out on my large LCD. Even more beautiful that before. Thanks for answering my questions. I love the hamon look. Damn fine job my friend!
Todd
 
Nathan,

Thank You. There are so many terms and when I think I have them down, new terms pop up:o
 
Matt, this particular burl is not stabilized. It is very dense and hard stuff relative to other woods I would prefer to have stabilized. I sealed the checks with CA and then used Danish oil to seal up the finished handle until it wouldn't take in any more.

--nathan
 
Thanks again for answering the questions! What would be a good color liner to use with desert ironwood? I'm thinking maybe white or black.
 
Nice, I like that black. Looks like I'll be ordering some for the knife I'm working on now.

What type of finishing do you do on most of your blades?
 
Grizzly, that depends. Most that I've made have a 600 grit hand rubbed finish. The hamons I've done are polished up to 2000 grit, etched in dilute ferric chloride, and then polished with red rouge and wd40 followed by a rub with 0000 steel wool.

--nathan
 
Great looking knife as usual. Looks cool how you positioned the pattern in the burl on the handle.
 
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