So Sori... yet another kwaiken for Joey P

Matthew Gregory

Matthew Gregory

Chief Executive in charge of Entertainment
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Jan 12, 2005
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As Joe Paranee has been making such tremendous videos on knives, and my participation in his Phill Hartsfield Kwaiken thread lead to further discussion on iterations of the design, I elected to pursue a new concept based on a previous model of mine. This one is an 8" blade. In the past, I'd made this style with a fully distally tapered blade, I left this one in full thickness. The blade profile features distinct sori, or upward sweep to the blade, enhancing slicing ability.

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I'm experimenting with a new-to-me tool steel, Crucible CPM-4v, a super wear resistant and tough steel. The performance appears to be a perfect compromise between the toughness of CPM-3v, and the wear resistance of CPM-M4. Preliminary beatings show it to be pretty tough, and holy SHIT is it wear resistant. I had enough sense to hand polish the beveled spine previous to heat treat, but afterward even trying to clean it up was futile - my best sandpapers wouldn't touch it!

The knife is from .275" thick stock, and I left the milled finish on the flats as a bit on contrast, with the blade at full thickness until the formation of the beveled tip. Black rayskin lays under the resin-soaked tsukaito wrap, and a turk's head knot acts as a hand stop. The blade is slightly weight forward, with the point of balance about an inch in front of the turk's head knot. Feels massive in hand, and also imparts a sense that a chop is going through whatever is being chopped - or you could just bludgeon your opponent with the flat of the blade. :)

It's on it's way to Joey, so I hope he'll share his thoughts on the prototype. I've already got a few design changes I want to make for the next one, but they'll be subtle.

Here's a quick video I did slicing some phone book paper. I tried to move the blade as slowly as I could, applying as little effort as possible to just allow the blade to shave curly-q's.

[video=youtube;ZSojYb-COuE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSojYb-COuE[/video]


Thanks for looking, gang!
 
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Love the shobu style geometry on this one. So clean.

Proportions and lines are dialed in as always, killer piece all around!
 
that looks like one hell of a weapon!
Very curious about this 4V....
 
evanPGH said:
Love the shobu style geometry on this one. So clean.

Proportions and lines are dialed in as always, killer piece all around!
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Evan,

I couldn't agree more. :thumbup:

Matt,

As always, great work my friend ! :cool:

Congrats, Joe ! :D

Doug
 
It turned out great Matt. Did the hardness turn out close to what you were shooting for? I assume it did according to your performance report. I knew you were gonna like this stuff. It is a b!t@h to grind and finish but it still aint as bad as 10V.
 
HA! Really nice and slicey blade there, Matt~ I've been secretly working on a big, curved version of a Hartsfield kwaiken. The reason being, they're carried and drawn almost like a little sword, so I wanted to see one that's still the same style of knife but with a bit more sword-like emphasis and nice sori, a spirit which you have perfectly captured with this one! :D
 
Darrin Sanders said:
It turned out great Matt. Did the hardness turn out close to what you were shooting for? I assume it did according to your performance report. I knew you were gonna like this stuff. It is a b!t@h to grind and finish but it still aint as bad as 10V.
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Hey Darrin! Not sure yet - need to beat on this stuff a bit more, but it certainly shows promise. I left it pretty hard, relying a bit on geometry to bolster the mass behind the edge, but time will tell... I really wanted to see what kind of edge holding ability it offers. My preliminary testing involved talking to Joey late one night while burying the tip into the legs of my bench and twisting, and banging the tip HARD against the side of the bench. :)

I have one in mind that will be MY tester, but this one was kind of meant for my brother Joe, and I really wanted him to get it sooner rather than later.

Thanks for your insights into heat treating this steel, bud. It's really nice to have another experienced opinion to rely on!

Never worked with 10v, but I've got enough S110v experience to relate, I think. 4v certainly comes in closer to that stuff than 3v. I've hand-finished blades in 3v post heat-treat, and it sucks, but it can be done. This stuff? Ain't happenin'.
 
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Looks great buddy. :thumbup:
 
That knife is simply a cut above anything I could dream of making. This guy Matt is sharp. While I imagine this kwaiken being able to split an atom, I would highly recommend staying away from any uranium or plutonium. Jiminy that knife looks like the new method of capital punishment!
 
Very nice work Matt. What kind of sheath are you making for it? An aluminum "Hartsfield" style? As interesting as the single-side grind kwaiken may be, your v-grind tanto are far more interesting.
Now, is that any chance you're make a 14" blade kogusoku version?
Ray
 
Ray Z said:
Very nice work Matt. What kind of sheath are you making for it? An aluminum "Hartsfield" style? As interesting as the single-side grind kwaiken may be, your v-grind tanto are far more interesting.
Now, is that any chance you're make a 14" blade kogusoku version?
Ray
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Hey Ray,

This IS for Joey, after all...

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Shark skin. First time I've used it - really like it! This shot was before the sageo was on, and it's a crummy phone pic... I've had a series of mutant, outer limits catastrophes occur over the last week, which included having every single one of my photo lamps die, so I didn't manage to snag a good shot before sending it on to it's final destination.

Fourteen inches, eh? That's a heap of nasty wear resistant steel you're talking about. I guess we'll just have to see! I have a handful of other projects that absolutely, positively MUST get done in the near future, so it'll probably be a while. Who knows what the future holds, though? This one wasn't supposed to be worked on, either! :D
 
Beautiful work Matt. Will check in with you later about the kogusoku length blade. Ray
 
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