so my buddy chef steve liked using my gyotus and knows i make knives. enter my christmas present: stuff to build him a knife! he wanted a laser, so i started with a 3/32 sheet and some new blaze belts and went crazy (very carefully)
this was a lot of fun, here's the specs:
OAL 15in
length on edge 10in
flat grind all the way up
blade: CPM-D2, 61-62HRC (tested) choil/spine rounded
handle: buffalo horn, 1/4" steel from frank's hardware, black fiber, stabilized mesquite, 2tn epoxy (lots).. tang was burnt into the stabilized wood, NOT an agreeable smell.
i built a portable 3v etcher with 30 bucks or so worth of parts from radio shack and i think it worked pretty well. i'd be happy to post some info on that if anyone is interested, but i think i found most of the info here on BF. also messed around with PCB etchant which gives a bit of a different effect, will be playing with both more in the future.. anyway here's the pics.. they are NOT super high quality
(these are the two sketchbooks i have to fill for school this semester, part of why i dont have much time for slinging steel at the moment
)
as usual it's tough to see the effect on the blade but i faded the etch from the dark around the JMT mark to barely etched at the tip, i had the last 2" or so of the tip polished but it just didnt look right so i hit it with some ferric chloride at the end
i think my ghetto etcher did a pretty good job, resist was clear nail polish. this took less than 10min with a few saturated-saltwater soaked cotton balls, and it's definitely raised a bit off the surface, but the lines are still fairly sharp. i'd like to figure out a way to place the resist with a bit more precision, nail polish doesn't flow like ink. this photo has kind of an odd effect on the bevel, the grind is slightly uneven about an inch in but it doesn't actually angle up that much at the heel.
the grind, it's hard to see but it's more acute than my kikuichi. scary!
stabilized wood smells like sh!t on the grinder! so does buffalo horn! the shop spiders raced outside like lemmings.
i think im going to call it "Mrs. Fangs", we had joked that i should put a giant, deadly finger trap of a heel on this one so of course i did. he's hoping it keeps anyone else from touching it, and he's probably right. i'm going to tell him to just go ahead and cut the crap out of himself, because then it will be over with. all in all, not a terrible attempt at my first dedicated kitchen knife. (it wasn't a total failure, which kind of surprised me
) the last step, should i have the time sometime soon, is to make a nice bird's eye maple saya, dye it pink and slap a hello kitty sticker on it. 
ive got to give a shout out to peters heat treat over in pennsylvania, i sent in two blades thinking they'd kind of smirk at the size of the order and they were helpful and prompt, something that seems typical of this community. they also have a rockwell tester and tested each blade. good stuff!
this was a lot of fun, here's the specs:
OAL 15in
length on edge 10in
flat grind all the way up
blade: CPM-D2, 61-62HRC (tested) choil/spine rounded
handle: buffalo horn, 1/4" steel from frank's hardware, black fiber, stabilized mesquite, 2tn epoxy (lots).. tang was burnt into the stabilized wood, NOT an agreeable smell.
i built a portable 3v etcher with 30 bucks or so worth of parts from radio shack and i think it worked pretty well. i'd be happy to post some info on that if anyone is interested, but i think i found most of the info here on BF. also messed around with PCB etchant which gives a bit of a different effect, will be playing with both more in the future.. anyway here's the pics.. they are NOT super high quality
(these are the two sketchbooks i have to fill for school this semester, part of why i dont have much time for slinging steel at the moment
as usual it's tough to see the effect on the blade but i faded the etch from the dark around the JMT mark to barely etched at the tip, i had the last 2" or so of the tip polished but it just didnt look right so i hit it with some ferric chloride at the end
i think my ghetto etcher did a pretty good job, resist was clear nail polish. this took less than 10min with a few saturated-saltwater soaked cotton balls, and it's definitely raised a bit off the surface, but the lines are still fairly sharp. i'd like to figure out a way to place the resist with a bit more precision, nail polish doesn't flow like ink. this photo has kind of an odd effect on the bevel, the grind is slightly uneven about an inch in but it doesn't actually angle up that much at the heel.
the grind, it's hard to see but it's more acute than my kikuichi. scary!
stabilized wood smells like sh!t on the grinder! so does buffalo horn! the shop spiders raced outside like lemmings.
i think im going to call it "Mrs. Fangs", we had joked that i should put a giant, deadly finger trap of a heel on this one so of course i did. he's hoping it keeps anyone else from touching it, and he's probably right. i'm going to tell him to just go ahead and cut the crap out of himself, because then it will be over with. all in all, not a terrible attempt at my first dedicated kitchen knife. (it wasn't a total failure, which kind of surprised me
ive got to give a shout out to peters heat treat over in pennsylvania, i sent in two blades thinking they'd kind of smirk at the size of the order and they were helpful and prompt, something that seems typical of this community. they also have a rockwell tester and tested each blade. good stuff!
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