What have I gotten myself into?

Dan Pierson

Dan Pierson

Joined
Nov 24, 2003
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I've mentioned my "stainless project" a couple of times in passing. Basically,
I decided to make a batch of kitchen knives out of stainless steel. Partly
because having to do precise grinds on a bunch of blades will help me progress.
Partly because my wife's fellow artists keep hoping that I'll show up at a show
and I never have any stock. Partly (heavily) because I decided to sleaze out
and let Brad at Peter's heat treat all of them instead of setting myself up for
cryo. But mainly because I like kitchen knives.

Initially decided to use AEB-L, first bought at 13C26 because Admiral had it
in 6' lengths at a good price. Found out those were all *bent* 6' lengths.
The Alpha Knife Supply started selling flat AEB-L in the right sizes. But they
also had .048 3V, which sounded good for parers and the fillet knife my wife's
cousin asked for. But no one seemed to have 1/16" AEB-L, which is right for
stainless parers. Couldn't find any but a kindly Baron did offer some 1/16"
CPM-S35VN... (Also some CPM-D2, but that's a later batch.)

This is getting a bit out of hand... Finally finished profiling everything
yesterday. The top left corner is rough ground 3V. The middle is
AEB-L (with couple of 13C26). The right is CPM-S35VN.

Total of 6 gyutos, 4 chinese cleavers, 5 santokus, 2 short carvers (us and
some friends I owe one to), 3 fillet knives, 20 parers in different shapes and
sized, 4 skinny little knives from scraps, and 4 non-kitchen small knives
from 1/8" 13C26.

Did I really decide to do all of this :eek:
 

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That's a lot of steel to grind. By the time you are done with all of these, you'll have learned more about both making knives and about yourself. If it was me, I'd probably find out that I'm too much of a wuss to hand sand the whole batch...

Good luck sir, please post some finished pics when the time comes...
 
We expect finished pic's by next weekend:D:D
That's a mess of blades to grind.
Stan
 
Wow. Go Dan go! Good profiling. Now the work begins. Have you got the handle scales all picked out yet?

What are the two little skinny blades (lower left)? And, what are the two with the scallops on the handle ends (upper right)?
 
If my math is correct there are 48 knives there, that's a lot of grinding Dan!! :eek:

Good Luck, don't forget to add the tang holes before you send them out.
See you in about 6 months!! :D
 
Wow Dan, looks like you're diving in head first, I love it! Please don;t forget to show us the results.

Dave
 
you have embarked on a long journey of stainless steel, may the wind be on your back:thumbup:
 
Geez, I just sent a batch of 28 out for HT and I thought that was doin' pretty good... guess I'll have to step up my game :)
 
I want one of the skinny ones!

Looks like you've got your work cut out for you. Literally.
I look forward to seeing how they turn out. I am sure they will look great.
What do you figure your timing will be? 1st of April? ;)
 
Thanks for the sympathy everyone :) There will definitely be more pics
forthcoming.

Salem: That's most of what I'm hoping for. The hand sanding scares me too!

Phil: The two skinny blades are copied from one of the first three knives I made
in my own shop. No one was very impressed. Got a few clearly unenthusiastic
comments. But you know, the skinny little blade these are copied from remains
one of the real go to knives in my kitchen today. It's not a general parer but
there are things it does really well... and it sure stays sharp. It's O1, I'll see
what a stainless version with very close to the same dimensions works.

The two with scallops are two short carvers. Handle ends will have a teeny
bit of carving to go with the filework. The filework is very much not done
yet -- this is sort of a sketch.

Chuck: That's scarily like my count. If I get done in six months I'll be really
happy. If not, I may have to send a partial batch out before everything is
done to deal with a few end of year commitments.

Dave: Yeah, it started getting bigger and bigger and ... I'll have at least
some pre-HT blades to show you at Ashokan.

Mark: April Fools Day of what year? Which set of skinny ones are you looking
at?
 
I was thinking about my earlier comments.
Maybe April is too optimistic. How about May?
Afterall the hard part is already done.
Now all you have to do is rub a little polish on them, stick on some handles and sharpen them.
How long can that take?
Just teasing you Dan. ;)

Looks like a good mix of knives. I would guess that having the profiles done it would be easier to visualize what you want to do. Depending on your mood you can choose to complete a couple kitchen knives, then go to a boot knife, then just for something different one of the cleavers.

The way you are doing things would work good for me.
My brain gets kind of jumbled and by spreading them all out to look at, I could say, "I'm in the mood to work on this one today".

How about posting a few photos of your Wife's projects?
Maybe you and her could do a collaboration on a couple of these?
 
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