What's going on in your shop? Show us whats going on, and talk a bit about your work!

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CPM-3V 3.5 blade ground to 120 grit.
 
Hey guys, here's a Santoku I finished up not too long ago. The blade is 15n20 I got from JT a few years back. The handle is some beautiful stabilized Indonesian Ebony with all kinds of colors under the right light, (e.g. reds, browns, purples, even some yellows) with a stainless spacer. The saya is carved to fit from two pieces of curly maple.










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I had a hard time getting any decent pics of the saya so I made a quick vid:

(You have to click on the picture in order to see the vid which was uploaded to Flickr)


Saya - Curly Maple

Here's another quick vid showing how the blade fits in the saya without the mekugi:


Saya - Friction Fit




~Paul
My Youtube Channel
... (Some older vids of some of the older knives I made)
 
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Here is one of my latest projects. It is a 226mm k-tip gyuto with a 52mm tall heel made from AEB-L. I wanted to make a true laser with this one so I started with 0.084” (2.1mm) stock and ground it very thin with a substantial distal taper. The spine thickness at the heel is 0.068”, half way down the blade it’s 0.058”, and at the end of the spine (where it transitions towards the tip) it’s 0.049” thick. Sharpened at 11˚ per side this knife is truly incredible. By far the sharpest feeling, easiest cutting knife I’ve yet made. The handle is stabilized maple burl with a gaboon ferrule. I made it with the hidden dowel method and secured it with beeswax so I can separate the blade and handle if I want to. (I have far more handles than knives at this point!)

More images here: https://imgur.com/a/Dle1RxN
 
The hidden dowel method is, in my opinion, by far the best way to make a hidden tang wa handle. I drill a 1/2" blind hole in the handle material and the ferrule, leaving about 1/8" of material in the bottom off the ferrule. I then use some small drills, a knife, and a needle file to shape the slot for the tang. I take a 1/2" dowel and slit it to about the width of my tang, glue it in the handle material, glue the ferrule on top, and then shape the handle. With this method the only part of the handle that is precisely fit to the tang is the very end of the ferrule. It's very easy to get a really good looking handle without spending hours trying to drill/cut/shape a slot through the entire handle. Here are some photos illustrating it: https://imgur.com/a/8Sbvpx1
 
Here's a short little wharnie in 80CRV2 with stabilized and dyed red Jacaranda, stabilized Japanese Privet and some fancy pins over yellowjacket (yellow/black) G10 liners. Can't find out much about the privet online as far as woodwork goes but it's very hard in unstabilized form and I read where archers use it for arrows so I'd bet it's pretty tough. My wharncliffes have a very low belly, I can't seem to appreciate dead straight edges.

ETA about the dowel method above... haven't used it for Wa handles but it's GRRREAT for antler where you have to remove the pith anyway. I drill a hole at the farthest point the tang will extend into the dowel and cut the slot on a bandsaw. I hold the dowel with vice grips because I've grown attached to my fingers. I've always built multi element handles of wood, leather, antler and spacers and like Callum I have the dowel extend in front of the antler and drill a corresponding hole in the wood block, preferably so the thru pin will go thru the dowel. Some hardware store dowel I've seen is super cheap soft wood. If I can't find long enough fluted dowel in oak I'll cut crosscuts myself.
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CallumRD1 said:
BMWgJeN.png

Here is one of my latest projects. It is a 226mm k-tip gyuto with a 52mm tall heel made from AEB-L. I wanted to make a true laser with this one so I started with 0.084” (2.1mm) stock and ground it very thin with a substantial distal taper. The spine thickness at the heel is 0.068”, half way down the blade it’s 0.058”, and at the end of the spine (where it transitions towards the tip) it’s 0.049” thick. Sharpened at 11˚ per side this knife is truly incredible. By far the sharpest feeling, easiest cutting knife I’ve yet made. The handle is stabilized maple burl with a gaboon ferrule. I made it with the hidden dowel method and secured it with beeswax so I can separate the blade and handle if I want to. (I have far more handles than knives at this point!)

More images here: https://imgur.com/a/Dle1RxN
Click to expand...

Nice! What is the Hrc and how thin did you grind BTE before sharpening, if I may ask? Curious since I am currently working in my first kitchen knife in AEB-L.
 
What does your HT look like?
I got mine to 62 Hrc. 12 min at 1950, -45 over night, 2 hr temper at appr 335.

Yet to get a handle.
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CallumRD1 said:
I'm not confident in the hardness because I haven't tested it post temper, but I believe it to be around 63. I ground it to 3-4 thou at the edge before sharpening.
Click to expand...
 
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If I recall correctly this batch was done at 1975˚F for 8 minutes (the stock was only 0.084" thick), plate quenched, then straight into a dry ice and alcohol bath for a couple of hours and tempered twice for two hours each at 325˚F.
 
Today has been a re-grinding day.
8C50BF3C-CF1D-4F9B-8B55-47F30193ED54.jpeg 222A0011-090C-4AFA-B534-D9924D010AD0.jpeg 6B3A0C38-C175-4C0C-9D3F-4A420FE2BDCB.jpeg Somebody gave us this forged in fire knife and it came waaaaay too thick, so I reground it. It actually came out pretty good.

I’ve also been working on modding a knife for a friend. It’s some artesian cutlery folder in d2. I’ve polished the bearing tracks and I did a nice deep hollow regrind today.
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Sorry for the horrible pictures...
I wasn’t too ocd about the finish on the flats because my plan is to acid etch it, but I think it turned out pretty good. :)

Edit: OK, my ocd took over. I hand sanded the flats.
 
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