I'm always making knives for others and rarely manage to find the time to make one for myself. Given that I had a little free time to myself this Christmas break, I decided to knock something out for yours truly.
This is my last knife of 2010:
Stabilised Cocobolo slabs, my own mosaic pins, and my own hand forged twist Damascus using 1095 and L6 mixed. Using this mix I manage to get both materials properly hardened and tempered during heat treating so there are no soft spots where the layers run out at the edge.
I have been experimenting more and more with lower layer counts - not so very long ago if it wasn't in the high hundreds I wouldn't bother with it, but I am liking what I can coax out of the 30 - 100 layer range so I plan on doing more of them next year.
5mm thick at the spine with a distal tapered blade, convex ground right from the spine.
Note: my convex is basically a hybrid of full flat from the spine. I grind full flat and leave the edge a little thick and then convex out the last third of the blade to give my convex edge. This is strong and, unlike many convex grinds, it produces slim blades that can really slice
I won't carry a knife outdoors unless it's a great slicer...
The blade is triple tempered - soaked in liquid nitrogen for 24 hours after the first 2 hour temper and then tempered another two cycles after that.
I gave this one a light etch since I want the pattern will come to life as the knife ages and sees some work.
It's very similar to a knife I made a while ago which I really liked, but this one has a finer taper to the blade and the spine drops to the tip in a more gradual curve.
I will try to get better pictures in the New Year once I make a sheath for it but, for now, I'm a happy bladesmith
Wishing everyone all you wish yourselves for a happy and healthy 2011
This is my last knife of 2010:
Stabilised Cocobolo slabs, my own mosaic pins, and my own hand forged twist Damascus using 1095 and L6 mixed. Using this mix I manage to get both materials properly hardened and tempered during heat treating so there are no soft spots where the layers run out at the edge.
I have been experimenting more and more with lower layer counts - not so very long ago if it wasn't in the high hundreds I wouldn't bother with it, but I am liking what I can coax out of the 30 - 100 layer range so I plan on doing more of them next year.
5mm thick at the spine with a distal tapered blade, convex ground right from the spine.
Note: my convex is basically a hybrid of full flat from the spine. I grind full flat and leave the edge a little thick and then convex out the last third of the blade to give my convex edge. This is strong and, unlike many convex grinds, it produces slim blades that can really slice
I won't carry a knife outdoors unless it's a great slicer...
The blade is triple tempered - soaked in liquid nitrogen for 24 hours after the first 2 hour temper and then tempered another two cycles after that.
I gave this one a light etch since I want the pattern will come to life as the knife ages and sees some work.
It's very similar to a knife I made a while ago which I really liked, but this one has a finer taper to the blade and the spine drops to the tip in a more gradual curve.
I will try to get better pictures in the New Year once I make a sheath for it but, for now, I'm a happy bladesmith
Wishing everyone all you wish yourselves for a happy and healthy 2011
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