Thoughts? My thoughts are : You're asking about a knife with a complex geometry. And not getting many responses. That is a Japanese style and although several of the ABS members study that style, the subtleties might not be clear enough to give you a helpful answer.

One question that comes to mind: Since you mentioned random material, is this project random as well? What is your forging history? What lead you to this style?

There's very little information to glean from the question and I don't want to assume anything. I hope you know I'm being sincere but will gladly help if you share some more information.

Yes, thanks Lin.

I am exploring different styles to learn what I can from them that might work for other things.

I kept my question vague to get some kind of inputs that might help.

To be specific, I seen a video of a Japanese Bladesmith that worked mild steel down a thin piece and then added their Blue paper steel to it for the edge. He would then work the 2 together until back to thin and one side was hardenable steel while other was just mild and used to help keep the hard from snapping. or so I assume.

SO I am wondering if this is maybe something I should look at later instead of now.

My skill set is still beginning. with no real guidance I just keep trying things and pray to the metal gods for forgiveness. heh

I have been doing some blacksmithing by making hooks, fire pokes, Shepard hooks, bird feeder stands and such.

Just this weekend I was trying to do stock removal on a bar of 1095 from Jantz and it cracked in the HT. then I thought I did to much removal and did plain bar and crack.

so I did a 3rd time and normalized it 3x by taking it from 1600-100 and back again 3x. then I got a warp in it some so I tapped that out and 2 more normalizations

then I did a differential quench in some veg oil preheated to 225 and it worked.

Hope the helps.

Hello Greg. Kata Kiriha blade styles are typically used in kitchen and utility knives. They were used in swords early on. I know what you had in mind. Your best bet would be something like 1018 and 1084, or wrought iron and 1084 or 1080. However as you said this might be something you might want to try when you have more experience as you have to deal with getting a good forge weld and forging at the right temps to avoid cracks as you experienced. Get familiar with forging temps and getting heat treat down for one type of steel starting out. I would suggest 1084 or 1080. !095 as you found out can be picky in heat treating. If you still want to use 1095 use canola oil heated to 120 degrees for a quench medium. Keep on asking questions and if you are interested in Japanese styles I can recommend some books for you.

Brion

Thanks for the advice Brion.

Ill keep my oil a little cooler and work on a basin for my quench oil too so I can better access it. Heck if I got it, best be using it.

Its so hard to keep grinding away at the same thing until mastered.

I kinda went from ooo I made a hook, to, oooo I can make Damascus, to, ooo not so much.

yeah, got lots to learn.

Any tips on what kind of work I should start on first before moving up?

like make 100 tweezers with 1084 1/2" bar stock

100 chop sticks from leaf springs

yeah I jest but seriously, is there anything I should really try to work on first before moving onto the harder stuff?

Greg, I would suggest some basic blade shapes like hunters, etc. The main thing is to become better at forging and judging temps. Also get your heat treat regimen down. You can try forging Japanese style blades such as tantos. Some different forging going on there especially in the tang area. Concentrate on making the best knife you can make from 1084 or 5160. There is nothing wrong with trying new things, but having good control over the basics makes trying new things easier.

Brion

I have a 4' bar flat bar waiting to made a couple of in house test knives...

I know I can make them out of 1080 types because I'd made a lot of them over the 6 years I've been making since my first hammer in to my intro class that started the next morning...