I have saved a few pics of Mr. Rhea's knives and especially like a particular bowie of his that he posted quite some time back. This is by no means close to his kind of good stuff, but his knives did drive some of the design on this one.
I recently forged this blade out and didn't realize until afterwards that it was a San Mai billet of L6/1084 I did at a friend's house a while back. I'd be willing to bet the core's gonna end up all wonky...but, oh well <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//rolleyes.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':rolleyes:' /> .
After roughing things in on the belt grinder, my new disc setup got the first run and I must say-I REALLY like it. Also the first time I used my height gauge/surface plate, which I also really liked.
Notice the painfully poorly forged-in shoulders...
I cleaned it up more and changed the profile to have a longer clip, which I'm glad I did-it's a bit more reminiscent of Mr. Rhea's that I liked so much. During the quench, I messed up and managed to get the tip bent. So, during the tempering cycles, I clamped it to a curved piece of wagon wheel rim.
After the initial clamping, it didn't hold... Put it all back and back in the oven for the last cycle and after I took it out, I left it alone until nice and cool. Thankfully, it's back to straight <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//smile.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' /> .
I'm thinking of a wrought iron guard and maybe a piece of stabilized wood that's been sitting around for a while. Will have to see how it all looks together before I decide. Plus, the whole thing could derail long before then, anyway... This being the critique section, please let me know your thoughts/concerns/advice or whatever else you're willing to throw my way. I'll try to take pics as I progress and add them here as I go. Even though I'm betting the 2 sides will end up looking different after the etch because of my uneven forging, figure it's still worth the effort to practice and learn.
Jeremy
Jeremy Lindley, Apprentice Smith
That's a great idea I never thought of clamping one like that. Is that how you ended up straightening it or did you use some other method.
I know of several ways. There is the dowels in the vice method and several others I have seen.
I have recently read Murray Carter's book and he, coming from Japan advocates cold forging for straightening as one method. Some methods I have seen seem so stressful to the steel. I'm not trying to hijack the post but what are some other methods people might use to straighten a blade that has gotten kind of curvy in the quench.
I have had this same problem recently and not caught it until I got ready to clean the thin quench scale off.
I think I know which knife of Lin's you are talking about. Love that long clip it haven't seen one yet that I didn't like.
Yup, just the clamping ended up straightening it. The curve let me clamp a bit past in the opposite direction. I also have some brass rods that I use in the vice sometimes, but this was full quenched and I like using those on edge quenched ones. I'm sure it's just in my head, but no matter how I bend a blade, it still makes me fairly uneasy. If you don't have a curved piece of steel, you can use a straight one with a nail or some rod as a fulcrum and clamp either side during tempering, too. I saw the trick somewhere and bought of it today-thought maybe the curved wrought iron might work is all.
Jeremy
Jeremy Lindley, Apprentice Smith
Jeremy, looking pretty good on that knife. Well done.
(You'd make Lin proud!)
Since you put this in the "Critique" section, the only thing I would critique is the usage of the phrase "San Mai".
Using two tool/hardenable steels does not necessarily meet the definition of the phrase "San Mai".
San Mai is normally used to define a blade with a hardenable tool steel core with a non-hardenable and/or rust resistant exterior such as wrought iron or stainless steel.
A more accurate term for yours would be a "laminated blade".
I hope I'm not viewed as being too picky here, but I see this quite often lately and it begins to cloud up or make foggy exactly what we're doing.
I think it's nice to keep things labeled correctly so no confusion takes place.
Some guys are making a tool steel core of, say, 1095, and then laminating it with 15N20. It's basically just a three layer forge weld.
Not San Mai.
"San Mai generally refers to knives with the hard steel hagane forming the blade's edge and the iron/stainless forming a jacket on both sides. In stainless versions, this offers a practical and visible advantage of a superb cutting edge of modern Japanese knife steel with a corrosion resistant exterior. In professional Japanese kitchens, the edge is kept free of corrosion because knives are generally sharpened on a daily basis."
Karl B. Andersen
Journeyman Smith
Nice work Jeremy! Looking forward to seeing the finished knife.
Bob
Karl-
Not too picky at all, I appreciate the information. I'd like to correctly label whatever it is I'm doing and knowing some more about the history/terminology helps greatly.
I might need to put in an application with the psychic network... I said it might derail and I think it's pretty close. I was up late working on the knife and my grinding skills (or lack thereof) got me into a few pickles. I continued on until I got another sizable mess before finally walking away. Note to self: quit while you're ahead and just walk away... I'll hopefully get some time to continue on it this weekend and see if it can be saved at all. Either way, I do like the profile and may just try making another.
Jeremy
Jeremy Lindley, Apprentice Smith
Well, turns out I was right-I managed to derail the whole thing... Through a couple of grinding process errors, this knife ended up at a place where I knew I'd never be satisfied with it, regardless of the "fixes" I could do. So, I threw an etch on it just to see and sure enough, one side had the outer layer near the edge and the other up high. I decided to do a little testing and broke the blade in half. On the plus side, the structure looked fairly good-sort of milky in appearance, except for the very outer edges (not entirely certain what that means). I also hacked a bit at my hard resin bench top and found something interesting. I was just having a conversation with someone today about edge geometry. How, depending on the steel, you may nail the heat treat, but if you take it too thin, it just won't hold up. I had an area on the blade that was very thin, though not sharp, and it started to very mildly deform. Towards the heel, it had just a bit more meat left on it and there was no chipping, rolling, etc. and it left big marks on the edge of my bench.
So, while this knife didn't make it to the end, I still learned from it and the next should be better.
Jeremy
Jeremy Lindley, Apprentice Smith
