I'm working on a few knives today and thought I'd take a few shots along the way so you could see what I'm doing. This is the "embryo" of a hunting knife blade. It's damascus but you'll see I have to do more work to it.
   
 
   

 

You can see the blade is somewhat shaped, but too thick yet and the tang is just a thick stub.

Cool Lin. Thank you for taking the time!!
Cheers

I'm liking that one already. From seeing your past knives, I have a picture of the finished knife in my mind. Now it's going to be interesting to see how close I am  

Thanks
 
 
Getting it up to heat. It will be much hotter and then I flatten it and finish forging it. By the time the grooves are worked out, it's should be ready to grind.
 

The blade is hardened and drawn once. It will be drawn one more time and tested. You can tell that the pattern will be fine.
 
 

Love your ladder pattern, Lin!

I forgot to point out that this is with the scale on, before any clean up.    I guess you knew that, but it will look better soon. I cant work on it much today. Not sure yet. I'll post pics as I get em.

No doubt, it will be a masterpiece... much like all your knives!  Anxious to see it finished.

You know how much I love your knives, Lin. I have to say that I am already excited about this one.

Allan

Hey Lin you need to start building knives with yer eyes closed to make it more challenging!  

Thanks guys. The blade is in pretty good shape, nice and thin. About 1/8 at the ricasso. I'll probably file a clip in this one since it's not an order. The ladder pattern really shows up well in a clip. It's about 4 inches give or take a sixteenth. I was working on it yesterday in between some other pressing projects. It will be ready to show soon.

Lin,  after you press/file your grooves,  do you do any forging at all?

Matt, I cut the groves in with a side grinder and clean the ridges up with the edge of the platten. Then heat the zig zagged blade almost to welding heat, almost, then flatten the entire blade. Since it has some geometry already, I have to, more or less, take the kinks out. Notice that the general profiling has been done prior to the grooving and flattening (the embryo), so that means less distortion for the pattern as long as you just concentrate on working the grooves out.

This requires planning ahead for the flattening. Number one, the blade embryo has to be thick enough to allow the loss of the material that goes away with the formation of grooves. Number two, the major profiling should be done at the embryo stage, so no (not much anyway) profile changes have to be done. There will be some spreading and legthening of the blade during the flattening stage.

I achieve this pattern different than most. Most use fullers, then grind.

What an interesting and effective technique.  That's going to be yet another fine blade.  Thanks for sharing the in-progress photos of your work.  Those help a lot.  

I filed in the clip yesterday. Diamond needle files come in handy for breaking the crust on the tempered steel. Then a good regular file will bite if you hold it right. I have the blade 80% finsished but will finalize the hand sanding and the etch soon. The blade length is full a 4 inches.

 

 
 

By the way, the stag is just a spacer/washer to soften the push of the clamp. It wont be a part of the knife.

I just really, really love the way ladder looks on the spine.
One of my favorite views.
She's gonna be sweet, Lin.

I like the idea of the spacer to keep the rear of the guard undamaged while seating the guard.

Yes, the ladder pattern really does show well on the spine and especially the clip.

What are the steels that went into this one, Lin?

The blade steels are 1084 and 15N20

Nobody makes a prettier knife than you do, Lin.

Allan