Jeremy

Time for a little update to this knife.
In the last photos you'll see I got the guard material fitted to the knife.
Now, dig out a chunk of handle material.
I'm using a piece of stabilized Silky Oak from Hawaii.
I've made a few knives. I've some some wild material.
But this stuff from Burl Source has more "movement" that any material I've used. ANY!! material.
It moves in all directions.


I'll make a drawing of how I want the knife to end up:



Cut out the handle profile and see how it looks on the knife:



And transfer it to the handle material which has been squared - all four sides - in the mill:



Do a rough cutout of the handle material and get the tang cut to length and threaded.

After a little time I have the handle attached to the knife and begun shaping the guard.

 

Other side:

 

This is what I mean by "movement".
This is looking at the obverse side in one direction of light:

 

This is what it looks like by turning it end-for-end:

It is truly wild in the light.!!
It just sparkles and dances.
You do not see those wild shiny striations in the other direction.

 

The finished knife.
1095/420 SS  San Mai.
100+ year old twisted wrought iron guard.
Silky Oak handle with "capped" trap-door take-down finial:

That is nice.

Very nice. I really like that wrought iron, and the wood is crazy. Thanks for posting the pics of your process, it's always cool to see how other people do things.
Darcy  

That's awesome.  Another question:  what causes the double line along the weld?  I've noticed this on other San Mai blades you've posted on here.  Thanks for sharing.

Matt

That's a very beautiful knife! Great mix of textures with the different components.  I'm also curious about the weld lines, is that just a natural occurrence when those 2 materials are forge welded?
Thanks for sharing!
Joel

QuoteOriginally posted by Alexander13:
............is that just a natural occurrence when those 2 materials are forge welded?
Joel

Correct.
Imagine that when you grind up from the cutting edge to the spine, you are creating a plane from the center of the blade to the full thickness.
This line runs at a tangent across the weld zone, exposing all of the weld and transition regions of the two steels.
Keep in mind that while at welding heat, Carbon will migrate from one place to another in an effort to equalize concentration.
The core of 1095 is Carbon rich.
The 420 is carbon deficient.
So they want to equalize, and what you end up seeing is the areas of varying carbon content.
The real shiny part at the edge of the transition is where the 420 has "sucked" the carbon out of the 1095, leaving an almost pure ultra thin layer of iron. It is truly shiny.
The actual cutting edge is so far away from any activity that it is not effected.
It would take hours and hours at welding heat for the entire billet to equalize.
But for the time I'm there, it creates a pretty dramatic display.
Good question.

It turned out nice Karl. The capped finial is a nice touch too. Great work my friend.

I was thinking it was probably something along those lines.  I was curious about it because I thought it was interesting that the line thicknesses are uniform while the forging wasn't as demonstrated by the waves in the weld pattern.  I would have expected more variation in the effect you described resulting from the forging.  Learn something every day.  I really want to try this one day.  Would you recommend jumping straight to a carbon core with stainless jacket or starting simpler, maybe 1084 core/15n20 jacket?  It'll be a while anyway as my forge is kind of small and I don't think it quite reaches welding temps.  

Thanks
Matt

The waves in the welding pattern are from the drawing dies on the press.
Welding 1084/15N20 is a whole different animal than welding stainless to high carbon.
All you have to do to get 1084 and 15N20 to weld together are to put them in the same room.
To get stainless and high carbon you need to keep them at a consistent welding heat, about 2300 degrees, in a zero oxygen atmosphere, for about 20 minutes.
And then have the capacity to physically weld them with either a press or power hammer.