TheoRockNazz

They look like unfinished files, but the inside is actually concave and the edges are sharp. They appear completely unused, with some oil still protecting them.

Haha, when I was editing it I was thinking "nope, can't see any pattern at all, just my own face"... I am sending it to Jim for some real photos soon, hopefully he can bring out the pattern in a way I couldn't. I swear, if you say you wish you made knives one more time... I'll use the money from this commissioned sword to start saving up for a decent camera... although recently I have been thinking a GoPro would be a solid investment.

Thank you all for your honest critique, it's truly appreciated

Finished the Tiger Katana finally, whew! https://youtu.be/rQo-HQ83LdE

Finally the sword is complete! https://youtu.be/rQo-HQ83LdE This has been the most ambitious project I've ever attempted, and I am happy with the results. Right now the things that bother me the most about it are the finish on the saya and seeing the 3D printing lines on the tsuba and pommel. There is one small (purely aesthetic) flaw in the sword, which I have been calling "the eye of the tiger" because it coincidentally looks like there's a tiger's eye on the blade. Critique is always appreciated

These are a good start, but there is a lot of room for improvement. I feel you should hold off on putting handles on your knives just yet; for now I would recommend focusing on forging and grinding and heat treat. Forge out and heat treat a handful of knives, and then finish the best one

Beautiful as always Interesting choice to oxidize/patina the bolster and start of the blade, it really works for this piece.

That is fantastic! What a great skill to learn at that age

I am lovin that picture. Makes me think; we should do a bladesmith calendar!

I really like the shape you've got there. The layering is looking great; seems like the san mai core drifted but it shouldn't matter since the whole blade is made of good steel. These last couple knives of yours have been real leaps and bounds, keep on forgin

Howdy, welcome to the addiction that is knifemaking. What did you forge weld together?

That's looking sweeet. Interesting pattern you're getting there, you may have just come up with a new one haha Looks like there may some cracking or delamination going on towards the tip on the right side... could spell trouble in HT. If you've left enough material on your edge (I imagine you've left some since this is pre HT) you could push the edge over to get the center layer better aligned - I quite literally just had to do that today on some san-mai of my own

That's a fantastic first. Mind telling us a bit more about it? It's encouraged to put your location on your profile because you never know who you're near

I think this is one of those things where yes, technically you can do it yourself, but the time/effort/money investment will be greater than simply sending it out to Peter's Heat Treat or whoever. A heat treating service has the added bonus of more experience and better equipment; they will get the most out of whatever alloy you go with.

That came out fantastic! Kudos!

Now now you old curmudgeons, haha Video games have heavily influenced me over the years, and while they are not the reason I began forging they certainly still supply inspiration. I wish I was on IFI before attempting my first sword, would have saved me so much time if I had Steve to clue me in. Mr Maximilian, keep on forging buddy; have you made any large knives yet? What's your HT lvl?

rhitee is spot on, and his example is great; be proud of each knife you make, but be able to see, analyze, and improve on the flawed aspects. I'm still making fours and fives, maybe pushing it into 6 with this upcoming sword... but anytime I feel like I leveled up I go look at the what the guys who literally wrote the books are doing and go crawl back into my cave haha

Ditto, especially with that water quench

That's beautiful, I really like the offset between the scales and tang

Frosty, don't you go shootin off no smack about us NYC peeps! Or whatever Actually your first response to this topic was fantastic, you should save that as the default response to similar posts. mghvgeo, I live in NYC, let's meet up and talk about how to make real knives

You're more than welcome to join us buddy

Biting tongues can be just as supportive, especially if it keeps ya from chewing them out - last thing we want is to discourage them There are a couple issues wrong with the stuff above, but let's drop it for now. My advice (and I'm sure the tongue-biters as well), is to make your first project a small utility or paring knife, especially since you do not appear to have access to a forge. Drop practicing with mild steel, buy a long piece of 1" x 1/8" 01 or 1080 tool steel, and gain experience with the real deal. Limit yourself to just hand tools to see what kind of effort this really requires. Heat treating will be a fun challenge. Read the chapters beforehand, select your materials and design with the limitations of your shop and experience in mind, and try. Then fail and try again. Breaking a knife is the only way to know what you're doing right or wrong sometimes... but most important is to read and understand before even trying.

Buddy, I'm speakin straight from the heart, so please know it comes from a good place: I used to say the same thing, that I was intentionally making the blades more rustic or stylized, but the sad truth is I was leaving the blades unfinished. The fact is that a knife with clean geometry and a more form-fitting/comfortable handle design (and even a polished blade) will perform better in use. Remember that a knife that is hard to use is not doing it's job. I want to encourage you to keep making knives, but not make the mistake that I did, and really take your time with them to fully realize each knife. The wood looks like pine, not really suitable for a handle material even when polyurethaned. 1095 is a great beginner steel, how did you heat treat?

Well, I just learned that this was a bad combination of steels in terms of TTT... thankfully not the hard way, but by someone vastly more experienced than myself pointing it out. He said even with the differential HT the steels are just too different, of course which is now painfully obvious. I suppose now to a degree I am happy this will most likely just go up on a wall. The welds are clean, acid etching earlier did not reveal any small cracks, so maybe I got lucky, who knows.

Then you should join us! Just wanted to throw this over here: anyone that can join us next meeting should because it probably going to be warm enough to BBQ!