Joël Mercier

Very nice! Even the guard looks like the back legs of the thog

This definitely stands out of the crowd. I found a name for it if you don't mind: Dark Matter.

If you want the tang to be aligned with the spine and have knuckle clearance, you can put a slight drop in the spine. A few degrees will do.

This may be true for unhardened steel. It does not apply here.

Have a read http://www.gowelding.com/met/carbon.htm

Commercial knives make up for their low quality steels and HT with thicker edges to add toughness. You can grind a good quality hand made carbon steel chef's knife primary bevel to almost zero at the edge. With that in mind, your next chef's knife will surpass your commercial knives in cutting power . Isn't that great

The grain is at a microscopic level and has no sense or direction. Hammering hot steel breaks the grain and that is a good thing because forging heat increases the grain size. You want the grain as small as possible (to some extent, extremely small grain can be bad, though it's not achievable without repeated normalizing and quenching cycles.)

From what I can see, it's seems well finished! Congrats!

The eutectoid point (0.84%) is the point of carbon "saturation" in the steel. The steel will not absorb extra carbon unless it is maintained at critical temperature for a given time(soaking).

Don't want to be a xxxxxxxxx here but hypereutectoid steels require a soak a critical to dissolve the extra carbon into the solution. The way you heat treated it left out the extra carbon so your 1095 most likely performed like 1084 with a shallow hardening.

How did you heat treat it?

O1 is very forgiving in heat treatment. It's just that if you don't use the correct technique, it will not perform as good as it should. So why use a steel that is more costly than others when you can't get the most out of it and it will most likely perform equally to cheaper, perfectly heat treated steels. Try to forge it a bit hotter but 5160 is a harder to forge than 1084.

Hi M. I would cut your leaf spring in 1" strips length wise depending on its thickness, for forging hunting knives and such. Try starting with small knives. Once you've successfully forged and heat treated a few, you can try bigger and bigger. O1 tool steel is not a beginner's steel. It requires a soak at precise temp to get the most out of it. New spring steel is ideal. Other great steels for beginners (and pros) are 1080, 1084, 1085, 80CrV2, 15N20. Steels to avoid when beginning are O1, W1-2, any stainless unless to send for HT, 1075, 1095. I would also take the opportunity to tell you about using decalescense for heat treating your blades. This is the best method for heat treating simple carbon and low alloy steels. It's a change of state in the steel that occurs right before the ideal temp to quench the steel. It is very precise, you'll just need to practice it a few times at night. You need very dim lighting or complete darkness to see it. Watch YouTube videos about decalescense.

A few things to consider for your next one: 1. You don't want a ricasso or at least it should never be wider than the blade 2. A handle pointing slightly upwards will make more clearance for the knuckles when chopping. 3. You don't need a very tough edge. Unless it's a boning knife, you will want the secondary bevel no thicker than 0.010". It will make chopping hard veggies like carrots a breeze.

I got this advice when designing my first knife: try to make the spine one flowing line from butt to tip. Then design the rest. It is a rule of thumb and not absolutely a must. But is a nice guideline to begin with.

A good polish + butcher's oil or wax will help but there will always be a patina on the long run

Nicely done!

Nice! I've had a few requests too, recently. This sure put some stress on my shoulders . Two things I heavily considered: - Is the knife overall shape and geometry adequate for the job? Search for average blade length, thickness and geometry of a given knife type. Ex: Santoku kitchen knife. 5-7" long, 2" wide, .110" at spine and 0.00-0.10" at secondary bevel. - Am I confident enough in my heat treatment to put my reputation on the line?

And the more confident I get, the most stupid mistakes I make

Thank you. It's a nice compliment rhitee

You can also consider using 80CrV2. It's like 5160 but with higher carbon and some vanadium. The vanadium will help keep the grain size small if you overheat it by mistake. Overall very forgiving steel! It gets plenty hard and it's as though as 5160(debatable).

Many thanks! This is definitely boosting my morale . I am going to take this advice very seriously when I decide to start selling my work.

Yeah, I work rather slowly and I got good advices from very generous smiths.

As far as I know, there isn't any one size fits all quenching oil. Parks 50 has been developed for water hardening steels like 1095, W1/W2. It is not recommended for deep hardening steels like O1, 5160, etc. Parks AAA(or any 11 secs) or warm canola is what should be used on those steels.

Thanks!