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Hello to you all! I've realize this little new friend from a forge weld test, and it look quite good to use! I will spend much more time sharpening it with some stone!

Anyone out there making Shibuishi? I have made my first round of cast ingots and am trying to form this stuff. It's very difficult to move under the hammer or rolling mill.

Hoping someone may know about sashimi/sushi style knives. I notice that the handmade ones usually indicate if they're right handed or left handed. Every picture I've seen shows one side of the blade and a typically round symmetric handle. Does this mean the blade is sharpened on one side or do they get ground a special way, or perhaps both? Hoping to make a couple from some leaf spring steel as my next knife projects. Any tips appreciated.

Hey y'all! I finished a knife that I've been working on for a while. Here's the break down: It's a blend of Japanese and Nordic style, which kind of just happened as it progressed. I had certain features I liked, and I continued to add more. The blade is a three-layer blade, with mild steel for the cheeks and a layer of tool steel in between for the cutting edge. I took the idea from the book "Swedish Blacksmithing", in which the smith makes a "U" shape bend in some smaller mild steel flat bar stock, drops the piece of carbon steel in the "U", and welds it, cutting the excess mild steel off. I did that, ground it, shaped it, and started polishing. When the weld line came out, I was pretty stoked. I know some people get their hamon by clay tempering... but I was pleased to get one this way by way of weld lines. Tempered to a straw color over the forge, this baby is pretty dang sharp. During polishing, I shoved it through my thumb nail... twice. No worries, lesson learned. The handle is poplar, mainly because that's all I had access to besides red oak, and I wanted to mix it up. It has 6 coats of boiled linseed oil and a final coating of Tru Oil Gunstock finish. I left my wood carving chisel marks in it because I felt it gave it a cool texture and even feels nice in the hand. The spacer, which I kind of took a concept from the Japanese seppa, is from a copper pipe between 1/8 and 3/16in thick. I cut it with a hack saw and then filed it down to shape, drilled the holes and filed to fit the tang. I did a little (or tried to) fancy filing on the spacer... but I'm not too happy with it. Didn't have small enough files. Oh well. Hope you all enjoy. After reflecting on the project, I do wish I would have polished the blade a bit more and to get out some of the sloppy, deep weld lines. Although, the blade is solid. This is technically my first lamination or forge weld on a knife blade. I wanted a rough, old look to the blade. I wanted it to look like it has a story behind it although I have not yet come up with that. I would have also used a bit more dense wood. But the poplar feels nice and it was easy to work. Cheers!

Hi everyone i've been wanting for the last few years to start a little furniture making project, and at long last i've got all the materials and most of the tools and knowhow needed for it. Unfortunately however, i'm having a little trouble with one detail in particular since i've got almost no experience in cold chiselling thick iron or steel, and the chest i'd like to make would probably feature a lot of it. I'm just wondering if anyone knows of any hand tools aside from cold chisels that could allow me to produce this kind of pierced work with roughly 1.5-2mm thick corten/weathering steel? '> http://www4.ocn.ne.jp/~s-mingei/cyoubako2.html Or, alternatively, if there's no other way aside from cold chiseling it, can anyone give me some pointers on the types i should look into getting before starting or any other useful tips? For anyone curious about the chests in the links, they're mid 1850's to 1900's traditional japanese safes, used by merchants but generally called ships chests, funa dansu or funa tansu, the first would sell for about $5000-$6000 and the second's closer to the 10-16k mark