Search the Community

So over the summer I received a few commissions for knives some people wanted as Christmas gifts. The knives are supposed to be kitchen knives and while the shape is still the best I have managed to date I still feel there is something off with them though I can’t quite figure what. I made 4 this week 1 is still needing heat treat etc. and I will post picture of it once I actually get the heat treat done. In the mean time here are some pictures of the 3 others. 2 of them are ladder pattern Damascus and the other is an unknown pattern if anyone recognizes it please let me know. As usual I have taken these up through the grits, 60, 120, 220, 400 and then I etched them for 2 hours in double strength cleaning vinegar. The 4th one I’m hoping to try in coffee to see what that pattern comes out like. All in all pretty happy with the size and shape of them but as always critiques are more than welcome.

Ok so I have been working on making this chefs knife for my cousin. I fored it to shape and was pretty satisfied with the blade profile. I held it up to one of my store bought ones and its pretty close to the same dimensions. I went with a flat grind for the blade and that was fine. One side is much cleaner than the other but im not completely unhappy with it. One of my final steps was to etch the blade. Now in the past i have used boiled vinegar to etch this same material and was happy with the results but was unhappy with the way it completely stunk the house up. So i decided to try some ferric chloride. First thin i can tell you is this pro tip. DO NOT PUT FERRIC CHLORIDE INTO A TIN FOIL BAKING TRAY!!! Yea turns out that that causes a chemical reaction. Extreme heat, smoke, boiling chemical. Lucky i had some gloves so i could pick it up and dump the whole thing into a plastic bucket which stopped the reaction. So yea after that i got a plastic container and poured the ferric into that and submerged the blade for 20 minutes to get the etch. I used one of those green dish sponge things to rub the etchant once i took the blade out and cleaned it all up. So the etch took and the pattern came out fine. But here is the thing. The etchant left this weird rusty looking residue on the blade which i think some of this pictures show. Now i thought it was actually rust so i put the blade into hot water and scrubbed the heck out of it with an SOS pad but it didnt do anything so now i need to re sand the whole thing and etch the sucker again. What did i do wrong?