when it comes to bolsters, I kind of shoot myself in the foot, there's some masochism involved :)

here it is a chef knife with a blade forged from "Takefu Suminagashi" steel, with wild pearwood handle and hand hammered silver bolster.

Reallly reallly nice work....

Those bolsters are AWESOME.

How are they constructed? What's the most difficult part?

Wow he does it again! You my friend are incredibly meticulous! Nice work yet again.

Perfect!

Don't know the steel but that blade looks like ripples of water in the shade - beautiful!!! How many layers? And that bolster! Am I right saying hollow silver tube pressed flat? Or is it cast and filed?

the steel has 11-1-11 layers, is a japanese steel used mostly on kitchen knives, but not only. it's a steel that gets a very nice edge.

this particular bolster I tried to make it starting from a tube, but the silver was too stiff and quiet brittle (even annealed), being an alloy used in tableware and not a 925 silver, so I made it from two halves. first I melt some silver and obtained a little "cake" which i hammered v carefully (few taps, annealing, another few taps, annealing) and got a piece of ~1.5-2mm thick sheet enough for the two halves.
I hammered the pieces over some wood, using a little chisel like, rounded edge punch to define the ridge between surfaces, and then on some other pieces of iron fixed in the wise to finish them. a difficult thing was to make them match together. then I silver brazed them and finish.
again, the fit on the handle and blade and all of them together was the most difficult part of the work, which I hate.

Very few like the fitting part of making knives but it's what makes or breaks a otherwise excellent knife and yours is close to perfect. That guard must have taken some very fine work, can't even see a braze line. By saying 11-1-11 is this a san mai with 11 layers on the outsides? This one is already in my folder of "knives to inspire" - show us more!!!

Hope you don't mind but I put it on a link to SA Blade Forum.

http://www.sablade.com/forums/showthread.php?1647-silver-bolstered-Chef-knife&p=16156#post16156

thank you, I'm glad for that!

yes that is a "san mai". the steel is excellent. you can find infos on that Takefy Suminagashi easily on the net.
and you're right about the fitting problem - I've seen enough nice knives ruined by fitting faults. your eye would be always distracted by this faults rather than attracted by the beautiful ensemble. at least for the demanding people...

in fact, If your knife is a "rustic" one, may allow for some imprecisions in assembly, but when it's supposed to be a "neat" one, any accident would be detrimental for the overall look.

and about the "cast" thing you asked a couple of posts before - I did several cast sculptures some time ago, as I studied sculpture in university, but I feel the casting doesn't have the same "tension" as hammer formed metal and it is less challenging, at least for me, than the hammered one. that's why we are here and not on a casting forum. you know, it's the difference from the cast "wrought iron" and the real one, even that for an untrained eye there's no difference.

@2Tim215

and btw, I saw some interesting tube jobs on your site quiet similar of what I made some time ago with brass tubing... :)

Less knives more art!! I wish, but knives pay the bills.