First serious knife attempt - 1095 Yanagi ba with hamon

[rhitee93]

Hi all, this is the result of my first serious knife attempt.  It is my take on a yanagi ba style knife.

 

My version is made from 1095 steel from New Jersy Steel Baron.  (I guess that is Aldo to most of you)  The blade was clay coated with Rutland's black furnace cement.  Quenched for 3 seconds in 160F 9% brine, and then moved to 140F canola oil until 'cool'.  Tempered for 2 hours @ 375F and allowed to cool in the oven.  Here is the result:

 

 

The handle is made from Bloodwood, African Blackwood, and Maple.  I vacuumed stabilized the completed handle in thinned down Minwax wood hardener.  I'm hoping that reduces the movement of the different woods.

 

The following are my steps in making this knife:

 

This is what I started with, it is a piece 025" x 1.25" x 9" 1095:

 

 

The next pics are what I had after 2 hours a a friends coal forge.  I made the aluminum pattern to use to check my progress as I went along.

 

 

 

 

I don't like grinding, so I had planned to do the final shaping by hand with files, stones and paper.  It probably took me about 4 hours to get to this point using moslty files.

 

 

 

I wanted to try to achieve a hamon line.  I used Rutland's black furnace cement to make a very thin slurry that I used to cover the entire blade.  Then I used a thicker mix to create the heavier layer.  The spine was left with only the thin coat so I wouldn't get a curve (Sori) in the quench.

 

 

 

I fretted for a week over the quench step while the clay dried.  I think I read every post on every forum written in the last 15 years about heat treating 1095.  In the end, this is what I decided to do:

 

Using a thermocouple I got my forge as close to 1475F as I could.  My burners don't have a choke, and tend to run with an oxidising flame at this level so I put a piece of 2x4 box tubing in the forge.  I closed off one end of the tube, and threw some small chunks of charcoal inside to use up the oxygen.

 

The I had planned to let the blade soak for a few minutes at temp, but the temperature started rising, and I couldn't get it under control.  Once the tube got to 1550, chickened out and went for a quench.

 

I had a 5-gallon bucket of 9% brine that was heated to 160F.  I plunged the blade in, tip down, for 3 seconds.  Then I immediately moved it to canola oil that I had heated to 140F.  After the blade was cool, I slid my pocket knife blade along each side to remove the remainig clay, and put it directly into my kitchen oven that had been preheated to 375F.  I left it there for 2 hours, and then shut off the oven to let it cool to room temp.

 

I had a hard time waiting for the oven to cool, but I could tell that there were no cracks in the blade when I removed the clay, and at this point, you could have pried me off the ceiling I was so happy.  My wife and kids, however, were not so happy that the house smelled like a fish fry because of all the canola burning in the oven...

 

Here it is after it cooled, and I scrubbed off the burnt-on oil.

 

 

 

I spent close to 30 hours with EDM stones and wet dry paper to finish polisihng the blade.  I may have to rethink my distaste for grinding!  A file still skates off the harder part of the blade, and it took a lot of time to get it polished.  My level of polish still leaves something to be desired.

 

I tried etching the blade to make the hamon more visible, but I didn't care for the way it looked as much as I did before etching so I polished it back out.  I tried to get a pic, but as you all know it is hard to do.  You can sort of see it here:

 

 

Here are a few more finished pics:

 

 

 

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  There are a lot of things I will improve on the next time, but it is turning out to be a pretty handy kitchen knife.  The hollow grind on the back side was pretty hard to do by hand.  It's functional, but not very pretty.

 

The only other knife I have ever made is in this thread:

 

 

...so my expectations were not all that high for this one :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Steve Sells]

I love the result, and I am glad you decided that quenching when you got to 1550F was more important than a few minutes soak time.

[adamj]

that is a beautiful knife I love the polish you got on the blade. I get to impatient to make any of mine look that good.  Great job

[windancer]

You done good :)

Every knife teaches me something new. When they stop teaching I will branch off into something else [radical Damascus, maybe].

Nice work!

Dave

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Now the big question-----how does it cut?

Nice job.

Why the disdain for grinding?

[rhitee93]

Wow, thanks to all of you.  Compliments from this group truly mean a lot.
 
BigGun - I would probably like grinding more if I had something other than a worn out old 1x30 HF special.  I have purchased some good quality belts for it, but it still isn't much fun to use.  I am considering building a 2x72 grinder.
 
I do like the Zen-like feeling of cutting with a good file.  It is a nice way to put the work-related part of my mind to sleep.
 
As for how it cuts:
I didn't achieve the legendary edge that Japanese knife makers are supposed to create on this style of knife, but it does pretty good.  I deviated from the traditional style in 2 ways.  First I made the knife a bit thinner than normal. The spine is only 0.160" above the heel.  Even for one this short, a typical Yanagi seems to be closer to 0.180 to 0.220"
 
Second, I created a small secondary bevel. This knife should have been sharpened with one primary bevel.  I put a couple of layers of tape along the bevel line (Shinogi) when I formed the final edge. (Much like you would when honing a straight razor) I'm sure this limited the ultimate sharpness I could achieve, but I couldn't see trying to take that entire plane down the final edge with a 4k or 8k water stone.
 
Here is a quick video I shot testing the knife with a rather rotten tomato...
 

[HWooldridge]

That cuts pretty good on a rotten tomato. Great job all around - you will only get better going forward.

[Loneforge]

Nice job. 

[Xwingace]

"Not very pretyy" my XXX... You did a great job on that!

[VaughnT]

Excellent work.  If that's your first serious attempt, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you come up with next!

[rhitee93]

Thanks again all for the nice words.  The knife looks better in the pics than in real life.  I should go back to 400 grit to take care of some scratch marks and work up the polish again, but I m ready to just be using the knife rather than polishing.  I never wanted it to be mirror polished, but it kept looking "Muddy" at 400 and 600 grit.  Once I got to 1000 grit, I figured I might as well keep going until I ran out of finer grits to use.  I think I understand how you all achieve those nice even satin finishes, but I had a hard time getting good results.

 

Here is an earlier pic of the blade.  I had etched it with vinegar and lemon juice (separately of course) to highlight the hamon.  You can kind of see how cloudy or muddy looking the blade looks.  Ultimately I decided I liked it better with a brighter finish and a more subtle hamon.