I got a lot of practice making knives over break. Everyone wanting kitchen knives for Christmas which gave me a lot of opportunity to experiment. Learned a lot and no two knives are the same. 

With the first picture, I made a 8” chef knife out of 80crv2, a ~5” utility kitchen out of San mai wrought and 80crv2, 6” chef out of 80crv2, another ~4.5” utility, and a 3” paring. I learned that wrought is like literal butter when it’s nice and hot. I had to fight the urge to just grab and mold it like playdoh. I finished the paring and 6” chef in later photos. But the 8” one was a PITA to heat treat because it is bigger than my fire pot. I later ruined it grinding by putting pressure on the spine and getting it too thin.

The second pic is just a little wip pic after I had drawn back the spines and tangs. That’s when I also set the shoulders for the hidden tang. 

The next few pics are of the 6” chef knife. The woods are zebra wood and wenge. I initially tried to chisel out the tang in the zebra wood, but didn’t like it very much so I just did a three piece construction which IMO looks better. Finished with a coat of Tung oil and then a coat of beeswax. The hard part was the grinding, I went to close to a finished edge thickness and didn’t take in account that hand sanding removes a bit of material. Therefore, the middle of the blade kept going past zero and would bring the width down in the middle. Plus, having an uneven graphite platen on my grizzly sucks, so I ordered a ceramic one. Mustard finish on the blade. Honestly, I think this is my best blade yet.

This is the paring knife that is out of 80crv2 and zebra wood. Made it as a pair for the 6” one and gave both to my cousin.

These last ones are how far I was able to get before I had to get back to school. All out of 80crv2, the first is another 8” chef, the next is a ~6.5” santoku style, next a ~6” chef and a 4.5” utilityish blade for the kitchen. Heat treat went fantastic, no warps or bends. One hour at 355 and one hour at 375 temper.

Overall, I’m quite pleased on how much I got done. The santoku I forged and ground in about hour and a half, probably less, which is record time for me. 

Any and all criticisms/opinions are welcome. I want to get better!

Very nice. Good to feel like you're making progress.

1 hour ago, CreekSideForge said:

I had to fight the urge to just grab and mold it like playdoh.

I know the feeling.

Plain backgrounds are best as they do not distract from the knife being photographed.

Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.