Ian Sayers Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 I'm in Portland Oregon and I've been wanting to emulate a specific style of tsuchime / hammered finish I see on Shun's premier knives. I see a lot of unappealing tsuchime jobs but I love the way Shun is doing it. Specifically I like the deep, pronounced hammer marks with lots of overlap blending together. I just can't figure out exactly how they accomplish it. I think they are done mostly by hand because I see a lot of variation in the hammer marks between knives. I assume they are using a top/bottom set of ball peens simultaneously to keep it from flattening out. Does anyone have experience using dies with arrays of multiple ball peens? I was considering welding a cluster of a half-dozen or so 1" bearings to top and bottom plates, after grinding off some of the sides of the bearings so they are not spaced perfectly uniformly, and then just repeating that pattern with lots of overlap and maybe setting them in with a press. Has anyone done that? Do you know a better way? In your opinion, is the Shun pictured here actually hammered freehand with a single set of peens? Any advice on how to achieve a similar look is appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welshj Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 Its kind of hard to see, the image is slightly out of focus... and I have absolutely no experience with it expressly. In the interest of speedier forging- The first thing that comes to my mind would be to weld several small ball bearings together to a plate, for a texturing plate? It might not be easy...but maybe? Take an older cheap hammer and weld some to it, or make a spring style fullering jig with two texturing plates? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
White Nomad Posted February 4, 2021 Share Posted February 4, 2021 In my experience, those sort of finishes are accomplished by using a ballpein hammer and forging in each of the dimples yourself. This is done after the tang and general blade shape had been formed. After patterning both sides, use a wooden or leather face hammer to straighten the blade while it's hot. After that, etch, wire brush, sand or do any other finish on the blade. This method can be time consuming, but its the most reliable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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