Thread: Making a san mai kitchen knife with a wootz core and ladder damascus sides

I have begun making a knife for a friend of mine, Grace Horne, who is also a knife maker and scissors maker. One of the few left in Sheffield. I decided to buy a video camera to start documenting builds or techniques. I figured this would save me a ton of time since taking pics in between costs a lot of time, and doing a decent write-up of the build can take hours. This way, I just have to work in from of the camera, explain what I am doing, and cut and speed-up sections as needed in the end.

This is the first part, where I explain the design and make the billet.
Forgewelding wootz is very tricky because of the high carbon content. I'll have to be very careful not to get it too hot because the temperature window between welding temperature and sparking is fairly narrow.

Part 2 is now online. I created a dedicated snailforge channel so if you subscribed, you have to subscribe the new one as well. I am still figuring out youtube. The forge welding went well. The billet is sound and I managed to stay in the welding heat zone without burning the wootz core.

One of the reasons this knife is going to be so special is that it is a gift for Grace, and she is the best knifemaker I've ever met. That sets the bar quite high I'm really glad this video camer thing is working out so well. Taking pics and doing a long writeup would be soooooooo time consuming. Now I only have to watch out for standing between the work and the camera.

Waiting...

thanks for sharing!

Hehe I just got back from 2 weeks holiday Germany / Italy.
With some luck I can do the forging this week

Back from holiday and finally some time for forging. Today I forged the kitchen knife from that little billet. It was only just big enough. I knew it would be touch and go. Normally I'd prefer something just a bit bigger to have a slightly bigger margin for error, but in this case the size of the wootz was what it was

Part 3 is online

Great show Bruno!

What was the final thickness of the forged blank before going to the grinder?

Today I did the heat treatment after grinding.
The knife stayed perfectly straight so things are going ok. Now to clean up and polish the blade.
During the silent parts I tend to ramble. When I am working, my mind goes in idle mode and starts to comment on everything kind of like a sideshow and stays out of the way while my eyes and hands focus on the important work.

Part 5 is online. This is the one where I do the polishing after heat treatment and the etching.

Part 6 is online.
In this part I shape and attach the handle.