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.