Knife number 6

Remember those 2 blades that I heat treated in the previous post?  Well earlier today I put the finishing touches to one of them.  Once again it has been a journey of discovery, but I am happy with the result.

I can confirm that the heat treatment was successful and the blade is now hard!  Makes me pleased I did all the shaping before hardening, because even the cleaning and finishing of the surface was fairly time-consuming, as was the final sharpening, which took a little more than 3 hours on its own.

With this one I also experimented with epoxy resin.  Several weeks ago I bought a resin kit with a selection of dyes to colour it.  (Without the coloured dyes it sets perfectly clear like glass.)  The blue/white insert in the handle is made from this resin.  In the right light it is semi-translucent and gives the impression of looking into a pool of deep blue water with a mysterious smokey haze drifting through it.

Materials and dimensions are:

• Blade - 145mm x 40mm x 4mm (5.7" x 1.57" x 0.16").  Made from O1 tool steel, hardened to ... um ... very hard!
• Handle - 110mm x 36mm x 22mm (4.3" x 1.42" x 0.87").
• Overall length - 255mm (10.0").

Handle materials, working backwards from the blade:

• Guard - O1 tool steel (same as the blade, but not hardened)
• Brass plate (0.5mm thick)
• Wood (fairly sure it comes from a tree, but I have no idea what type of tree!)
• Stainless steel plate (0.5mm thick)
• Epoxy resin block
• Stainless steel plate (0.5mm thick)
• More wood (same tree)
• Another brass plate (0.5mm thick)
• Aluminium pummel at the end

After shaping and finishing, I treated the wood with lemon oil polish, specifically suited for polishing natural wood.  Before the oil went on it was a dusty grey colour, but the oil gave it a deeper golden colour with a rich sheen and it brought out the grain beautifully.

Final step was to sharpen the cutting edge of the blade.  Another recent purchase was a little tool specifically for this purpose - see the photo.  It clamps onto the back of the blade and the guide rods slide through the slots to keep the sharpening stones at a constant angle of 17°, 20°, 25° or 30°, depending on the intended application of the blade.  I chose 25° for this one.  What you cannot see in the photo is that the clamp is exactly the same on both sides, so it simply flips upside down and the bit that is currently in the vice then points upwards so you can sharpen the other side of the blade.

The sharpening stones are graded 'coarse', 'medium' and 'fine'.  When I was happy that the edge was suitably ground down to be nicely sharp, I wrapped a piece of very fine emery paper (5,000 grit) around one of the stones and used that to polish the cutting edge to remove the fine scratches left by the stone.  It is now probably sharp enough to shave the whiskers off a walrus ... although I have no intention of testing it for that application ... only because there are not many walrusses in south Lincolnshire!

Beautiful and functional ...

For my birthday earlier in the year, I was given a gift to attend a class to learn the basic techniques of leather working.  The class was postponed because of the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, but look forward to attending the class just as soon as the studio is open again.  I think this knife deserves a leather sheath.  Watch this space ...