# 225mm Aogami super Gyuto.



## John N

Hello,

This is one I just finished up, the blade is AO super blue, carbon clad. The handle is bog oak with ebony and a stirling silver spacer. 

I have been spending quite a bit of time working on grind geometry, and my knives are staring to cut ok now ! (even though the finish on this one is quite agricultural!) 

All the best !

John


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## John N

not the best pic in the world, but this gives an idea of the grind. It not 'thin thin' this one, but does release quite well.


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## MBrock

Beauty!


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## chinacats

Nice knife! I haven't seen many people able to source ao super in the states (can only think of MC) you must have some good comnections. Profile looks nice and my personal tastes fall in line with food release.


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## labor of love

Looking good John. I like handle work and blade profile a lot. Keep posting work that you do.


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## valgard

looks very good!


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## John N

Thanks for the nice words ! I am in the UK, and the availability of good steel is improving, if you know where to look  

Ive got a tasty looking bar of Blue2, some pure Ni sheet, and some of the mankest wrought iron ive ever seen, so back to forging soon (I kind of view the grinding and handle making as a necessary evil!). 

I was happy with my forge finish a month ago, but now decided it needs improving, so I only have to grind the lower bevel, and there is a sharp transition from ground to forged. The one posted above was forged to finish, but I know I can do better with a bit of practice ! 

I am shooting for super minimalist at the moment, which seems harder to get right than you would think. The silver spacer on this one was an experiment to break up the bog oak and ebony, which do not look quite right together without a spacer. (my handle construction is 'blind dowel' so it needs to be made in 2 bits) - I am working on a couple which are just bog oak front and back. One with a copper spacer to see how that looks. So many things to try, so little time !!


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## HRC_64

The finish on that knife isn't that far off at all, 
it has a kind of 'inustrial' look to it. 

I'd just be a bit concerned about wiping fully clean 
(if its reactive).


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## John N

Industrial is what I do (im a factory monkey by trade, building forging machines) - Im not to sure about the reactivity of the cladding on this one, as it is 'pre laminated', Its just described as carbon clad super. I have got some stainless clad super which is nice, but it takes a bit of finishing, and I don't like grinding stainless ! 

I will make my own san mai for the next few I do, and then probably use a bit more of the pre-lam (although it feels like cheating!) - I bought the pre-lam so I could practice forging fully to profile, without having to much time investment in the staring material. 

The photo below is a stainless pre-lam 'super' It has a Ni barrier layer, but I think there is still some carbon diffusion from the core into the cladding, I showed this blade to some super knowledgeable bladesmiths, and the consensus was carbon diffusion.


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## milkbaby

It's very beautiful, great job! I like the grind too, not every knife has to be crazy thin behind the edge in my opinion. There are some advantages to a thicker convex edge.


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## John N

Im still playing around with grinds at the moment, ive built a decent sized horizontal wheel wet grinder which is making things a lot easier. I currently taking them to about .15 mm at the edge from the grind stone, before hand sanding and sharpening, I think this ones a bit too meaty behind the edge, but not by much. Im dialing it in  

I took a few blades to a 'gathering' earlier this year to get some advice on grind geometry, including the stainless one pictured above. I sought opinion on the blade from a very experienced kitchen knife guy, and he bought it off me on the spot. Nearest Ive got to a win


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## John N

Found another couple of blades I had forged and pretty well forgotten about so finished them up on sunday, tried a couple of variations on the dark : dark handles. The all bog oak handle has a copper spacer, and an ebony / bog oak spacerless. 

The all bog oak handle blade is wrought / mild & 15n20 damascus cladding over HItachi Blue2.


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## labor of love

They look really nice. Keep up the good work!


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## John N

Eventually managed to get back to forging last weekend, made a monster billet of wrought iron with Takefu blue2 core, Ni barrier layer. The billet started at 2kgs !!  welded cleanly and had the look of a slice of streaky bacon at test etch!

Middled the billet and drew half of it out to 'knife starting stock' , the second pic shows half the billet as was, and half drawn out. 

I have forged a knife from a bit of this, and it looks promising, which is good as it was unknown wrought iron, and there is enough material here for about 8 decent sized knives ! just need to find a bit of time to get the first blade finished and tested, before I get giddy and forge loads from the rest of the stock. Will put up some pics of 'test blade' when its done. (did not want to clutter up the forum with a new thread for this, so tacking it onto the previous one!)


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## Midsummer

Enjoying your Blog, thanks


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## John N

this is the billet in 'kit form' The wrought iron was dug up on the industrial estate my factory is on, it was a structural beam, the building near the find spot is 1900'ish, the wrought could have pre-dated that building! Its really 'dirty' wrought, so should have some nice character when on the blade !  (but it makes it a real pig to work, very splitty)


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## milkbaby

Very nice work as always! Making san mai with local wrought iron is cool, it's a good story (in my opinion) and looks fantastic.


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## John N

Got an unexpected knifemaking pass this morning for 3 hours ! - I finish forged the small one, and got the first forge and anneal done on the other 2. The wrought is splitty to forge, so it was slow going, and I had to err on the side of caution with overworking it (hence the fat tangs) 

These did not make the length I was hoping for (240) - one is a petty at 170, the others are 200 & 210. I am pretty sure if the billet was not so splitty these would have made to the desired length, but I was nervous about working down on the narrow edge of billet after a certain point, as it was folding over and splitting. There should be enough material in the other half of the billet to get 4 blades the desired length.


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## John N

milkbaby said:


> Very nice work as always! Making san mai with local wrought iron is cool, it's a good story (in my opinion) and looks fantastic.



thanks! I think dug up stuff is pretty cool  - im getting my ass kicked a bit as the wrought is such crap quality. I should have refined it with a few weld and draw out passes to improve its final workability. But I want the character in it, and also could not be bothered, as its boring! - might change my tune if these all go blister pop split when I heat treat them. There is a reasonable chance, There were blisters in one of the blades, that were not 'my' weld seams !


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## RDalman

I have some wrought with inclusions, have tried forgewelding them shut to find it borderline impossible, which makes me think these are slag inclusions rather than welds/seams. Just a thought


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## ThinMan

John N said:


> Found another couple of blades I had forged and pretty well forgotten about so finished them up on sunday, tried a couple of variations on the dark : dark handles. The all bog oak handle has a copper spacer, and an ebony / bog oak spacerless.
> 
> The all bog oak handle blade is wrought / mild & 15n20 damascus cladding over HItachi Blue2.



Beautiful work!


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## John N

I think some of the defects on the edges are my cack handed forging, but agree, there is some defects in the wrought that just dont want to weld up, and blister etc. (makes me feel better its not all my welding anyway  ). Not a great deal of progress on the 3 above, but have got them to a state where all the metal looks clean, and they can be progressed to cold forging, normalising, logo stamping, and heat treating. They have got smaller in the process !

Took this quite nice photo, which shows the compression of the original billet, next to the spine of the blade rough forgings. They are forged to 1.5 mm at the edge.


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## John N

Quite pleased with the composition of this san mai cladding. Its 90 layers a side of wrought, mild, and a high chrome bandsaw blade backing steel. There is a pure Ni barrier layer and the core is Takefu blue2. The photos are after the first grind so the steel will pop a lot more when its finished properly. 

The blades profile and distal taper is all forged, though not quite there, as the grind line is showing 'wobbly' a bit. Ill tidy up the forging on the next ones  

Blade is approx 210 mm x 51mm at heel.


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## John N

(the 'splodges' at the edge on the photo are just light reflecting off the acid on the blade, the core is good, no Ni on the edge!)


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## Dave Martell

Looking good!


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## John N

The rough ground blade in the post above has come out quite nicely! got a lot more forged geometry into this one than my previous efforts. The handle is bog oak, and silver spacer. Blade is 205, by about (from memory) 52 at heel. 

Got enough steel left from this billet for a couple of 240 plus gyutos, Ill take it steady on the forging so they are neater than this one!

The san mai would look great with a Kasumi finish, rather than the 'etch polish' I have put on this one. I have 'hazed' it a bit just behind the edge on the stones, it shows promise.


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## Bill13

That looks very nice John. Nice profile and elegant handle.


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## John N

Thanks Bill - When I get myself a bit more organised (I have a very demanding company as a day job, so knife making tends to take a back seat) I will pay my subs here, and try and get a knife on a pass around if there is enough interest!


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## valgard

That's a stunner John.


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## John N

Thanks Valgard! Just followed you on IG


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## John N

Got some better pics of it in daylight, the steel has started to take a nice blue patina from dicing a couple of kilos of chicken ! The blade is pretty smooth, although the pics make the topography of the blade look like the alps !


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## merlijny2k

Cool stuff you are making! I like the wrought iron angle. Haven't seen one up close yet unfortunately.

Could you explain what constitutes 'forged geometry' in your view?


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## John N

The blade is forged quite thick at the neck, then almost steps down before the makers mark, to the forged distal taper. The bevels are also forged in, so only the lower portion of the blade is ground. I need to get a bit neater at this, as the grind line is showing a bit wobbly in places.


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## John N

Pinched a couple of hours this afternoon, and got these 2 forged out, a 210, and a 250 is SC125 that was gifted to me by another maker. Nice to be working something that did not want to fall apart at the first missed hammer blow! - will try and wave a hamon down these next week.


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## merlijny2k

Man don't post pictures like that! Makes me get the forging itch big time!!!


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## John N

Dont get into it ! this is the first time ive forged for a couple or 3 weeks, and Ive been like a junkie thinking about it! - very addictive hobby. I do manage to forget the world when im forging for a couple of hours though. 

Got the two above annealed, cold forged and lashed a rough profile onto them. Really on the fence about the profile of the larger one. It might throw a bit of Sori when its quenched, which would improve it.... its just not there at the moment.


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## Matus

How comes I have missed this thread for so long? You are doing some great work. The choil shot you posted earlier reminds me of some asymmetrically ground Japanese gyutos. Very nice. I went to check whether you are on IG just to find out, that I have commented on your last post today (the photo above actually) 

The blade above look great. Do you have a power hammer of some kind or do you do this all by hand? EDIT: nope, you do not, I just checked your IG 

And not to forget - the handles you are making are really nice. The way you taper the ferrules reminds me a bit the way how Will Catchside does it.

Please keep posting your WIP and finished blades


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## John N

Thanks Matus ! I am having to do quite a bit of hand hammering on kitchen knives, which is pretty alien to me, but im starting to get into it, and enjoy it. I'm still very power hammer dependent, but I am 'time poor' so need the power whackers to get anything completed.

Edit, Ive known Will for about 15 years, I have not deliberately 'copied' the handle shape, but I think its just in my head that's how you do them !


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## milkbaby

Looking forward to seeing the SC125 with hamon! Nice...


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## John N

Had to re-quench this 240 gyuto as I put the hamon too high, and think I over refined the grain, reducing the hardenability so the hamon is not quite where I intended to put it, now a bit too low, but im pretty pleased for my first try at honyaki blade in 8 years ! - this is SC125, which is a steel ive not learnt properly yet. I think I can do good things with it in the future.

This would probably survived a water quench, with the excessive normalisation's, and put the wiggle where I intended, but its all good learning 











edit, this blade is the one shown as forged, as a 250 above. it lost a bit doing the heel / handle transition !


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## John N

Got a forging day today! some interesting metal in this batch. two of them are AO super, carbon clad, two are the wrought iron damascus mix san mai, same as earlier in this thread, and a 260 in SC125. Also did 4 little ones in wrought iron over blue2.


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## John N

These are 100% as forged, hence the slightly wonky profiles! - the profiles will mellow after 30 seconds on a belt grinder, they look 'honest' as forged I think.


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## McMan

John N said:


> ...they look 'honest' as forged I think.


Agreed! Those profiles look nice as-forged; I imagine they'll be great once ground in.


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## John N

Quick tidy up on the profiles, and successfully heat treated (except the sc125, Ill do that one next week - it needs a dose of thinking about !) 

Ive had some good feedback on a blade profile I made a couple or 3 months ago, so have loosely based a couple of these on that one (low ish tip, long flat portion).


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## milkbaby

These all look nice. The bottom one with the clipped heel looks like it has less belly going to the tip? Or is that an optical illusion due to the vantage point?


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## John N

@milkbaby - I really only gave the profiles on these 2 or 3 mins 'lash' on the grinder with a 36g ceramic from the 'as forged' profiles, without too much thought. I like them to be within a few mm of profile when I start the heat treatment. There has been next to no work on the heel / handle transitions.

The one you point out does look a bit awkward as it sits in the photo, it looks like it needs a couple of mm shaving off the edge profile, where the parer blade is pointing to. 

I have got to the point in making, where I try not to get too OCD about the subtle bits until the blade is through heat treat, straight, and 'finishable' into a knife. These all came out as finishable  - strangely the more I practice the luckier I get with forging and heat treating 

Of the 4 wrought iron parer blades I forged though, only one has made it through to grinding. 1 blistered, 2 split the spines on quench. There was a big thickness transition on the blades, from the tang to the spine (5mm, to 2 mm) - I think the cooling differential was too much for them. Ill post a pic of the lonely survivor if I finish it!


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## Christian Trajkovski

Really nice handles on those knives, thumbs up!


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## Flipnfry

Sorry if i'm late and uninvolved but where i can i purchase a knife from you!?


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## John N

@Flipnfry I sell a few mostly through word of mouth, and instagram. Ive not paid my subs here yet, so don't promote. just post any interesting work in progress stuff im up to.


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## samuraistuart

John, where in the galaxy far far away did you find Aogomi Super? Are you a Murray Carter student? That's the only way I know of to obtain the stuff. The New Jersey Steel Baron had Aogomi 2, of which I bought a sheet. I've also made a few knives out of the SS clad V-Toku 2 (Takefu) steel from Bill Burke. Then there is Workshop Heaven and Dictum who have clad (and mono) White and Blue (but not Aogomi Super). Just curious as to where you sourced it. The 125SC is one I hope to try soon...and the only place I know to get that stuff from is Achim Wirtz in Germany. I've used a bit of his 1.2442/115W8 custom smelt.....awesome steel. I just wish the industry here in the USA would provide the knife maker community with more carbon steels to work with, preferably high tungsten steels like F2/1.2562/etc. But I realize we are a super small niche, the modern PM steels they make have many uses in many industries, and they don't care to cater to us. 

Nice work, BTW!!!


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## Butaru

Very nice work!


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## John N

@samuraistuart - I am in the UK, we have a distributor of the full range of Takefu blade steels. They offer pre-laminated AO super, clad in stainless or plain carbon (along with the full range of 'standard' 'non super' blue cored steel)

I used to buy standard hitachi blue from workshop heaven, but the price was quite frightening. I now buy the Takefu blue, which is available in 6mm x 50mm (1/4 x 2") sheared plate strips. Which could not be more perfect for san-main billets.

The SC125 was gifted to me by another maker in the UK, who got it directly from Achim in Germany. I did email Achim to buy some more, but did not get a reply - which is probably a blessing, as cloud chasing is very addictive to me, and the finishing work on a honyaki blade is about 5x a normal san mai blade (for me) - My old RSI started to twinge after doing the one posted above.


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## John N

Im pretty happy with the composition of the metal on this one! shown in the 'as forged' pics above.


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## John N

oh, and some exciting news! my metal dealer is getting me some Super Blue 1/4" thick x 2" wide x bar length  so I can put the super into my own san mai mix


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## YG420

John N said:


> Im pretty happy with the composition of the metal on this one! shown in the 'as forged' pics above.


Looks awesome!


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## inferno

yes, really cool.


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## McMan

YG420 said:


> Looks awesome!


+1 !


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## John N

Got the one above finished, quite pleased with how it came out - this one is going into an auction held by the local Church for the 'new roof' fund. Hopefully it will pay for a tile or two


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## Barmoley

That is very nicely done. Would love to try something like that when you start making them


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## John N

This pic gives an idea of the grind. Im basically taking them to 'zero' now on the wet grinder before sharpening.


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## parbaked

I like everything about that knife!
The shaping of the handle is just sexy...


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## HRC_64

Looks amazing... +1



John N said:


> This pic gives an idea of the grind. Im basically taking them to 'zero' now on the wet grinder before sharpening.


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## John N

@parbaked - Thanks ! bog oak is just amazing stuff for handles. Costs next to nothing if you have a good supplier, looks great and is durable. wipe of oil and it looks like new again. Got a bit of depth to it. 

I freehand the handles on the sander, try and 'balance' them individually to suit the blade. Good fun but kind of frustrating when you recon an hour for a handle and it takes 4 !


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## half_hack

Just stumbled on this thread since it was linked in the new posts area of KKF. There's a town called Didsbury not too far from where I live in Alberta Canada, so I got all excited that there might be a knifemaker not too far from where I am. I see from your IG that you're in England though, so clearly a different Didsbury.

None of that takes away from the fact that you're making gorgeous knives! Beautiful stuff.


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## John N

@half_hack cheers for the nice words ! you can be my Didsbury Canadian sales agent when my productivity improves  - Over here in the UK, Didsbury is a nice suburb of Manchester, The bee in my stamp is the official symbol of Manchester, representing work.


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## samuraistuart

Thanks so much for the reply, John. Great looking blades. Just amazing work. Would you mind sending me a link to the Takefu supplier you mentioned in the UK? I've used Takefu V-Toku 2 stainless clad (410 I think)....billets offered by Bill Burke here in the states. Great steel. Seems to be like Hitachi Blue 2, but with Swedish iron ore that is claimed to be even more pure than Hitachi! I was impressed. I hardened/tempered those V-Toku 2 blades to ~64HRC, and the one my father has had for 2 years of hard use still had an impressive edge on it this Thanksgiving. I am a sucker for good quality steel! [email protected]


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## John N

Stuart, pinged you a message. I have heard, but can not confirm, that some of the Takefu core steel is manufactured by Hitachi. There is still a bit of mystery around the subject. 

I will ask Andrew at 'Twosticks' forge next time I speak with him, I know he met up with the guys from Takefu when they were in the UK a couple of months ago.

On a more exciting note, I have just agreed to buy a decent sized rolling mill (20hp, single stand), So next year I will be able to really kick it up a notch on output and quality!


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## samuraistuart

Got the PM John! Thank you so much. Reply sent. I had no idea about the Hitachi relation with Takefu steels, but honestly I am not that knowledgeable about either company, really. All I know is that Hitachi will not sell on the international market to makers or distributors, unless they were trained in Japan to use, and more importantly, heat treat their steels. At least that is what I have been told. Hitachi is proud of their steels, and don't want shoddy heat treatments give their steels a bad rep. To which I cry foul. The steels are good steels, but nothing special at all, and some of the heat treat practices I've seen done by Japanese smiths, while adhering to the "old ways", aren't necessarily the correct, or "best", method, and can be improved upon. Congrats on the rolling mill! Wow! That's quite interesting, and I hope it is a boost to your craft!


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## John N

@samuraistuart no worries on the steel sources. 

The rolling mill will be quite amusing. I really don't need it, agreed to swap it for something when I was 'compromised' after a drink, and am now pondering what I will do with a 7 ton machine (never mind getting it from a different country), as a bladesmith with an output of maybe 25 knives a year. 

Hopefully I will win the 'most toys when they die' competition, if nothing else


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## John N

On a more knife making note, I got the wind in my sails and knocked out, and heat treated this little batch of petty's last weekend, and got them ground and ready for handles yesterday. These are blue2 core suminagashi. It was a joy to work compared to my own clad steels.






They sold in no time on Instagram. I will try and do some more before Christmas. Its nice to be working on 'low stress' knives


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## John N

@samuraistuart - take all my comments about steel manufacturers, and who supplies who with a pinch of salt. Its 'Chinese whispers'. I really don't know!

The Blue2 steel I have bought in the past from 'Workshop Heaven' (Europe) was sold, and labelled as Hitachi Blue2. So it is sold outside Japan. (my eyes watered when I paid for it though)


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## samuraistuart

Ha! BTW...good looking Blue 2 knives. Yeah, Workshop Heaven and Dictum are the only two places that I know of that will sell "Hitachi" steels. And how they managed that...I haven't a clue! I made a petty out of the White 2/wrought iron san mai billets they had some years ago prior to when I had a good heat treating oven. I sent it out to a pro company here in the USA, and that knife NEVER held an edge worth squat. Turns out, I later found out the hardening temp they used. 1575f, which is a full 100f hotter than it should have been!!! No wonder that knife underperformed badly! Way too much retained austenite for White steel, too much plate martensite. The edge just would sort of crumble in light use. Now I have a kiln that holds an extremely tight temperature, but only reaches 1775f, so I am limited to A2 and under if I want to keep heat treat in house. 

One of our main steel suppliers here, Aldo Bruno the New Jersey Steel Baron, actually managed to acquire some Hitachi Blue 2 a few years back (mono steel, not clad). I made quite a few knives out of it, and still have a little bit left over. Good steel, seemed to be. Some guys got part of the batch that had SUPER wicked alloy/carbide banding. The blades looked like folded steel, in a way, just massive banding. I don't care for that much, preferring a better homogeneous structure, but it looks cool, and I've heard doesn't seem to affect performance.


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## John N

This is a bare blade I sold to a chef a good while ago, that was then handled by the very talented Steffen Toksvig. I think it turned out nice!


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## valgard

Very nice!


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## McMan

Diggin' that profile!


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## John N

Had a few weeks layoff from knifemaking due to some insane work commitments, but eased myself back into it on sunday with this Takefu blue2 core petty, for a member on here. Blades about 140mm ish, from memory!

Long was to go until its a finished knife, but quite pleased with it so far! I have improved my finishing, time and quality wise a lot on this one.


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## HRC_64

I like almost everything I see in this thread...


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## John N

managed to get an 'infocus' shot of one of the petty's im working on. Too thin ? Its measuring about .2 mm, about 1.5 mm to 2mm up from the edge (0.008") - not sharpened yet.....

Overall height of blade is about 32mm at heel, to give a reference to the pic!


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## McMan

A lot to like with a grind like that!


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## John N

@McMan - I think that is your one  just give me a month or two to attach a bit of wood to the blunt end ....


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## John N

This is the first 'Wide bevel' Japanese knife I have worked on, as a refurb for a local chef.

Quite a satisfying project, made me realise I have a lot to learn! - The finish is from a 2000 grit synthetic stone, I could have got a better finish, eventually......, but the law of diminishing returns was coming into play and the knife had eaten a lot of time already!


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