Walnut, nickel silver, and maple burl. #mapleburl #woodwork #customknife #handmade
A fish-mouth or bird’s-beak weld is a way to ensure the pattern in a damascus blade follows the profile of the piece pretty exactly. A wedge is cut out of the point, and then the resulting opening is forged shut and forge welded together. It can be a fairly fussy forge weld, and there isn’t much margin for error, without compromising the continuity of the pattern. This appears to have been pretty successful. Thanks @j.a.metalcraft for loaning me a bit of your flux when I ran out! Did the trick. #damascussteel #damascusknife #damascusknives #pushdagger
Band-Aid Tough Strips, because when you’re bleeding from a fresh cut on one hand or the other, who needs an easy way to open the bandage? Seriously now. Most bandaids have the little flaps at one end to make the package fast and easy to open. But Tough Strips are fully sealed at both ends. No perforations, no starter cut. Nothing. WHY????
One of my leather skiving knives heading out the door. This is my own take on a tool that is a real staple of leatherwork, and I’ve never seen any other like it. It is a pleasure to use. Awkward to make though! #leatherwork #leatherworking #leatherworkingtools #handmade #damascussteel
A kitchen set in high performance AEB-L stainless and stabilized curly maple. From top to bottom: 8” chef (full tang), 6” boning/utility, 5” petty, and 3.5” paring. #cheflife🔪🔪 #cookingknife #chef #luxurykitchens
Some super chatoyant curly maple on a matched four-piece set. “Chatoyance” is the shimmery quality produced by the wood grain rising and falling through the surface of the handle, so called because it is reminiscent of a cat’s eye. (In French, cat = chatte, eye = oeil) #curlymaple #knifeset #luxurykitchens #handmadewithlove
Carving set! Both are 1084 high carbon steel, with stabilized curly koa and nickel silver. The carving knife has a 10” blade. These were a custom order and will ship out today, so they’re not available. #meat #carnivore #entertaininginstyle #luxurylifestyle
Roughing in the shape of a nickel silver bolster dovetailed over some Hawaiian koa. #knifemaking #fulltang #curlykoa #knifenut
A rare shot of me. Photo by @rafaeldelauz
The tip of a LARGE carving knife, with two bars of twist wrapped around laddered w’s (sometimes called shark’s tooth). #damascussteel #twistdamascus #highcarbonsteel #butchering
Sneak peek at a LARGE integral knife I’m working on. Dragon’s fire damascus body with a firestorm edge. The 13” x 2” wide blade was a pretty demanding forging, given that the dragon’s fire billet I started with was 2” x 3”. #damascussteel #damascusknife #mastersmith #bladesmith
I’ve updated my 5” petty chef, which I call the Bantam. Original shape (template) above, new shape below. Improvement? #cheflife #chefknives #cooking #kniferoll
After some forging and some additional raindropping (I needed to go deeper), here is the raindrop damascus, revealed. #damascussteel #damascusknife #nakiri #knifelife
I thought I would illustrate one of the two ways I make raindrop damascus. Here I have forged out a rough blank in the shape of a 7” nakiri from layered steel. The blank is ~3x the finished thickness I want. Next I make a tracing on graph paper and mark out two offset grids (one for each side). Then I transfer the grid to the steel, center punch each spot (300+), then drill to the appropriate depth at each mark, and then go back into each divot with a ball end mill. Then at last, the billet is forged flat. #raindropdamascus #damascussteel #onewaytodoit #tedious
Usually raindrop damascus would be the most interesting steel on my bench. #damascussteel #damascussteelknife #damascusknife #handforged
DRAGON’S FIRE. Finally, I get to see the finished pattern. This one uses only simple principles of forging and forge welding, but it does take some skill to do it right. This piece is now ready for the first stage of forging, to become a knife. #dragonsfiredamascus #damascussteel #mastersmith #patternweld #patternwelding
Half of dragon’s fire. (Hard to see because it’s only rough ground and lightly etched.) For my next trick, I’ll cut this billet in half and book match it. #damascussteel #damascusknife #mastersmith #masterbladesmith
A dragon’s fire segment. #damascussteel #damascusknife #highcarbonsteel #handforged
Next step in the process for this Dragon’s Fire damascus billet. I made a wide, flat billet of crushed w’s, then cut it into sections and split each one down the middle. After surface grinding each segment, I’ve now re-stacked them for the next forge weld. Two more forge welds after this, and then I’ll be adding on another billet for the final forging. #damascussteel #dragonsfiredamascus #handforged #mastersmith
Running the segments of this damascus billet under the @wuertzmachineworks TW-90 surface grinder so that all of my mating surfaces will be clean and flat. This dramatically reduces the odds of anything that could inhibit the next forge weld. #damascussteel #damascusknife #forged #handforged