After much gnashing of teeth and a bin full of mistakes, I have finally completed my first knife! It's far from perfect, and the handle is shorter than intended, but it does feel good in my hand. Choosing a chef knife for the first to complete was NOT my brightest of ideas, for sure, but I wanted to give my girlfriend a nice birthday gift, and decided to jump in the deep end, so to speak.
It's 52100 steel. It has a 7" blade and is 11 1/2" overall. It also has a tapered tang has I chose a thicker piece (5/32" at it's thickest). I heat treated it myself in an oven I built and also recently finished. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it.
