Competition Knife

[LongRifle]

This knife has an odd history .

The blade, as forged, looked nothing like it looks now. It was a massive south west bowie. As I was finishing out the blade on the anvil I accidently put the blade on the corner of the anvil and put a fine pock mark in the blade. As soon as the blade cooled enough to handle I knew the knife was scrap. I decided to grind the blade out anyway; I wanted some practice grinding south west bowies. The practice actually came in handy on a small south west I am working on now. So after I profiled and rough ground the blade I chucked it in the scrap pile.

I pulled this blade out of the scrap bin when Greg Covington told me he needed some guys for the SOFA cutting comp this Friday. I had no intention of finishing this blade out, but I knew I didn't have time to get a knife together otherwise.

This knife is smaller than I would make for a competition; the blade is 9.5"x1.75"x.27. I would have taken advantage of the 10x2 limit if I had time.

I have really been working hard on developing hamons lately so I decided to use this blade for practice and see if all my note taking would pay off. I think it did, and I can finally produce these results consistently.

I am anxious to see how this knife performs at the competetion, so far I've been pretty happy with it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this knife after the competition; the knife has grown on me, but until I put a handle on it I really didn't care for it, in fact I friggin hated it. I'm still not crazy about it but I'm pleased with the results.

I finally made some headway in the sheath backlog department and only have another one to make. I'm also working on my last order now. It feels pretty good to get things cleared out.

The first shot is the knife cleaned up. The second and third are shots I took after cutting through quite a bit of card board and 2x4 (obviously before final clean up). As things usually work out the best lighting today was when the blade was scratched and dirty . If things clear up I'll post a couple nicer pics.

Black linen handle, 416ss fittings, forged 1065 blade.

Just thought you guys might like a peek .

[sdcb27]

Very nice looking blade, what process did you use to bring out the hamon?

[beebee58]

Good looking knife you have there Matt!

Why don't you send it my way !!
Oh, wait I'm in the "Gulf States" for another 2-3 weeks.

Missed you at the "Troy" show, will have too catch up with you after I rotate back home.

BB

[LongRifle]

Beebee, I was disappointed about missing the hammerin, but there wasn't much I could do about it. Make sure you stop by the shop on your way back. You're always welcome. And thanks for helping out down there, we all appreciate it.

SD, I posted a response to your question earlier, I guess it got lost... I take the blade to 2000 grit and go over it with Simichrome on a leather pad. Then I thoroughly clean the blade with detergent while I'm boiling vinegar. I clean the blade several times, the cleaner the better. If you have a hood in your kitchen, use it; boiling vinegar STINKS. I pour the vinegar over the blade (or put the blade in the vinegar depending on the size of the blade) when the reaction stops I remove the blade and clean it. I polish the oxides off the blade using simichrome, then I repeat the process for a total of two or three etches. It is possible to over etch though.

One tip I would give everyone is don't use sandpaper to remove the oxides. I wasn't really concerned with the finish on this blade so I've been beating it around. I've since cleaned the blade up with 1500 and 2000 grit paper. The paper absolutly washes out the hamon. The hamon looked like it was hovering above the blade after the original finish.

Hope that helps.

[LongRifle]

Beebee, by the way, if you need it let me know and I'll send it down...

[David Johansen]

Awesome!! And thanks for sharing your hamon process!!

[beebee58]

Thanks for the offer Matt, but at this time I'm not in one place long enough to recieve mail. We got lucky and got issued laptops with wireless and satalite connections. And "I.T." monitors our transmissions, so that is why I keep eveything short