Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Carter to Martell Conversion

This is a Carter wa-bocho converted to a western handle by Dave Martell of JapaneseKnifeSharpening.com







Friday, May 25, 2012

Martell Damascus Gyuto (Chef's Knife)

Here's a 240mm Martell 1084fg/15n20 damascus gyuto that I just finished up working on.


This steel was made special for us by a talented young forger from upstate NY; Dan Seaver of PureDamascus.comThe steel was wonderful to work with and provided just the look I was after. I'm sure that I'll be ordering more of this fine steel from from Dan in the near future.

The handle is comprised of African Blackwood bolsters (supplied by BurlSource), dyed Redwood Burl (supplied by the customer - acquired through Arizona Ironwood), copper pins, and double G10 liners.

The tang on this knife is all damascus although it will not give up the looks right now. I'm sure this hidden feature will reveal itself to the user over time.

Things that don't come through in the pictures is the metallic flash and movement of the burl character in the redwood (it's simply fantastic!) and the 3D movements of the patterning in blade (needs a video to see this!).



To date this is the most expensive, complex, and well detailed knife that I've done and I'm actually (for once) quite pleased with the results. I hope that the owner will like it as much (or more hopefully) and that he gets a lot of enjoyment from using it over the years. I'd like to thank him for the opportunity to push my limits.