Knife Thirty Three and Thirty Four. Two Pattern Welded Steak Knives
I made these two knives as wedding presents for lizzy and Henry. At the time I started making them, we were expecting their wedding to take place in June 2020. Sadly the covid lockdown meant we had to sit in a park on on the day of their wedding and they had to wait more than a year for their big day. Hopefully the knives cheered them up at a very difficult time.
I started by making a single billet of cs70 and 15n20 steel and then twisting it:
I forged it into a hexagonal bar:
Once cool I ground all the flaws off the outside:
Cut it in half at an angle and welded new handles onto the billets. Note: The better steel in the centre of the bar becomes the blades and you can see where I plan to forge the ricasso:
Here they are forged and stamped with my initials:
Here the forge scale has been cleaned off with a wire brush in the angle grinder:
Here the lower one has been ground close to the final shape before heat treatment:
This is me hardening one of the blades in oil, and below the kinives after tempering in the oven at 375F for two hours. the area near the edges that looks different is the hardened zone, the back of the blade and ricasso are not hardened as there is no need and it makes the knife much tougher:
Here are the blades finished apart from sharpening:
I used an old piece of Honduras walnut for the handles:
The following photos show how I drill through the blocks and exactly through the hole that is already in the tang:
This photo shows one of the knives prior to assembly. The tang is a close fit inside the block, there is a piece of leather that goes between the block and the blade ricasso. The block is filled with slow curing araldite and the pin is driven through using a hammer to get it all tight.
Here is the box I made to present the knives:
I carved the HE symbol they used for their wedding stationary into the handle block:
Here are the knives finished in the box:
And finally some images of the finished knives:
