Dan P.

I was relieved to watch it through to the end where he offered that it was in fact a very good deal for $35, otherwise it would have been unfair. And frankly expecting a knife to be shaving sharp after “finishing” it on what appears to be a crummy kitchen steel... no.

Owen is that 3:1 pitch to wax? How many parts dust? Years ago I made a batch according to some ye olde recipe, it had a ratio of rosin in it, which smelled nice but made it quite brittle. I do have a knife fixed with it in my kitchen, though, still sound years later, but it was a tight friction fit “wa” handle.

I had a 36"(ish) radius platen that I made myself. It got the workpiece very hot. I found it difficult to manage heat with already HT'd knives.

Exactly. You might've even dodged a bullet if they are riding those kinds of bad vibes.

That's Brian 20+ years later

I'm not old school, Alan, I'm just a cheapskate.

I think he might still be going? He certainly was a few years ago, in his early 90s!

The above is a hard stitched mop, but a home made (at users own risk and all precautions taken) leather faced MDF/HDF wheel, or store bought hard felt wheel would likely be better. Whatever the case, these things are bloody dangerous if used incorrectly, so if in doubt, leave it out. Alan, tripoli and rottenstone are definitely in the realm of buffing rather than glazing. For glazing Emery is what you want, or what us moderns might call aluminium oxide. they would both be artificial, just possibly different grades of abrasive.

Also interesting is how many of the grinding and glazing processes we enjoy watching in youtube videos of the Japanese knife industry are Sheffield (okay, maybe Thiers and Solingen too) technologies that survived as cottage industries in Japan while all but dieing (sp??) out in their country/s of origin.

The channel the above video is from has a number of wonderful Sheffield related items. One of the more astonishing is this, in which a die sinker is shown working, as far as I can tell, pretty much purely by eye;

A wonderful video of grinding legend and all round good egg Brian Alcock and his brother Tom (who I have not met and as far as I know no longer works as a grinder) doing their thing;

I would recommend getting in touch with one of the importers of high end Japanese wood tools. I think they would very likely have a big boner for your project and help to put you in touch with a smith in Japan or act in some other helpful way as intermediaries.

Lol, Gerald, this is such a non issue. I use coke by the tonne. You don't. Get back in your box, crazy!

I think we can conclude that opinions differ on the matter, and that we await the findings of a conclusive number of peer reviewed scientific studies of whether a piece of wood will keep a coke fire going over a lunchtime break.

Years ago I was working on a big c.17th (I think?) restoration project down in London. All of the original iron was of course.... Swedish!

I'm not sure the world is really all that interested in our little disagreement here, Gerald. Can I presume that you yourself do not actually use metallurgical coke?

Beautiful!

business lunch?

I'm mostly imagining the astonishing quality of that iron he's using. You couldn't treat my wrought like that!

It all explodes, Alan! That's one of the really fun things about coke.

I don't even want to use the "nuts"- 3/4 x3/4" -ish, unless I am heating something quite big, like 30mm+ With coke you'd usually want "breeze", "peas" or "beans".

Lol, you must have eaten some of that Shropshire Blue cheese before bedtime that day. Just try it yourself, you or anyone reading this- put a small piece of wood into a coke fire, go away for a few hours, and when you come back it will either still be lit, or it won't (SPOILER ALERT- it won't).

As a matter of principle I want people to buy my knives because they are good knives, not because of a fancy handle. Unfortunately the market is not with me on that one, but I persist. As an aside I've found that very dense tropical hardwoods are a PITA to work with, for various reasons. There's plenty of good local hardwood even in a relatively treeless country as mine.

It must have been some of that magic Shropshire coke.