Pieter-Paul Derks

I love those two knives, that ironwood handle looks really comfortable.

I had to dig quite far, but I managed to find a picture of my first knife, now 6.5 years ago. mild steel of course, and the picture is horrible too, but we all have to start somewhere. On the bottom a knife I finished earlier this year, which I'm quite proud of,takedown construction, my own damascus and leather sheath. I also got a lot better at taking pictures.

Jep I´ve burned plenty of steel, and it looks just like that. By any chance, are you using the japanese style of welding where sparks are flying everywhere? I did exactly the smae when I was first learning forge welding. It works for the bloomery steel the japanese are using, but modern mild steel will just desintegrate at those heats. If I were you I would look around for some wrought iron, this will work better with traditional methods and also look nicer in the finished product. Angele in germany also sells very pure iron, which is nice and reliable for san

I have done inlay before on a damascus ring. I cut the grooves before heat treat, and covered them in anti scale and cleaned up with a metal wirebrush in a flexshaft type tool. This worked perfectly, you will have to sand the surface back anyway. The inside of the grooves actually does not matter too much, as long as the dovetail shape is good. In my opinion cutting the grooves after heat treat will be a pain with a lot of broken graver points, and the unhardened damascus will not etch nicely. Alternatively, seek out someone with a salt pot setup, I belie

I have done inlay before on a damascus ring. I cut the grooves before heat treat, and covered them in anti scale and cleaned up with a metal wirebrush in a flexshaft type tool. This worked perfectly, you will have to sand the surface back anyway. The inside of the grooves actually does not matter too much, as long as the dovetail shape is good. In my opinion cutting the grooves after heat treat will be a pain with a lot of broken graver points, and the unhardened damascus will not etch nicely. Alternatively, seek out someone with a salt pot setup, I belie

I have done inlay before on a damascus ring. I cut the grooves before heat treat, and covered them in anti scale and cleaned up with a metal wirebrush in a flexshaft type tool. This worked perfectly, you will have to sand the surface back anyway. The inside of the grooves actually does not matter too much, as long as the dovetail shape is good. In my opinion cutting the grooves after heat treat will be a pain with a lot of broken graver points, and the unhardened damascus will not etch nicely. Alternatively, seek out someone with a salt pot setup, I belie

Thanks for the picture, these are really amazing artefacts. To my eyes it looks like the gold is either inlayed, or fused to the iron. Think of the korean ''keum-bo'' process, this technique was actually quite widespread as it is quite easy to get pure gold to stick to other metals. But as always with historical stuff, I might be totally wrong.

I have had problems with my leg vise not gripping stock securely and mine is actually in really good condition. The best thing I ever did to it is make a pair of loosely fitting jaws from angle iron. Because they wobble a bit they correct the angle from the vise and also grip tapered knife blades without marring. The more precise a vise is, the worse it grips forged pieces.

whoa there really is a lot to love on this knife

For this kind of work a small fly press would be ideal I think. For jewelry work I have also used a hand powered press that worked with and eccentric cam and lever, I have no idea how it is called, but it worked a treat for cutting small pieces of metal. To my ears 2mm thickness sounds like a lot for a japanese saw, I have a decent sized Kataba, and the blade is only 0.8mm thick. For cutting 2mm carbon steel you will need a surprising amount of force, more than any normal sized arbor press will provide.

Afaik the size of the knife does not really matter in the choice of sheath type. As a general rule a folded sheath is simpler, and you have to do less stitching. attaching a belt loop is somewhat trickier than on a stacked sheath. A stacked sheath has the advantage that tooling is easier, because you are working with flat leather and stiching on a belt loop/retaining straps is simple to do before the parts are put together. A stacked sheath tends to bet a bit wider and less form fitting, and so it can look out of place on smaller knives. For the knife you ment

I once got a plank of ukrainian? bog oak of ebay, and I was completely happy with it, apart from a small crack at the end the wood is perfectly usable and nice quality. The only thing to look out for is to get big enough pieces for knife handles, some of the pieces they sell are quite thin.

That is a nice knife, I like the walnut pommel

Hello everyone, I plan on making a few saya-nomi soon, and I thought there might be some interest from the bladesmiths on this forum. The price will be around 100 euro/ 118 dollar, and I have no problems shipping all over the world. These curved push chisels have a very special geometry which makes them ideal and very fast for hollowing out wooden scabbards in japanese swords making. I use mine on almost all wood cored handles and sheaths,it is also ideal for making sword and seax handles. I wouldn't want to be without one in my shop, and since they are

Thanks everyone! I am quite pleased with this one myself, I hope i will get my hands on some more of this handle material. i ground the plunges by first doing normal plunge cuts about a half inch in front of where I wanted the plunges and then just very carefully feahtered them out on the grinder, by lifting the blade away from the belt slowly and cutting with the belt edge. I hope this makes a bit of sense. the most difficult thing was that the only belts I have that track perfectly are my 40 grits, so I had to start hand sanding at 60 grit any bit of belt wo