Daniel Cauble

Knife in pre-HT grind window etch. Made from bar 2 posts up.

Another puck of similar composition as the last bar made and set to the side to keep the momentum rolling. Perfect melt. Super undercooling. Due to extremely slow cooling, the structure solidified with the cementite moving from primary dendrites to GBC. The center, last to solidify probably did so in more of a jolt in comparison to the rest with the presence of dendrites. Should be a super, easy forging with the health of the ingot and composition. No graphite formation. Carbon looks to be around 1.6-1.7%.

Using different alloys to obtain different patterns..

You may have something there!

Have you checked my thread a ways down? The likely reason why you are experiencing low carbon at the bottom and really high at the top, is because you really need the lower chamber to be hotter initially. Perhaps a longer pre-heat before the first injection of material. When the furnace isn't hot enough, the iron doesn't stay molten for long and could freeze up before it reaches the maximum bottom, which also leaves decreases carbon uptake since most of it is from the atmosphere when it is molten. This eventually builds up and the last of the material to be melted is very close to

The 260mm long Gyuto right before I take it to my disc sander to true up surfaces and grind in the convexity. First time hitting it with a nital rub to see what's actually going on. Will deff. Do a nital dip instead. It's just a dirty polish on the grinder as I go back to 60 grit on the disc. The little bit of decarb towards tbe edge is tenacious and may not grind out, ah well.

I just recently did a lot of different mixes and tries with lining the insides to utter failure. Like super kiln washes using Zircopax and Gum. No bueno.

In all of my commercial crucibles, the life I dictate by how thin the wall gets at the slagline. That's the failpoint If there will be one for me (I've had it give once when I added lime to the slag).

1 of 2 big blades being made...a ~300mm suji. After HT, auto hamon. Cleaned up on grinder and on to stones.

Haha, I've never actually made any. From my understanding over the years, you can spend as much time learning to make the perfect crucible as you would spend making the steel. To me it is just too much of an added variable whilst trying to reduce thr amount of variables possible. silicon carbide crucibles while expensive are a necessary cost. The assurance that it's far less likely to expel its contents so as long as you know when enough is enough with them is well worth it. The cost of making a new furnace kinda outweighs the savings jn crucibles to me. It's also easy. You buy it,

Annnnd that is a new milestone for me.

It's basically a McDonald rolling mill. I've seen them on FB.

A small blade formed from the same half of puck that the previous post came from. This one has been heat treated and the decarb is revealing the steel as it grind away.

Back to the first side of the puck, the bar that was "on the verge". It certainly did the job. This was ground into a Suhihiki kitchen knife. Not yet HT. Just peeking to see where it's at in ferric with a coarse grind. The bright splotches are the last remaining bit of decarb. It was the top of the ingot.

Forged the small section. White blotches are decarb left on the blade surface. I wanted to take a peak with a ferric etch. This is a water pattern.