Joshua States

Nice work! Why do all the Japanese knife parts have names that sound like food?

Disclaimer: I know squat about tantos and eastern blades. Now that is out of the way, I really love this knife. It has such graceful lines, and all those curves! Especially those subtle ones along the spine and the clip. Just an absolutely spectacular piece of work. Bravo sir!

You go brother!

Funny, I would call that collection "a pretty good start"!

Good to do that every once in a while. Good progress so far.

Both the Japanese and the Norse used pine charcoal. From what I understand, pine and fir burns faster and hotter. Hardwoods burn slower and cooler.

I drilled a bunch of 1/2 inch holes through the bottom of the kettle. I still started a fire underneath, but the holes allowed for more heat/flame to attack the wood inside, and over a larger surface area. I also start a small burn on the top around the perimeter at the same time. Once both fires are burning well, I cover the top and let it sit. It takes most of the day to burn out, and the smoke is really minimal. I think that if I added a retort function and redirected the off-gasses back into the kettle, it would likely burn much faster. Not sure about that though. The pine

I don't know if it will help you or not, but I have a thread here on a retort style charcoal kettle. I have had very good results with this method and it doesn't smoke so much as to annoy the neighbors.

The book is pretty cool too! I'm about halfway through it.

How about losing those two knobs and doing the height bolt slightly differently? Thread it into the base plate. Have it pass though the motor frame arm. Put a nut under the arm to secure the arm to the bolt head. Ned to adjust height? just loosen the nut, turn the bolt head, tighten the nut. Eliminates the possibility of the motor arm bouncing.

Just a small suggestion. Don't make the shoulders for the guard so large. Cut out a mostly triangular tang with a truncated point. Have the tang gently slope up to the shoulders. Make a pritchel hold down. Weld a piece of angle iron to one end of the billet. Stand up the billet with the angle iron on the anvil face. Apply the pritchel hold down to the angle iron. Use a hot cutter in one hand and a hammer in the other.

Cool idea. You will need some way to move either the motor, or the work table up and down in very small (think thousandths of an inch) increments. Is that what that screw on the left is for? For an extra $85 or so, you could replace that drum sander with a contact wheel, Take that drum sander wheel and use it as an idler wheel (or buy an actual idler wheel). Then put the idler wheel on a tensioning rod above the contact wheel and use your 2x72 belts.

I think this is misplaced

I salute you! Well done and an incredible series of forgings. I did search and rescue work for seven years (high angle serious technical stuff that used ropes and rigging systems) and we had a saying: "There is no wrong way to tie a knot. Either you have the knot when you are done or you don't. How you got there is not important." I think the finished product looks very much like it was supposed to turn out. My neck hurts just thinking about forging that RR flange into a usable blade.

All too true and the knifemaker's quandary.