First Knife

[Alberto S]

3 hours ago, Grant Saxman said:

Nice looking blade, especially for your first! 

For your heat treat, a 400 degree temper should bring your O1 to a good level of hardness for a kitchen blade. Ideally, your temper cycles should be longer than 1 hour (usually 2 hours), because 1 hour is the minimum amount of time required for tempering to fully resolve in most steels. And you should definitely be doing 2 tempering cycles for O1, your first tempering cycle will convert all martensite to tempered martensite, but upon cooling to room temperature (or lower), retained austenite in the blade will be converted to untempered martensite. A second tempering cycle is required to convert that untempered martensite to tempered martensite. As it stands, your knife likely has untempered martensite in it which can result in a reduction of desired mechanical properties. 

Thanks for the tip Grant, I’ll be sure to correct that next time around.

[Joël Mercier]

Here's how it looks after a month of daily use. It turned blueish but still looks good IMO. On a side note, my other blades did not turn brownish yet, only gray. 

 

 

 

[Alberto S]

38 minutes ago, Joël Mercier said:

Here's how it looks after a month of daily use. It turned blueish but still looks good IMO. On a side note, my other blades did not turn brownish yet, only gray. 

 

 

 

 

 Thank you, that is a beautiful blade Joel!

[Joshua States]

Thanks for the additional pics. I think this is a superb job for a first knife and you should be proud of it.

I will now drop a few comments, because you asked for the critique.

Things I like:

Very nice work with hiding the bolster pins. At least I assume you peened them down because you said you drilled through them. This is not easy to do, especially with brass.

The handle pins appear to be in a straight line, at least in most of the photos, The center mosaic pin looks slightly lower in some pics, but that may be camera angle. Very nice that you book matched the handle slabs. Small attention to details like that are important to more discerning customers. The whole package is well proportioned and the basic shape is aesthetically pleasing (at least to me).

 

Things that bug me:

In the last two photos, it looks like the right side handle is thinner than the left side up at the bolsters (as viewed from the top). The front edges of the bolsters don't match. Both of these may be caused by the lighting, I wouldn't know for sure unless I held the knife in my hand. Pin layout: The distance from the front pin to the bolsters is greater than the distance from the back pin to the handle heel. As a result the mosaic is not centered between the other two pins. There are some visible scratches in the blade up against the bolsters in the close up photo. I don't really like the wavy line at the blade heel below the bolsters. It looks like an afterthought. It also breaks the line and is the only place on the whole knife where the curve is broken and looks out of place to me.This is totally personal preference, but I think the blade edge has too much curve to it. A little more straight before turning up toward the point is more useful for dicing veggies and slicing stuff. In the second set of photos, pics 2 & 3, the handle doesn't look centered and straight on the handle. It looks like the handle kicks a little to the left side (as viewed from the top, holding the knife).

 

All in all, a fine piece of work though. Keep us posted on future endeavors. You are off to a great start.

[Alberto S]

1 hour ago, Joshua States said:

Thanks for the additional pics. I think this is a superb job for a first knife and you should be proud of it.

I will now drop a few comments, because you asked for the critique.

Things I like:

Very nice work with hiding the bolster pins. At least I assume you peened them down because you said you drilled through them. This is not easy to do, especially with brass.

The handle pins appear to be in a straight line, at least in most of the photos, The center mosaic pin looks slightly lower in some pics, but that may be camera angle. Very nice that you book matched the handle slabs. Small attention to details like that are important to more discerning customers. The whole package is well proportioned and the basic shape is aesthetically pleasing (at least to me).

 

Things that bug me:

In the last two photos, it looks like the right side handle is thinner than the left side up at the bolsters (as viewed from the top). The front edges of the bolsters don't match. Both of these may be caused by the lighting, I wouldn't know for sure unless I held the knife in my hand. Pin layout: The distance from the front pin to the bolsters is greater than the distance from the back pin to the handle heel. As a result the mosaic is not centered between the other two pins. There are some visible scratches in the blade up against the bolsters in the close up photo. I don't really like the wavy line at the blade heel below the bolsters. It looks like an afterthought. It also breaks the line and is the only place on the whole knife where the curve is broken and looks out of place to me.This is totally personal preference, but I think the blade edge has too much curve to it. A little more straight before turning up toward the point is more useful for dicing veggies and slicing stuff. In the second set of photos, pics 2 & 3, the handle doesn't look centered and straight on the handle. It looks like the handle kicks a little to the left side (as viewed from the top, holding the knife).

 

All in all, a fine piece of work though. Keep us posted on future endeavors. You are off to a great start.

 

Thanks Joshua, as happy as I am with my knife, I'm always looking to improve anything I do, your comments are appreciated.