Damascus Steel Kitchen Knives Part 2-3

 Shaping the Knife -  Day 2

Shaping a knife generally starts with shaping the tang of the knife. The tang is the narrow part of a knife that fits into the handle. We used a smaller forge for this process and only heated the area of our billet that we needed to manipulate. 

Fortunately we had an induction forge to provide instant heat which uses electricity through looped steel tubing to heat our billets quickly.

Shaping occurs using the forge and hammer, drawing out the tang first, which is the narrow section of the knife for the handle. The billet needs constant manipulation, developing the ricasso or heel of the knife and then drawing out the blade itself. This is achieved by constant heating and manipulating, although there is usually about 8 or so minutes between adjustments.

Once the tang, ricasso and blade shape is confirmed, the knife can be cut to size, noting a  centimetre short given the blade will be drawn out further again later.

At this time, we repeated this process as we were making a second knife.

We ended up with 2 knife blank shapes. We then took these knives to the belt sander to shape our knives to a true shape and sand back to a shiny steel finish.

We now had our true knife shape and took them back into the forge to 1200c and then quenched in canola oil for the heat treatment.

After quenching, the knives are baked in an oven for 2 hours to temper the steel. After baking, the knives are sanded back to bare steel on the belt sanders and a step cut into the tang in order to fit the handle.

Ric Noble

20 April 2024

https://youtu.be/RTBK9Uf9KJY?si=JAD0w1sOMr9gnNvl

Tharwa Valley Forge

https://www.tharwavalleyforge.com/