A completely shameless plug (nearly)

[Jeremy]

Anyone been following the St Jude auction?  

  A Knife by Jeremy

[B M A]

That is a awesome knife.  The goop on the blade is that an etching agent you use?

[Jeremy]

The goop on the blade is high temperature fireplace mortar (rated to 3000 degrees); for simplicity I just call it "clay". It's put on the blade before the hardening step.  It slows the cooling of the spine to the point where the edge will harden fully and the spine will still be soft.  You get the same effect as doing an edge quench, but you can do patterns (check out Don Fogg's stuff for some hamons that look like lightening!!)  

After polishing the blade I etched it with acid.  This acid mix was 1:1 archers etchant:white vinegar.  Gives a brighter (and deeper) etch than the FeCl:water mix I normally use.

The edge on this knife should be around 60 Rc... the spine around 52 or so.

[OconeeDan]

Very nice, Jeremy.  All the way around.
Dan

[imskippy]

That is some beautiful work. I have been watching a bunch of stuff and it is way way way out of my league. Gonna have to start a tradgang auction fund for next year.
I was surprised to see my little necker gettin up there too. Wish that was true market value I'd sure love to make a little profit doing what I enjoy.
Good luck too all who are bidding high, it's for a great cause. Keep up the good work. Skippy