Japanese inspired. Blackwater Tanto WIP

[D.Ellis]

You crack me up Bruce!
Sorry for the down time in progress guys. My internet was down for several days. I have this billet up to 112 layers now. Will fill in the blanks with pics soon.........unless my net goes down again    
Welcome aboard Ibitengu.    
Darcy

[D.Ellis]

OK, here's the up to date pics.
Folded and heating up for the weld.
 

Drawn out and ready to cut again. 28 layers here.

 

Blurry pic of the 28 layer bar hot cut and cooling off before grinding the weld surfaces clean in preparation for the next weld.

 

[D.Ellis]

Another blurry pic. this is at 56 layers and still needs drawn out.

 

After drawing out and hot cutting and welding again. 112 layers. before grinding clean.

 

and after. Those are 5 inch feathers for scale.

 

That's pretty much where I am at currently, except I have the handle welded back on. Soon to start looking like a blade.      :D  

Darcy

[D.Ellis]

OK, it's starting to look like something now.
Heating up and drawing out.

   

   

   

At this point the handle broke off again, so hammer and tongs from here........drawing out the tang and with some shaping of the blade.

   

Basically shaped......textured the flats, and hot stamped the makers mark.

   

Cooling off. Blade will not miss 9 inches by very much.......1/4" thick with distal taper forged in. After it cooled and I could handle it, I realized I want it a bit wider starting from mid blade towards the tip. So, it'll get a few more smacks before rough grinding.

 

To be continued.......
Darcy

[Alexander13]

Very nice! It's great to see a knife come to life.

[tomsm44]

Kinda looks like a knife.     those couple extra smacks are one of the things I've found I like about forging.  Not much you can do with stock removal if you decide you wanted it a bit wider.  Can't wait to see how the pattern turns out.

[D.Ellis]

Thanks guys.
How about this Matt, look a bit more like a knife now?   :D  

 

 

Went back to the forge a couple times to tweak things.......had to change the tang angle, widen the blade toward the tip and clean up a couple lumpy spots. Then ground it out and draw filed the spine and ricasso area. I still need to do a few things before heat treat, but it is pretty close. Etched it lightly to show the pattern.
Whatayathink?
Darcy

[tomsm44]

Gettin better with every post.  The pattern looks awesome.  Can't wait to see the finished product.  I finally got out and forged another one this week.  My first one since before Christmas.  My forge is outside and the weather hasn't been all that great, and I've been out of town a few times for training on a new job, so I haven't had much time to do much.  No telling how long it'll take me to finish it since February is going to be even busier at work than this month.  I've been torturing myself the last few weeks looking at what you guys are doing on here knowing I didn't have time to do any myself.  

Matt

[srtben]

That is one awesome blade Darcy!! This is one of my favorite blade styles.
What do you have in mind for the handle?

[D.Ellis]

Thanks guys,
Ben, I have a piece of stabilized birch burl that should look good. I plan to do some carving/engraving on the fittings.........river theme.
I am with you on the blade style, I love the simple, classic shape of some of the Japanese blades. I am looking at this blade right now and dreaming about a matching wakizashi, but I am not man enough to hand hammer out the 9cubic inches of Damascus steel it would take to make it.     Might have to make one in 1084 instead.   :D

Darcy  

[gudspelr]

I'm loving these threads you're putting up. Great looking knife and my hat's off to you and your serious determination to hand hammer all that steel   . Looking forward to the finished knife.
 

Jeremy

[srtben]

Funny, I was just thinking wakizashi also, or at least a little bit larger tanto. Maybe with a semi traditional wrapped handle and guard.   :cool:  

If you were closer I'd come swing the hammer for a bit for ya.    :D

[D.Ellis]

Oregon to Central BC can't be more than 30 hours or so      :D
It's gonna be a day or 2 before I get back to work on this.......I have a late doe tag burning a hole in my pocket, and a freezer that could use some venison.
Darcy  

[srtben]

Good luck on your hunt!

[D.Ellis]

Decided to put the deer hunt off one more day. Here's a pic of the handle material for this blade. Birch burl I harvested(from a downed tree) and had professionally stabilized.

 

Darcy  

[D.Ellis]

Ready for heat treat.
I normally stamp the spine with the year I make the knife.......often I use roman numerals, but this time I wanted to use Japanese symbols instead. Much more complicated than I thought it would be, but here is the result. Having, of course, no stamps for this, I had to cut it with my engraving chisel. I hope this is a legible(in Japanese) example of the year Heisei 26.......or 2014. It looks a bit like the calligrapher was into the sake before chiseling this in, so hopefully it doesn't translate as "your donkey wears pink army boots" or something.   :eek:
   

Darcy  

[gudspelr]

Very cool-now I'm wondering about the guard. That Birch is going to look great. I love getting to follow the progress of a build. Thanks again for sharing these with us.

Jeremy

[srtben]

That came out cool man!

[Ibitengu]

Wow! Looking incredible!

[D.Ellis]

Thanks guys. It's in the oven tempering as I type this. Here's a pic of normalizing before hardening.

 

The quench pic didn't turn out........was quenched in 130* canola oil.....after an 8 min soak at 1500*
Hopefully the weather warms up a smidge so I can grind this blade out and do some cutting tests tomorrow. Then the finish work begins.
Darcy