''Ritari'' - ''Knight'' - 45
Hand folded Damascus, original billet 13 layers, folded 6 times to make 832 layers in a charcoal and coal forge. The final 832 layer billet was then sandwiched into a large folded piece of iron from some random farming implements I found in the forest. Which resulted in a near full iron tang. With the Damascus starting right at the bolsters. It allows me to make a full sized blade out of a medium sized billet. Another thing with an iron tang is that it's quite nice being able to drill holes in the tang after heat treating. You don't have to worry about doing all the grinding before HT you see. I've made a few dozen knives with that iron tang approach and always found it to be a super convenient way to make knives. Having the tang mostly made of iron also makes it more convenient to carve flat surfaces too. I learned this technique by discovering how the highest quality sabers were made in the Renaissance period. Swords of that era had monosteel blades forge-welded into iron ricasso/tangs. This would have allowed the swordsmiths to do all their forging and heat treating without having to worry about making perfect dimensions for the guards and handles to fit. Which most likely occurred in another workshop. Another benefit of an iron ricasso-tang is the ability to reshape it at any time without worrying about the heat treat of the steel blade. Thus allowing for modifications, like a new guard. So yeah that's really awesome.
Every single component of this knife was immaculately finished before the final assembly. It's been rebuilt four times. With a total of 200-300 hours of construction. Roughly 45kg to 60kg of anthracite was burned in the making of this blade. With a little charcoal.
This knife was a show piece in the Finnish Hunting Museum for a few months a couple years ago.
Hand folded Damascus, original billet 13 layers, folded 6 times to make 832 layers in a charcoal and coal forge. The final 832 layer billet was then sandwiched into a large folded piece of iron from some random farming implements I found in the forest. Which resulted in a near full iron tang. With the Damascus starting right at the bolsters. It allows me to make a full sized blade out of a medium sized billet. Another thing with an iron tang is that it's quite nice being able to drill holes in the tang after heat treating. You don't have to worry about doing all the grinding before HT you see. I've made a few dozen knives with that iron tang approach and always found it to be a super convenient way to make knives. Having the tang mostly made of iron also makes it more convenient to carve flat surfaces too. I learned this technique by discovering how the highest quality sabers were made in the Renaissance period. Swords of that era had monosteel blades forge-welded into iron ricasso/tangs. This would have allowed the swordsmiths to do all their forging and heat treating without having to worry about making perfect dimensions for the guards and handles to fit. Which most likely occurred in another workshop. Another benefit of an iron ricasso-tang is the ability to reshape it at any time without worrying about the heat treat of the steel blade. Thus allowing for modifications, like a new guard. So yeah that's really awesome.
Every single component of this knife was immaculately finished before the final assembly. It's been rebuilt four times. With a total of 200-300 hours of construction. Roughly 45kg to 60kg of anthracite was burned in the making of this blade. With a little charcoal.
This knife was a show piece in the Finnish Hunting Museum for a few months a couple years ago.
Hand folded Damascus, original billet 13 layers, folded 6 times to make 832 layers in a charcoal and coal forge. The final 832 layer billet was then sandwiched into a large folded piece of iron from some random farming implements I found in the forest. Which resulted in a near full iron tang. With the Damascus starting right at the bolsters. It allows me to make a full sized blade out of a medium sized billet. Another thing with an iron tang is that it's quite nice being able to drill holes in the tang after heat treating. You don't have to worry about doing all the grinding before HT you see. I've made a few dozen knives with that iron tang approach and always found it to be a super convenient way to make knives. Having the tang mostly made of iron also makes it more convenient to carve flat surfaces too. I learned this technique by discovering how the highest quality sabers were made in the Renaissance period. Swords of that era had monosteel blades forge-welded into iron ricasso/tangs. This would have allowed the swordsmiths to do all their forging and heat treating without having to worry about making perfect dimensions for the guards and handles to fit. Which most likely occurred in another workshop. Another benefit of an iron ricasso-tang is the ability to reshape it at any time without worrying about the heat treat of the steel blade. Thus allowing for modifications, like a new guard. So yeah that's really awesome.
Every single component of this knife was immaculately finished before the final assembly. It's been rebuilt four times. With a total of 200-300 hours of construction. Roughly 45kg to 60kg of anthracite was burned in the making of this blade. With a little charcoal.
This knife was a show piece in the Finnish Hunting Museum for a few months a couple years ago.