First Kitchen Knife, Santuko Style

After yet another round of sharpening the crappy knives in my kitchen I was complaining to my Fiance about how they're not good knives and I really should just make a better one she looked at me and said "So why don't you?"

Duh.

I had been putting this off for a while mostly due to not being confident that I could handle longer blades and I was worried I would get to final grinding and bugger it up. Prior to this the longest blade I had made was 5"

Here we go!
First off I had to decide what kind of knife to make, so I asked her "Which one do you use the most?" She pointed to her smaller Santuko style so I set off to more or less copy it.


Plunge lines are getting easier to even up. Still lots of room for improvement but a far cry from my first few knives that's for sure.


Bevels roughed in prior to heat treat.


She's a fan of purple so I figured I would take the plunge and try working in some Purpleheart. I know it doesn't keep this colour forever which is really too bad, but it's such a pretty wood I couldn't not try.


Scaled glued up and roughed out, this was a bit tricky as the Ebony was a lot thinner than the purpleheart so I wasn't sure how to keep it straight and glued in two directions at once so I opted to clamp them one way and let gravity to the rest. Turned out ok. Blade hardened well as I have come to expect from 1084.


Bolsters finished and scales glued on after final grinding.


Shaping the handle. Very happy with how this turned out and my choice for mosaic pins. This was sanded to 220 grit just before I started wet sanding with tung oil at 320. Having never worked with Purpleheart before I don't know if this was a good idea or not as I think it impacted the final colour of the handle a little. At least I had the presence of mind to orient the pins all in the same direction this time


And the finished product. I tried to use my stamp to put my maker's mark on the blade while I was doing the heat treat but it didn't take as well as I had hoped. Perhaps if I had more ricasso to work with that would have been a better option as putting it on the blade I was working on an angle. Guess I need to get with the times and get an electro etching set up going.


Playing "one of these things is not like the others"



As always comments and criticisms are welcome. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, blade is 6 1/4" 1084 so I'm waffling on whether to do a forced patina or not as it is a kitchen knife. Still might go that route but as of right now that's how she sits. I guess I need to tackle an 8" knife next.

 

That's cool to see it there among the other knives. Good job!

 

Like the knife and really need one of those magnetic strips fro myself.

 

Nice work! really like those pins.

 

That's a really nice knife.

 

Thanks guys! Took a lot longer than usual as I was trying to be very careful of keeping the bevels even and it seems to have worked out ok. Looking forward to trying something bigger next time!

Guess I need to make a steel order

 

And an actual finished pic. I got a lightbox for Christmas and needed to try it out before this got too used in the kitchen.

It's seen about a month of daily use at this point. The Purple heart darkened up to a very nice colour so my earlier concerns of wet sanding with Tung oil seem to be unfounded.

I did also go with a forced mustard patina after noticing even with careful drying immediately after use it was going to start oxidizing in a way I didn't like.

 

The going to black on purple heart is over five years and heard a couple times as long as 25 years if kept oiled and out of direct sunlight.

 

I thinks it's a UV thing with the colour of purpleheart. I have some that's been in the shop for 5 years that is still nice and purple. Out in the sun it loses its purple hues and slowly goes brown.

 

I've heard much the same. It needs the UV to turn purple after it's cut but then you want to limit exposure.

Thankfully where we keep the knives is out of direct sunlight and on the north side of the house so i'm hoping there will be some longevity to the colour.

 

Sorry to say, there's no trick to it other than practice and being careful but not timid about it. This is probably my 20th knife or so, and i've learned it's very much a feel thing. I do all of my grinding freehand so there aren't any jigs or anything that I've been using.

That being said, one thing that I can't seem to get the hang of is keeping the top of the grind line straight and symmetrical on both sides of the knife, that's one thing that I will be making a jig for as it hasn't been getting any better and I find i'm doing a lot of full flat grinds because of it

 

Plunge lines is the biggest pain in the A you can have lol.
Get some J weight belts in 220gr. Set your work rest square to your belt. Then track your belt over your platern about 1/8 to 3/16. Run you grinder slow . Then just take your blade and just push it up against the edge of your platern you should get a little round plunge line.Then do the other side the same.
Then you might have to sand them out a little . I have a few things for that a small rod works good and double your sand paper when you get in tight to get out the little marks.

 

there are also scalloped edge belts that help forming small radius
https://trugrit.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2394

 

This is what I done this week .Two more to hand sand then they will be off to heat treat.

 

John
I never tied them belts before might have to give them a try some day.

 

That is a good stack of knives, just got done heat treating a dozen or so myself. Learning slowly it is much easier to have a selection ready to be worked on instead of one at a time.

 

You've had a busy week my friend. That is a nice display of blades. Wow!