Anton's Laminated Knife

(12/14)

Anton and I made knives, starting with some fancy Japanese laminated steel.

We forged a bit out to be thinner and wider/

and plasma-cut a profile

Then ground the profile with an angle grinder

and filed the bevel

I was surprised to see the lamiantion so clearly at this stage:

heat-treat:

and oil quench:

Temper in the oven at 220C for the duration of a big plate of curry:

And flatten on a waterstone (this takes ages, we should have got a better finish on the bevels before hardening):

In the meantime, I made a little knife from the offcut:

This is after etching in brick cleaner, which brings up the laminations a bit. It also shows the distinction between the hard core and the wide soft lamination that's next to it, That difference wasn't visible before etching.
As you can see, the edge is only just in the hard layer, I got lucky.

Other learning:
A new, coarse, Swiss file works much better than the other sort.
We should have forged the billet a bit thinner. Both knives were very thick.
More cleanup before heat treat would have been a good idea.
Getting the ricasso tidy with a file is tricky.
I should have put a notch in the end of the edge to give the bevel somewhere tidy to stop.
A belt grinder would make this all much easier.
The hardening had left a nice oil black on the handle, which was removed by the etch. Should have just etched the blade.