Xexos

Nice instructable, that wood really is beautiful!I'm sorry for the unsolicited advice, but here's a couple of tips that may help you if you ever try your hand at making a knife again:1) Just in general, if you can file metal, it isn't hard enough for a good edge. Like you said, it'll definitely perform a lot better than mild steel, but heat treating it will help you to maximize it's properties. I think most saw blades are L6 steel, so you can look up heat treating information on L62) Try looking up how to make a ricasso on a knife blade. The part that looks most off about your bevel is the fact that the handle transitions smoothly into the edge. Adding something like a ricasso will greatly improve the flow and aesthetics of the knife3) Try to avoid putting your pin holes in weak spots o...see more »Nice instructable, that wood really is beautiful!I'm sorry for the unsolicited advice, but here's a couple of tips that may help you if you ever try your hand at making a knife again:1) Just in general, if you can file metal, it isn't hard enough for a good edge. Like you said, it'll definitely perform a lot better than mild steel, but heat treating it will help you to maximize it's properties. I think most saw blades are L6 steel, so you can look up heat treating information on L62) Try looking up how to make a ricasso on a knife blade. The part that looks most off about your bevel is the fact that the handle transitions smoothly into the edge. Adding something like a ricasso will greatly improve the flow and aesthetics of the knife3) Try to avoid putting your pin holes in weak spots of the blade. Putting a pin hole in the middle of a finger divot can potentially make areas that are prone to fracture under high stress. Here, the pin should probably sit just a little bit further back, right in between the two finger divots where the handle is widest.As for the handle... Really great work, the finish and the wood look amazing. :)Thanks again for sharing!

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it

Very cool! I had noticed that occasionally after hard soldering copper there would be red coloring near wear I applied the borax flux. I messed around with it a little, but was never able to get the full, even red color that you get. Quenching in water + borax is an awesome idea, I don't think I would have ever thought to try that out! Great instructable :)

Thank you! I'm really happy with how it turned out :)

Thank you, I'm so glad you liked it! A lot of the other instructables on here either use solder instead of diffusion welding or were made by people with a lot more equipment than the average person, so I'm happy that this was able to add some new relevant techniques/information to the community :)

Wow, that's some really nice contrast you got! I might have to try using quarters sometime, those colors look really awesome. Let me know if you end up making mokume again, I'd really like to see the results

Took me FOREVER (The instructables app bugged out and deleted all my drafts >_<), but I finally got the mokume instructable up. Hope you enjoy it ;)

It's been a while, but (after many technical difficulties) i finally got my mokume 'ible up. I'd love to see yours if you're still willing to share :)

Ahhhh yeah, I guess that would make sense. Well at least it's an easy fix! And it actually looks pretty dang cool like that

Nice! Do you know what caused it to have all those folds in it? It probably wouldn't be suitable for making a tsuba like that, but it looks very pretty just by itself. I would almost want to hang it on my wall, haha! Very interestingGood luck on the next one, I'd be interested to see how that one goes too :)

Awesome! Good luck to you, I can't wait to see how it turns out! Even if it doesn't go quite perfectly the first time, you should still post a picture, that way we could maybe figure out what went wrong and help you and others with their own projects :)

Thanks!

That's just it though, if you hit something with a blade and it plasticly deforms, it isn't high carbon steel. Or at the very least it isn't heat treated high carbon steel, but that would be completely pointless for a company to spend extra on a better material then not utilize it to its full potential. And I've never seen 1/4"+ thick mild steel that can be cold forged much at all. It's just far too elastic to fully take a bend out cold.It's a little hard to picture what you were talking about with the tool steel blade, but if you are saying that the edge you welded on cracked during use, then that makes perfect sense as well. Since it is far harder than the mild steel blade it is welded to, any flexing of the main blade could cause a fracture in the harder edge. Instead of using a...see more »That's just it though, if you hit something with a blade and it plasticly deforms, it isn't high carbon steel. Or at the very least it isn't heat treated high carbon steel, but that would be completely pointless for a company to spend extra on a better material then not utilize it to its full potential. And I've never seen 1/4"+ thick mild steel that can be cold forged much at all. It's just far too elastic to fully take a bend out cold.It's a little hard to picture what you were talking about with the tool steel blade, but if you are saying that the edge you welded on cracked during use, then that makes perfect sense as well. Since it is far harder than the mild steel blade it is welded to, any flexing of the main blade could cause a fracture in the harder edge. Instead of using a tool steel for this, I'd recommend something tougher with less carbon, like 1084 or 1070. At the very least, if you're dead set on using tool steel, I'd opt for a hotter/longer temper.In the end though, if you REALLY wanna use your old lawnmower blades to make a knife or something, there's nothing stopping you. You'll just end up with a knife that has horrible edge retention, and is prone to nicks and dents when used on anything slightly hard. Why you would want to spend so much time and effort on a blade made from an inferior material doesn't really make sense to me. You can buy a 4 ft flat billet of 1095 with a similar amount of material to 2 lawnmower blades for around $20-$30, and 1095 will hold a fantastic edge.I could be wrong and maybe you do have some hardenable lawnmower blades, but you should at the very least do some serious testing. Start by cutting off a 2"-3" piece of a blade, quench it, put it in a vice, and whack it with a hammer. If it doesn't snap in half or shatter into a million pieces, it isn't worth your time. If it passes that test, take another section, grind a 20-25 degree edge in to one side, then harden it and temper it at 350-400 F. Sharpen the edge up and start hammering it through increasingly hard things. Start with end grain wood, then edge grain wood, then dead soft copper, work hardened copper, mild steel rod, and a medium steel hardened nail. After each test, check the edge for any damage and do a paper cut or shaving test. If it can pass all these tests without any damage, it is likely to be high carbon steel. If it fails at the mild steel or medium steel rods, it is likely either a high carbon or medium carbon steel that may have some use in tough blades. If it fails the wood or copper tests, it is most likely mild steel and shouldn't be used as blade steel.

Thank you!

Funny that you should say that, I actually originally planned to do a thin copper inlay in the handle as well, but the copper heated up so fast during sanding that it melted the glue I was using. It was a little frustrating, but I think it still ended up looking pretty darn good.

Thanks, I appreciate the compliment :)

No, lawn mower blades are definitely mild steel, sorry to say. When you see "heat treated carbon steel" on the packaging, it's most likely a marketing technique that uses a couple loopholes in the phrasing. They are able to say that the blade is "carbon steel" because technically it is. All steel has carbon in, mild steel just has a far smaller amount of carbon than hardenable steels. If you want to know you are getting a product with hardenable steels in it, look for key words like "HIGH carbon steel". As for the words "heat treated" on the packaging, it probably is heat treated, it's just that heat treating has little to no effect on mild steel. A while ago I welded a high carbon edge to a pair of old blades, and the difference was incredible. T...see more »No, lawn mower blades are definitely mild steel, sorry to say. When you see "heat treated carbon steel" on the packaging, it's most likely a marketing technique that uses a couple loopholes in the phrasing. They are able to say that the blade is "carbon steel" because technically it is. All steel has carbon in, mild steel just has a far smaller amount of carbon than hardenable steels. If you want to know you are getting a product with hardenable steels in it, look for key words like "HIGH carbon steel". As for the words "heat treated" on the packaging, it probably is heat treated, it's just that heat treating has little to no effect on mild steel. A while ago I welded a high carbon edge to a pair of old blades, and the difference was incredible. They hardly ever need to be sharpened and they cut cleanly through the grass instead of just ripping it like a lot of blades do.

Wow, awesome instructable! Tons of detail, and the blade you made is very cool and original. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it before. I wish I could try it out, I might have to make something like it eventually, haha. Just for future reference, heating steel and cooling it in air is referred to as normalization. Annealing is very similiar in process, but results in a very different molecular structure in the steel :)

Thanks man, and I totally agree, karambits are pretty cool and aggressive looking. When I made this one I spent the rest of the day just walking around and flicking it back and forth on my finger. It was kind of addictive haha.

Thank you!

Yes, it will. I've done it to a couple of my smaller magnets before by accident. The blade gets hot enough during heat treating to rapidly heat a magnet that is touching its surface. If your magnets get too hot, they're toast

Thanks for the read, I'm glad you enjoyed it! If you are hungry for some more info on heat treating, you should check out my 'ible on Yaki Ire. It's very detailed and entirely on heat treatment :)

Thanks, glad you liked it!

Thank you, comments like these are exactly why I continue to post instructables. Btw, I just saw your forged bottle opener 'ible. Nice job, I think it's great that you are starting forging! They came out a heck of a lot better than my first stuff, keep at it :)

Glad you enjoyed, thanks for reading!

Thanks man! Glad you enjoyed. :) You should post some pictures of your coin mokume when I release the mokume gane instructable, I'd really like to see it

Absolutely! That is the vapor jacket I was talking about. It is actually quite forceful and throws the surface of the water around a good deal. Makes a pretty loud noise too. But since there is no way for pressure to build up, the steam just dissipates easily into the air without posing any potential danger

Thanks for reading! Once you start forging, you'll never be able to go back to stock removal. It's almost addicting, haha. Good luck, and let me know if you need help with anything! :)

Awesome! I'm glad I could help! If you want even more info, look up Ford Hallam on YouTube. He is a master tsuba maker, his work is absolutely incredible. He has a couple videos out on the actual carving and metal inlay of tsuba, and he even goes over various rare techniques like patina with niage and nanako texturing

Thanks for the read! I'd imagine that it'd vary with the volume of metal, I'd say 4 in water min, 10 in max, but you might have to experiment a little to get it just right. As for the type of material being cast, it all depends on the specific heat of the material, but I don't think it'd make too big of a difference. If you end up trying this with other metals like aluminum or brass, tell me how it goes, I'd be interested to hear

Thanks for the read! Yeah, the crucible is super cheap and easy to make, and it can be made to hold a ton of material. The only thing I'd warn you about is that the steel tends to scale after a lot of use, and the canister will have to be replaced eventually. Other than that, good luck with the weights!

Awesome! post some pictures if you do! :)

If you are having trouble drilling through steel, try using a carbide tipped masonry bit. They can make around 5-10 holes in 1/4" normalized tool steel before needing replaced (in my experience), and they only cost a couple bucks. Make sure to drill the hole BEFORE heat treat, it's almost impossible to drill through hardened steel with any kind of drill bit. When drilling, put a couple drops of 3 in 1 oil around the area that you are drilling, this helps lubricate the surface and keep the bit cool.Hope this helps, keep up the good work!

Thanks for reading, I'm glad you enjoyed :)

that's a good question.A really good project to start with would be decorative ironworks. For example, forging a leaf from round stock, twisting and bending square stock, making forged legs for a small table, and forging a pair of tongs. These projects would teach the basics of hammering and moving metal, and would help get you used to working with very hot material. Most of the difficulty level with this is pretty low for the basic stuff, so it is perfect for getting started forging. All this can be done on a vice, and you'd need to be able to get a small portion of steel up to around 1600°-2100° F. If you want something a little more difficult, but very interesting: I've actually recently been studying and making this material called mokume gane. it's basically pattern welded ...see more »that's a good question.A really good project to start with would be decorative ironworks. For example, forging a leaf from round stock, twisting and bending square stock, making forged legs for a small table, and forging a pair of tongs. These projects would teach the basics of hammering and moving metal, and would help get you used to working with very hot material. Most of the difficulty level with this is pretty low for the basic stuff, so it is perfect for getting started forging. All this can be done on a vice, and you'd need to be able to get a small portion of steel up to around 1600°-2100° F. If you want something a little more difficult, but very interesting: I've actually recently been studying and making this material called mokume gane. it's basically pattern welded steel ("damascus" steel), but with nonferrous metals, like copper and brass. You'd need to be able to get a medium sized piece of metal to around 1800 degrees, and having access to a welder would help greatly. This project is really quite difficult, but it would teach a lot of the basic techniques of setting diffusion welds, folding metal, and drawing out metal. Plus, the final product is incredibly cool and can be used in various other projects.As for your anvil problem, a great, affordable substitute for an anvil is a piece of a railroad track. I got a pretty large piece of one a while ago from a junkyard, it only cost around 6 bucks. Something like this would be great to learn on, before you are willing to buy a large expensive anvil.If you ever end up wanting to build a larger forge for bigger projects, there are a couple good instructables out there on the topic, or you could email me and I'll do my best to explain how I built mine. Also, if any of the projects above interest you, feel free to email me and I'll describe them in a little more detail.

Nice work! It's pretty amazing how much material can be removed with a new file and some elbow grease. If you ever plan on using some carbon steel specifically for knives, I'd highly recommend 1084 or 1080. They are very inexpensive compared to some of the tool grade steels out there, and they are deep hardening, so they are a dream to heat treat compared to hyper eutectoids like 1095 and W2. NJ steel baron has the best quality materials IMO, and great customer service to top it offGreat job, looking forward to reading your next instructable!

thanks for reading!So, I'd say there are a couple factors that affect whether stock removal is quicker than forging. For one, forging takes quite a bit more practice to pick up than stock removal. A person's skill at forging will definitely change how long it takes to forge a blade. Secondly, stock removal is hugely dependent on your equipment. Owning a 2k dollar belt grinder is obviously going to be faster than using files. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, is the size of the blade. Stock removal can make pretty quick work of a couple inch long knife, and probably do it faster than forging, but if you ever end up wanting to make a 2+ foot long blade or anything like that, you'll probably take 5 times as long as forging. Not to mention how many belts you'll go through. For this pa...see more »thanks for reading!So, I'd say there are a couple factors that affect whether stock removal is quicker than forging. For one, forging takes quite a bit more practice to pick up than stock removal. A person's skill at forging will definitely change how long it takes to forge a blade. Secondly, stock removal is hugely dependent on your equipment. Owning a 2k dollar belt grinder is obviously going to be faster than using files. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, is the size of the blade. Stock removal can make pretty quick work of a couple inch long knife, and probably do it faster than forging, but if you ever end up wanting to make a 2+ foot long blade or anything like that, you'll probably take 5 times as long as forging. Not to mention how many belts you'll go through. For this particular knife, I'd say it took me about an hour and a half to forge. Keep in mind that I was taking pictures between every heat, which took up a lot of time. If I went as fast as I possibly could, I think I could probably have gotten it done in a little over 40 minutes, but that would be really pushing it. I'm not sure how long it would've taken for stock removal on a blade like this, so it's a little hard to compare, but I hope this helps anywayAs for the heat treat instructable, I definitely plan on doing that sometime soon, I've just got a couple more blades I want to forge out before I start heat treating them. Thanks for the input :)

Haha, very true!thanks for reading :)

I'm glad we could come to an agreement. :)Sorry if I seemed rude, I just was trying to avoid having conflicting information on the comments thread. For beginners just trying to learn new stuff, it can be very confusing to see two different sets of information. I remember when I was first learning to weld up billets in the forge, I was told some incorrect information, and ended up ruining a pretty big batch of steel. I appreciate your ability to have a civil conversation, it's not often that you see that on the Internet, haha. :)

Таковы некоторые довольно хорошие видео! Являются ли эти ножи сделанные вами? Надеюсь, что это имеет смысл, и спасибо за чтение!Those are some pretty nice videos! Are those knives made by you? Hopefully this makes sense, and thanks for the read!

I love working copper, it's an art in itself IMO, so it's really cool that you've done that before. I'm planning on doing an instructable soon on this technique called copper water casting. Make sure to keep an eye out for it, it might give you a reason to build that new forge! :)

Thank you, I'm glad you've made use of my instructable! That's exactly what I was intending, being able to transfer the skills outlined in this instructable to all sorts of different blade styles. Really cool knife, by the way! I'm impressed that you were able to draw out the tang so much. Also, the ricasso looks really crisp and nice. Did you do the pattern welding yourself?

it's an interesting design, the angle and straightness of the edge makes the blade seem really aggressive IMO. I'd love to see it when it's all mounted and polished up! If you don't mind, send me some pictures when it's done at [email protected] good luck! :)

Thank you for adding the fact that folding reduces faults and defects in the billet. I seem to have omitted that before. However, I have to disagree when you say that the starting material for a japanese blade had little to no carbon in it. First of all, saying that a material with almost no carbon in it is roughly the same as pig iron or cast iron is just simply wrong. Pig iron and cast iron both have incredibly large amounts of carbon in them - sometimes between 2-4%. Secondly, the steel that comes from the tatara may begin as iron ore, but its carbon content is significantly increased even before it is welded and folded. That is why the tamahagane must stay in the tatara for days at a time - to allow the carbon time to diffuse from the charcoal into the molten iron. That is also why ...see more »Thank you for adding the fact that folding reduces faults and defects in the billet. I seem to have omitted that before. However, I have to disagree when you say that the starting material for a japanese blade had little to no carbon in it. First of all, saying that a material with almost no carbon in it is roughly the same as pig iron or cast iron is just simply wrong. Pig iron and cast iron both have incredibly large amounts of carbon in them - sometimes between 2-4%. Secondly, the steel that comes from the tatara may begin as iron ore, but its carbon content is significantly increased even before it is welded and folded. That is why the tamahagane must stay in the tatara for days at a time - to allow the carbon time to diffuse from the charcoal into the molten iron. That is also why the tamahagane is broken into shards before welding, it allows the smiths to check the crystallized grain structure to find roughly how much carbon the steel contains (usually .4-.9%). Thirdly, although the smiths did use a carbon based flux, very little of this added to the overall carbon content of the steel. In fact, smiths had to work quickly to weld and fold the metal, because having steel heated to 2400° repeatedly can actually cause the steel to LOSE carbon content over time. The glass like pumice flux will hardly diffuse into steel when the metal is below melting point. The flux never actually gets folded into the steel, it is actually blown out in a shower of molten sparks during the strike of a hammer. When the flux is evacuated from the steel, the oxidation free, very hot surfaces of the steel meant to be welded are allowed to contact each other, this fusing into a solid piece.

don't worry, I'm not offended, and I'll gladly help with any questions you have :)So this is actually a question that has a couple different viewpoints currently. In theory, this COULD actually strengthen the blade, in exactly the same manner as you described. However, in my personal opinion, the difference would probably be very negligible. With diffusion welded steel, you can also run into a strength problem called delamination. When diffusion welded steel is put under considerable stress (stress that no well-used blade would ever normally come into contact with), it has a tendency to "peel" apart between the welded layers. In the end, the most important process (with relation to strength) is lamination and differential hardening. Lamination is the process where a soft core ...see more »don't worry, I'm not offended, and I'll gladly help with any questions you have :)So this is actually a question that has a couple different viewpoints currently. In theory, this COULD actually strengthen the blade, in exactly the same manner as you described. However, in my personal opinion, the difference would probably be very negligible. With diffusion welded steel, you can also run into a strength problem called delamination. When diffusion welded steel is put under considerable stress (stress that no well-used blade would ever normally come into contact with), it has a tendency to "peel" apart between the welded layers. In the end, the most important process (with relation to strength) is lamination and differential hardening. Lamination is the process where a soft core is inserted and welded into a U-shaped piece of higher carbon metal. The high carbon becomes the edge, and the soft core rests in the spine and absorbs shock. Differential hardening is the process where the spine of the blade is coated with clay, then the blade is quenched. The edge fully transforms into martensite (hard molecular form of steel) whereas the spine retains pearlite and ferrite within its structure (softer molecular forms of steel) thus increasing its shock absorption properties.In direct answer to your question, I personally think a properly welded billet of steel and a billet of mono steel would probably perform almost identically in stress tests (although I'd give the mono steel a slight edge). I'd love to see some scientific testing on the subject, but, as far as I know, none have ever been recorded. :/Hope this helps!

The carbon content in tamahagane does not come from the flames. When iron is held for an extended period at liquid temperatures inside the tatara (days at a time), carbon content from the charcoal fuel used will diffuse into the steel. This, however, does not give the steel a uniform carbon alloying composition. For example, you may end up with 30 rocks of tamahagane with over a hundred points of carbon, 20 rocks of tamahagane with 60-90 points carbon, and 25 rocks of tamahagane with 40-50 points carbon. To check for relative carbon content, the rocks of tamahagane are hammered into wafer-like sheets, quenched, and fractured into many pieces. You can then tell from the fractured grain structure the relative carbon content of each piece. Pieces with over 100 points carbon are called pig...see more »The carbon content in tamahagane does not come from the flames. When iron is held for an extended period at liquid temperatures inside the tatara (days at a time), carbon content from the charcoal fuel used will diffuse into the steel. This, however, does not give the steel a uniform carbon alloying composition. For example, you may end up with 30 rocks of tamahagane with over a hundred points of carbon, 20 rocks of tamahagane with 60-90 points carbon, and 25 rocks of tamahagane with 40-50 points carbon. To check for relative carbon content, the rocks of tamahagane are hammered into wafer-like sheets, quenched, and fractured into many pieces. You can then tell from the fractured grain structure the relative carbon content of each piece. Pieces with over 100 points carbon are called pig iron and are recycled back into the tatara at a later date. Pieces with around 70 points carbon are stacked, fluxed, and forge welded together. at this point, the carbon content is throughout the billet is relatively similiar (60-80), but not completely uniform. The steel is then folded repeatedly to achieve a uniform alloying composition of around 70 points. The same process is followed for the slightly lower carbon steel. They then use a technique called lamination where they insert the lower carbon billet into a u shaped portion of the higher carbon billet, then weld it closed. The low carbon becomes the spine and the high carbon becomes the edge. So the reason for folding IS to create uniform composition throughout the steel, basically they are making a pseudo mono-steel

Awesome! This did seem like a very popular topic. Thanks for the read, and let me know if you have any questions :)

approximately 2100 to 2400 F. anything over this can severely scale and damage your billet, and anything under this is difficult to achieve a successful weld. In general it's best to weld at as low a temperature as you can successfully get the weld.I've diffusion/forge welded steel before, but I've never actually made a full damascus billet. Mainly because I don't have a press, and drawing it all out by hand is just a huge pain hahaThanks for the read!

Haha, I would love to at some point, but I first have to build what's called a tatara, or a giant smelting oven capable of achieving iron melting temperatures. It's just a little bit out of my range of resources at the moment The reason they fold and laminate the steel is because the tamahagane (steel created from the tatara) does not have a uniform composition at all. Folding the tamahagane helps to make the steel have the same alloying composition throughout all the steel. Since modern steels are 99.9% uniform throughout, it would be completely pointless to fold them (except as a practice excercise, haha)Thanks for the read! :)

Don't worry, I can understand you perfectly :)I love nekogaki styled habaki, I just went with a straight polish on this particular habaki because it isn't long enough for nekogaki (in my opinion). I've never actually had problems with a habaki gripping the saya, if anything my saya are normally a little hard to draw at first , and need to be worn in haha. A lot of times I put decorative filing on the nakago, and that helps it grip the tsuka a lot better. As for temper coloring, I've always found that, personally, it looks a little tacky. If I choose to do a patina on the habaki, I normally soak them in a niage solution composed primarily of sulfuric compounds (liver of sulfur, overboiled eggs, etc.). This leaves a GORGEOUS matte, plum colored finish. The reason I went with a straight po...see more »Don't worry, I can understand you perfectly :)I love nekogaki styled habaki, I just went with a straight polish on this particular habaki because it isn't long enough for nekogaki (in my opinion). I've never actually had problems with a habaki gripping the saya, if anything my saya are normally a little hard to draw at first , and need to be worn in haha. A lot of times I put decorative filing on the nakago, and that helps it grip the tsuka a lot better. As for temper coloring, I've always found that, personally, it looks a little tacky. If I choose to do a patina on the habaki, I normally soak them in a niage solution composed primarily of sulfuric compounds (liver of sulfur, overboiled eggs, etc.). This leaves a GORGEOUS matte, plum colored finish. The reason I went with a straight polish on the habaki is because the blade has a very dark satin finish, and I wanted something that would really pop. The deep orange color of the copper also compliments the cocobolo and walnut really well.Thanks for reading, stay tuned for my next instructable!

Can't wait for the knives and blades contest! I think I'll do a japanese yari or something similar

Thank you, that means a lot to me.And also, you'll be getting that blade forging instructable that you asked for in my last instructable pretty soon! :)

Thanks for the read! Hopefully I will be able to put out a forging instructable within a month

Hmmm, that's very interesting. I'm not as familiar with European blades as I am with Japanese blades, especially not blades from the more northern regions of Europe. Looks like I have some more research to do!

Haha, I don't know about "infinite wisdom", but I'll do my best to help ya out. :PSo, the tsuka/handle portion probably can't be done. You need a hidden tang style knife for the tsuka, and most culinary knives have a sandwich styled grip. You might be able to grind the tang down into a hidden tang shape, but I wouldn't recommend it.The saya/scabbard portion is definitely do-able. Due to the fact that kitchen knives are generally between 1/8" and 1/16", the halves of wood that you use should be much thinner than the ones I used in this instructable. Other than that the process will probably be pretty similiar. I imagine that the most difficult part will be figuring out how to fit the mouth of the saya to the handle of the blade, since there will be no habaki or flat ...see more »Haha, I don't know about "infinite wisdom", but I'll do my best to help ya out. :PSo, the tsuka/handle portion probably can't be done. You need a hidden tang style knife for the tsuka, and most culinary knives have a sandwich styled grip. You might be able to grind the tang down into a hidden tang shape, but I wouldn't recommend it.The saya/scabbard portion is definitely do-able. Due to the fact that kitchen knives are generally between 1/8" and 1/16", the halves of wood that you use should be much thinner than the ones I used in this instructable. Other than that the process will probably be pretty similiar. I imagine that the most difficult part will be figuring out how to fit the mouth of the saya to the handle of the blade, since there will be no habaki or flat resting surface. But definitely possible!I think I've actually read an article on saya for kitchen knives, I'll look around to see if I can find the link, then post it in a comment here. Make sure to post a picture if you end up making it!

http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/showthread.php/12276-Making-a-sayaTry this site, pretty informative for kitchen knife sayas

Thanks for the read! Blade Forging seems to be a pretty popular choice, so I will probably do that next :)

nooooo it turned my emoji into a question mark... :(

#yeet indeed ?

Thanks for the read!

Glad you enjoyed!

Good to know, thanks for the comment :)

Thanks, and I plan on doing just that! :)

Thanks for the compliment, and yeah, so far the blade forging seems to be most popular, but I will probably end up doing them all at some point. Glad you enjoyed!

Thank you for the vote and the compliments! Knife making is such an amazing art, it's awesome that so many people are becoming interested in such an ancient craft. Keep working at it, I look forward to seeing more of your projects in the future :)

My bad, that was supposed to go in the main comments, not be a direct reply

Cool instructable! It looks pretty darn nice, especially considering how big it is and that it is made out of pallet wood. I actually just uploaded an instructable on how to make the scabbard and handle portion; check it out, you might find it interesting

Well I suppose there's no higher form of compliment than an actual vote. I really appreciate the vote and the kind words, especially coming from a veteran instructable creator like yourself. P.S. you got yourself another subscriber, can't wait for your next instructable! :)