Homemade knives

STANDY

With only now giving it a go at blade as well.

BlackTalon

Damasteel?

JimInOz

Has anyone done any restorations of old high quality blades (mainly kitchen knives)?

I've seen a few where the grip was destroyed but the blade was still there and probably better steel than modern stuff.

STANDY

So you want to do your bit for the environment. Reduce Reuse Recycle

The below knife was one of my fathers Butchers knives that has sat in a draw for over 20-30 years in my possession and probably 20+ years in my fathers.

Take a old German made butchers knife. Great steel made in the day, Carbon steel at its best, and even better being a Gustav Emil Ern Blade.

https://www.cooksmill.co.uk/blog/gustav-emil-ern-knives.html

Like this

Cracked handle

and

Turn it into a great knife Again

This is such a nice Hardwood handle

So next time your at a thrift store and see a old butchers knife for a few $$s 😉

A knife like this would cost you at least a couple of hundred dollars with a blade nowhere near as good as the early carbon steel used before WW2 and being one of the last companies to employ highly skilled craftsmen to hand make knives whilst most other companies were mass producing knives

(Henckels and Wustof, who were the largest two competitors to Gustav Emil Ern, started mass producing their knives after World War 2. This lowered the cost of production immensely and made it difficult for Gustav Emil Ern to compete against them.)

STANDY

To get a consistent, strong edge these pieces consist of softer stainless layers over a hard single steel centre edge piece. Basically forge welding the damascus to a VG10. The billet is ready to grind into a blade and is 3 mm x 30 mm x 220 mm in size.

The Damascus billet is heat treated completely, hardened and tempered to 58 HRC. This is a good hardness for outdoor knives as well as general duty kitchen knives.

BlackTalon

That's just san mai, which has been used for a long time in the japanese knife world. But it is admittedly odd the core is VG10. Usually a carbon steel is used, often in conjunction with stainless steel damascus so you only really need to worry about keeping the edge clean. VG10 is also an odd choice for the core if you want stainless because there are much better stainless steel to use (AEB-L, XHP, etc.) as well as some of the semi-stainless steels.