The Twin Suns

So my best friend came to me one day and said that there is a school that she does work for and they hold a silent auction every spring and that I should donate one of my knives to help the school out, and possibly get in front of some very high end clients. I thought about what I had in my inventory and while there were some nice pieces I had the thought of taking the idea one step further and use this as an excuse to see what I could do with all the things I’ve learned over the 8 months of me doing this.

So I bought the nicest piece of 1095 and 15N20 Ladder pattern Damascus. I wanted a more traditional chef knife profile yet Japanese in its geometry. I thinned the steel to 1.95mm at the heel of the spine and a nice distal taper all the way to the point. Machine sanded the sides in a flat grind all the way to 1500 grit. and hand sanded the rest of the way to 7000 grit to create a really nice polish and pop from the etching process.

The handle shape I took inspiration from master blade smith Kyle Rober. I used 6000 year old bog oak that I acquired for fancy builds like this and a gorgeous piece of purpleheart. I put some copper sheet between the woods and used a copper pin to secure it all together.

After completion the blade was coated with Carnauba wax and the handle was finished with Tung Oil.