u/litoritooo

Hi!

For a friend's birthday, I wanted to make him a custom kitchen knife since he's really into cooking, and i think is gonna really like it as a gift.

The original knife was a rather low quality santoku, which was the only thing I had on hand at the time to work with, so there's a lot of work put into modifying the blade. In a way, I feel like it was a bit of a waste of time and resources given the steel quality of the blade, but I still think it was worth it for the end result.

I hope he likes it, and I hope you guys like it too!

​

Hi!

This is my second knife project: a 12cm Kiritsuke petty.

Since I don't have a forge, I have to buy pre hardened blanks, but everything else was done entirely by hand by me.

The blade is thinned down heavily compared to how it came from the factory. I reworked it into a full flat grind from the spine because it originally had a very prominent shoulder, and since the blade height is quite short, it wedged very quickly behind the edge. Underneath the etching, it is finished to 320 grit so it can handle daily use without showing scratches too easily.

The knife is made of N690 steel, the handle is made of walnut and sapele, and the spine and the K tip have a 45° chamfer to be more comfortable to hold.

For the pattern, I hand etched it through a primer coating, followed by electro etching and a ferric chloride bath.

Here is a gallery with some photos of the project:

https://imgur.com/a/qdCGaU3

I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I hope you guys like it too!

Hi everyone!

This is my first knife. It’s nothing fancy or exotic, it’s not made of any super steel, and it doesn’t have any qualities that make it worth 300 euros, but I’m proud of it.

A while ago, I got curious about fixing up a knife I had lying around the house—just your typical cheap, beat-up kitchen knife from a colored set with a pretty soft steel (exactly like the red knife in the last photo). The edge was completely ruined, the tip was missing, the Teflon coating was chipping off in many places, and the handle was missing almost all of its rubber.

Fixing it up to make it functional turned into a project to modify and transform it, and that’s how, step by step, it finally ended up becoming my first custom knife.

I don't have any tools for forging steel or doing hot work, nor do I have a belt sander, an angle grinder, or any large machinery. I live in an apartment and have a little corner that I use as a workshop with just the bare essentials I can manage to keep: a Dremel, a metal file, and a set of wet sandpaper. This is what i can do with what i have.

I removed the original plastic handle, sanded down the entire surface to get rid of the Teflon, and since the tang was too short, I cut away part of the blade to extend it. Once the blade was sanded and the tang extended, I gave it a ferric chloride bath, a stonewash, and etched my logo using electrolysis.

Both the spine and the choil are mirror-polished by hand with wet sandpaper up to 10k grit, while the bevel is finished with 80-grit sandpaper. I had to do a pretty aggressive thinning on the bevel, which left quite a few marks, so I actually really like the coarse look that the 80 grit leave, it does a great job hiding all the imperfections.

The handle is carved from a block of walnut and finished with several coats of tung oil. The measurements and facets aren't perfect, but it's my first handle; it's incredibly comfortable, and I really love how it turned out.

After seeing this result, I definitely want more and want to do it even better. I’ve already bought a few blanks (N690 and AEB-L) and have two projects in mind for them, where I hope the results will be even better using everything I learned from making this knife.

I just wanted to share a bit of the excitement that making this project has brought me, and hope you like it! :)

Hi everyone!

For a friend's birthday, I thought of gifting him the Opinel picnic kit since he loves traveling in his camper, and I think he'll get a lot of use out of it.

To make it more special, I just had to mod it. So, the spoon, the fork, the blade, and the Virobloc went through a ferric chloride bath and a stonewash to match the look.

I modified the blade shape, etched his name using electrolysis, and the handle was carved, stained in a rustic style, and finished with tung oil so it wouldn't lose that natural wood feel.

Here are a few more photos of the opinel:

https://imgur.com/a/L2tdOEq

I hope my friend likes it, and you guys too!

Hi!

​I recently discovered this sub; I had no idea there was such a devotion to Opinels. In fact, I’d completely forgotten these knives existed until a coworker showed me theirs recently.

​I’ve been into whetstone sharpening for a while now, and I’ve gradually been into modifications—mostly with kitchen knives. But when I rediscovered Opinels and saw how many people were modding them, I knew I had to try it myself.

​This is the second Opinel I’ve modified, and my first one in carbon steel. I carved the handle using a Dremel, then sanded and stained it. Once the stain was set, I applied about 20 layers of cyanoacrylate, sanding it from 400 grit up to 10k. I did 400, 600, and 800 dry, then moved to wet sanding with 1.2k, 2.5k, 4k, 5k, 7k, 8k, and 10k to achieve that high-polish look.

​For the blade, I did a vinegar patina followed by an immersion in concentrated coffee for a few hours (with the bevel protected by nail polish), finishing it off with a light stonewash. It’s still missing the paracord for the lanyard hole I drilled, but it’s basically finished.

​I’m really happy with how it turned out and just wanted to share it with the world.

​Cheers!