r/myfirstknife

Recently completed piece, made as a custom order. 👊

150mm Kengata Ko Sujihiki

(Texas Toothpick)

25mm heel height

0.7mm behind the edge

L6 Stock removal (former sawmill bandsaw blade section)

hand tools only (and a drill and angle grinder). no forge, just a propane torch, ball peen hammer, some files, sandpaper, and a makeshift grinder from hole-saw scraps and sandpaper in a drill in a vise.

Handle is eastern red cedar, plywood from a brie cheese crate, and scrap walnut (from making cutting boards) as a ferrule.

it’s a pretty good slicer, used it to eat a ribeye tonight.

i still need to work on steadiness while thinning…. critiques welcome.

i don’t have a forge and didn’t do any heat treating aside from the torch and hammer to add the texture to the spine. i’m guessing that removed some hardness from the blade, but i sharpened another one and it seems to be holding an edge, so i decided to finish this one as well. i don’t have hardness files yet so don’t know HRC but i’m guessing it’s somewhere between 50 and 58 (wide range I know) maybe I’ll buy some soon and test it.

Hi all, I made a Kengata Gyuto 204mm 50mm height, 0.7mm behind the edge, 2mm spine; out of L6 steel. After thinning it some more yesterday I tested it out by cutting Fillet steaks from a prime tenderloin… then my wife tried it on some lemons. i cleaned the knife after and dried it. and didn’t notice a patina last night, but this morning it has quite a bit of patina… some blues and some oranges. is there a chart somewhere that lists what colors come from what? I know you can get black with instant coffee, and I’ve heard onions and lemons (acidic things) cause a patina… but is there a list?

it’s actually the second knife I cut from L6 (Stock removal) bandsaw stock, but the first one that I put an edge on and finished (and the 3rd ever handle I’ve made and burned on).

204mm Kengata Gyuto (8-1/32” cutting edge)

1.6mm spine

0.72mm behind the edge

50mm tall

Handle is Eastern red cedar with plywood stripe and walnut ferrule.

It was supposed to be 210… but when I was grinding with improvised tools I overheated the tip and had to file it back (I’ll post a comment pic with the improvised grinding tool)

The last pic in this set has my:

150mm Ko Sujihiki (Top- unfinished first knife, 2nd handle- still needs sharpening and potentially heat treat)

180mm Hatsukokoro AS Kurosagi Bunka (Middle- my first handle, bought the knife)

204mm Kengata Gyuto (this knife)

I plan on making a set… I also have a Nakiri and a Tanto Chef cut out and profiled…

I don’t own a forge or kiln yet and was originally planning on making 10-12 knives before getting one and then practicing with coupons to get the heat treat process dialed in before doing the whole set, but I started wondering if they would hold an edge as-is (I mean they came from hardened high carbon L6 that spent years ripping trees into boards) what if I didn’t need to heat treat?

So this is a test. I will use this next to my AS bunka for the next few months while I make more knives and if it doesn’t roll an edge and performs well, maybe I’ll just sharpen them all.