I welcome fans to work with metal, today we will consider how to make a knife in the Japanese style called "nakiri". Such a knife is more like a small hatchet, it’s convenient for them to chop greens and vegetables, but such a knife can cope with slicing bread. For the manufacture of a knife, the author used the unremarkable steel 52100. The advantage of such steel is that it contains 1% carbon, which makes hardening possible. But it can be considered a steel flaw that it rusts, but if you follow the knife, an oxide film of gray or brown color will form on it over time, which will protect the steel from rust. The process of oxide film formation can also be accelerated with special reagents.
If you are interested in such a project, I propose to study it in more detail!
Materials and tools used by the author:
Material List:
- billet from steel 52100 with dimensions 300X50X4;
- epoxy resin and dye;
- brass rods for pins.
Tool List:
- marker;
- grinder;
- oven and hardening oil;
- domestic oven;
- files;
- belt sander;
- tape cutting machine;
- sandpaper;
- tools for etching the drawing (optional).
The process of making a knife:
Step one. Profile
The author draws the knife profile by hand with a marker directly on the workpiece. Then you can start cutting, as a tool the author uses the good old grinder. We finish the problem areas with a file and proceed to grinding on a belt grinder. That's all, as a result, we get a ready-made knife profile.
Step Two Slopes
An extremely important event is the formation of descents on the blade. If you don’t chop hard objects with a knife, it’s better to make the slopes wider so that the blade is thinner, so the knife will cut very well.
Divide the future blade into two halves to get a line for reference. A caliper can be used as a tool. Then you can start grinding, the belt grinder is the best suited for such purposes, but many craftsmen also cope with files if the steel is not hardened. Of course, the blade will become very hot, we will cool it in water.
Step Three Quenching
We proceed to hardening the blade, heat it to a yellowish glow and lower it into oil. We check the hardness of the steel with a file, if there are no scratches, then the hardening is a success.
Well, then we make steel leave so that it is not fragile. Vacation is usually done in a domestic oven.To see the color change to a straw, it is recommended to sand the blade before the shine to a shine.
Step Four Handle
We collect the handle, we need to make the lining of a material that is not afraid of water. The author decided to use an epoxy resin, pour it into a mold of silicone to get a workpiece. If desired, dye can be added to the resin and the desired pattern can be formed.
When the resin hardens, we cut the workpiece into two halves with a tape machine or a hacksaw. Well, then we customize the blanks in shape and install on the handle of the knife by gluing with epoxy glue. Of course, for reliable attachment of pads we use brass or other pins.
When the glue dries, we give the handle the desired shape and polish to a smooth state. Such a handle does not need to be impregnated, but for beauty it can be coated with acrylic varnish.
Also, if desired, you can etch the picture on the blade.
Step Five Sharpening and testing
The knife remains to be sharpened, here we need Japanese water stones. Soak the stones in water, so they will sharpen much better. Gradually reducing the granularity of the stones, you can achieve the blade state of the knife. Homemade ready, the knife cuts cabbage perfectly. This is the end of the project, I hope you liked the homemade work, and you found useful thoughts for yourself. Good luck and creative inspiration, if you decide to repeat this. Do not forget to share your ideas and homemade things with us!
