As I understand it, the purpose is for the goo/clay/cement stuff to shield the spine during the quench so that the edge can get hard without the spine getting brittle. The resulting visual effect of this is called a hamon, I believe. The clay won't stick to the blade as is so that's why you wrap the blade in wire; to give the clay something to hold on to.
I have watched another one of these in my recommended and now my recommended looks like I am planning a murder😂 Edit: Tysm for the likes 😁 I have never got this many. Thanks!
what i love about this channel that isn't like other channels is that this guy doesn't spend 5 minutes showing you every angle possible of the knife. thank you
Yeah and why does he specify "japanese" is it because the style or he wants to milk weaboos and the algorithom :just saw description but still think its milking
The time you spent hand filing the slot, you could have got a cheap file blade, cut the back end of it into a tang that fit into a sawzall and filed the slot out. The whole process would have taken about ten minutes and then you'd still have the file blade for next time.
"There's an issue here. There is no physical connection between the blade and the handle, it's only glued. That is why it would be unsafe to hammer your blade against a 600 lb block of sheer lead. Thus I invite you to shake your opponents hand and then ask you to leave the forge."
description would be more accurate with "Japanese style" since the blade is double bevel whereas actual Japanese chef's knives are single bevel . still a nice knife.
not all Japanese chefs knives are single bevel ... in fact thats a feature one only a few very specific knives the majority are a dual bevel convex grind this is mostly due to the habit of using laminated steel due to their poor quality ore so the majority of their traditional blades are san mai or greater so only the core steel is hardened with mild steel jackets thus dual beveled
but hey what do i know im just a career blacksmith with 27 years of experience under my belt 23 of which has been making blades .... go read master bladesmith Murray Carter's book he studied traditional bladesmithing in japan for 18 years ...good read... some of it pertaining to heat treatment is bullshit of course but good read nonetheless
Watching these I was like " dude calm down" then after a while, oh , the video is fast forwarded. I felt stupid for a while. So your video deserves a like
Dan Mo there is a specific style that is implied saying its a “Japanese” kitchen knife. He was simply saying it doesn’t match the style, not that it’s a bad build or not made good. Just simply not the right stylization. To an extent he is correct.
I love what you do, and I enjoy watching your videos. But this title is very misleading. In order to make it a real high end knife you need to know precisely what steel the blade is made of in order to have the right procedure for heat treatment. You can't just take any random sheap old knife, clean it up, arbitrarily hardening and quenching (and giving it a differential hardening) without some sort of hardness testing, i.e. a rockwell hardness tester at best or at least tester files. And then put on some bolster, liners, fancy woods handle and call it a high-end Japanese chef knife (not even calling it a Japanese-STYLE kitchen knife). 😅 Don't get me wrong. I love the work you put into it! But it's important to be clear on what really goes into a knife in order to call it high-end, and even a Japanese chef knife for that matter. Please don't take offense! Anyways, love your videos. Keep it up!
what are you buying when you buy a high end japanese knife? quality steel a proper grind / knife shape, and a good handle. but then what is this? some time of steel alloy, with a pretty well done flat grind (no hollow grind) a ridiculous blade shape, a handle with the tinyiest tang. though it is pretty. it looks okay, but then he gets to the part where he's cutting a tomato and, i'm just shaking my head, why do you need a like half a pound of steel to cut a tomato. where is the clip of him slaughter a pig.
you have no idea how much I regret not watching this video when it was first recommended. Back when RU-vid suggested this video I was making a lawnmower blade knife and I wanted to try differential hardening on the blade. My improvised plaster of paris method did not give the result I was looking for. Well, it can cut stuff at least... what you did with wire and clay looked so much more elegant. I had trouble getting clay to stay on while heating.
@Leopards 2334 What exactly was "hateful shit? Really, you labeling anybody's opinion you don't agree with as "hateful shit", really was the only hateful comment I see.
He used a differential heat to make the spine soft and the cutting edge hard. Considering 99% of chefs knives out there don't do that I'd call that high end.
@@kkknotcool this is far away from High End, the shape is not Japanese chef its manga pirate sword and the heat treatment methods, hundred of years old and done so la la... Still all solid hard passionate hobby work, but the titel doesn't match the product, that's all im saying.
@@Bennowolf21 Clay on a hot knife keeps the metal from touching the water in the quench. The speed of the cooling is what makes different crystals in the steel. It's not as effective as heating the edge directly but it's a proven method.
@@Bshwag You can if you know it's O1...problem here: he nor anybody has the slightless idea about what steel is...probably 420 or similar, so no high end anything can come from that. All this is retarded clickbait
@@7501Nitai Good quality high carbon steels will rust like crazy, The problem is cheap ones will too but at least with a high carbon steel you can get a reasonable knife even if it cheap as hell. It just won't have consistent internal structures.
@@Bshwag Cheap cutlery steel rarely is made of plain carbon steel 1065-80 etc...precisely for the rusting issues, I can only think of Opinel still doing that
Should have used an S grind for the bevel. That way things wouldn't stick as much to the blade when you are slicing them thin. If anyone is wondering, that would be a flat or convex grind for the edge, with a hollow grind down the middle.
Troy McDaniel he was making a Japanese style knife with the bevel only coming halfway up the blade, which wouldn’t work well with an s ground bevel. On top of that, an S grinds isn’t easy to pull off so that’s a lot easier said than done. Don’t just see something on Alec Steele and assume that it’s easy and everyone can do it too.
First off, he can call it Japanese style all he wants but it is not really Japanese. Secondly, Alec Steele is not a good example to point someone towards since he is young (not bad thing, but lacks broad experience) and tends to wing things. Also doing everything free hand the way he does makes it much more difficult. Using jigs and guides are your friend. Doing an S grind is not easy, but it is no where near as difficult as people who do it free hand on a belt sander make it seem.
@@nathaliestav2241comparing this shit to japanese swordmaking, is a fucking disgrace. Imagine that you have one potato and one carrot and you claim to cook michelin star dish only from those...
@@overpay7473 Dude, no need to be belligerent. The knife looks like a Gyuto, he used yaki-ire to get a hamon, the handle is definitely inspired by Japanese octagonal handles. It is styled more like a Japanese kitchen knife than a European one. If you have a problem with it, please bring constructive arguments instead of invectives.
Thank you for telling us it doesn't have any historical significance. I get so anxious watching people restore antique knives because I'm unsure if they're damaging them or not.
Absolutely no structural integrity for this blade. I have no idea WTF he was thinking when he removed 3/4 of the tang's width Somebody will end up with just the handle in his hand in no time..
looks absolutely stuning. but it needs a little sharpening. get some wetstones and give that thing a good edge. all that work and then end up with a knife that barely cuts a tomato.
Maybe so but the reality is that he created a chef's knife. You know what chef's DON'T do with chef knives? CHOP BONE or anything heavy like that. Chef knives are meant to do delicate work....ask me how I know!
All of my knifemaker friends always ask me how I can tell instantly which hand they use to test their knives, and all I have to do is look at which arm has no hair.
Knifemaking and restoration is a very fun hobby if you know what you are getting yourself into but if you don’t regularly carry knives or use them it probably isn’t for you
Wow, what a beautiful project - you should make a cutting board next with some of the same trim pieces and woods. Thanks for all the detailed documentation of your steps also.
I was flinching a bit at some of your techniques but fair play to you. Then when you did the proper test of 'does it shave your arm' I thought, 'This blokes got it'.
As far as I'm concerned, as soon as you went to the band saw and altered the shape of the knife (which to a chef, was already perfect), then seriously weakened the tang by reducing it, the knife was ruined. No Japanese metal worker would have dreamed of doing this. I hope you enjoy your new/old P.O.S. makeshift Bowie.
That's pretty much what he did. It's not so much a "restoration" as it is "recycling" the blade from the old rusty knife. He already had to template and re-cut the knife's shape anyway. While it's an impressive feat to make that out of a cheap knife, it would've been even cheaper (and faster) just making a knife from a raw block of steel, and the process would have been identical minus all the extra cleaning he had to do. So while it's not the most practical way to fashion a knife with the tools and skills on display, I'll still commend the guy for at least keeping that knife from being wasted by sitting in a landfill.
He took some garbage rusted scrap metal knife and turned it into something that can serve another human being and be useful to someone, in my book that's restoration
@@Shorim1 Sorry to be critical and pedantic ...Restoration is restoring an item to its original state ...BTW, the end object could be bought for pittance. If one puts a figure on his skill and the time used, that only produced an object, one can say that it was a waste of time. I have done some restoring in my life. Restoration is the highest form of skills and knowledge of Craftsmanship that few possess. His finished object looked nothing like the original...
@@meme8447 yeah the handle will rotate if not even fall out because its literally held on by glue not hammered nails or something like that but i do like the clay tempering
It also wasn't a restoration, because the damages it had, was artificially added. Zero pitting in the blade, after it had heavy rust that was wire-wheeled off.
Generally speaking you really don't need that robust of a tang on a kitchen knife, and reinforcing it with the slotted dowel will give it quite a bit more durability than if he had left it as it was
@@TragicTester034 It's excess material at the base of the blade that extends into the handle for strength and stability. It also helps to balance a blade.
It's a japanese style knife. Basically, if you use it with enough force to warp or break the tang, you're just cutting in the wrong way. Gyuto's are meant to to be used by following the blade, not exerting force like in occidental cuisine
Wrong with a capital W, any true use in an actual kitchen, and that tang will snap like a dry twig the first time a chef attempts to dismember a chicken.!!! TRUST me on that! That knife looks robust but it ain't, and anybody that knows anything about knife making will tell you the same thing!! Thank you
Lots of work but a cheap, mass produced knife cannot magically become a high end Japanese chef's knife. It's the metal that matters. Edit: Chef not Chief (OBVIOUSLY).
I mean if he got something that was made out of a high quality and high end metal that was nearing the end of its life and was badly damaged and turned that in to a knife like this then that would be much better the knife he used just seemed like he got it out of the dumpster behind a butcher shop that had just gone out of business
Nonsense. It’s the geometry that matters. Geometry cuts. Cutting soft fruit etc. You could do the work that knife is doing with a copper knife with the same geometry. Steel is really really hard and tough compared to fruit. Any steel. He put an inclusive edge angle of about 40 degrees, about 20 degrees per side on that knife. I use machetes and axes regularly in work with much lower edge angles than that, and they cut wood beautifully, and will only blunt through contact with dirt or hard contacts with metal, stones etc. And those tools are not made of high end Japanese steel.
@@jeremys8360 Obviously. I spoke about a high end chef's knife being an object of restoration. The blade of such a knife is what matters. Makes sense now?
I _SERIOUSLY_ need to stop watching these vijayos one after another; I get so engrossed that my time just vanishes and I get nothing else done! You have some seriously fantastic tools, brother.
I have a suggestion, let's see YOU make a video making something out of nothing. And even earn some subscribers I will be one of those subscribers. Waiting.....
Gentlemen's Edge imagine going into a restaurant, ordering a steak, and it comes out burnt to hell, you complain and the chef comes out and says “where the steak YOU cooked? Serve it up to me so I can pick it apart...” that come back has spread far too much and it’s part of why this world is losing professionalism. I wouldn’t say he lowered the value of this knife, but he didn’t make a good knife out of it by any means. I’m just hoping he left a lot of stuff he did out of this video otherwise it’s worse than it looks (aesthetically it looks pretty good, but so does polished dirt).
@@robertdevito5001 The difference is you didn't pay for this video. A more appropriate analogy would be like going to a dinner party and complaining about the food that was prepared.
I'm confused why you felt the need to do half the things you did such as the heat treat and the acid etch, like they added nothing and the heat treat probably compromised your blade more than it helped it, especially considering you tried doing the Japanese clay technique on a knife that is already hard steel, which I can guarantee did nothing as that technique ensures a strong and flexible blade due to the presence of soft steel which you do not have in that blade Edit after watching the handle bit: The handle is also incredibly dumb, it's unreasonably rounded so it'd be hard to grip, and there is no mechanical connection, so the handle WILL fall off after a short amount of use, especially if you are chopping
I must admire the skills on display here. However, what sets Japanese cutlery apart from what you buy at Walmart is the metal (among other things). This is a nice looking, sharp knife. But how long will it keep an edge?
@@wah9349 this video was recommended to me because i look a lot of sharpening(doing it myself, not video ofc) and forging video, seeing the black hole between our percepions of what is a clean cut, i'm pretty curious about which type of video leading you there xD
@@FSMonster yep, maybe a title like: "...look like a High end japanese..." Could be more accurate and not triggered me. My disapointmeent came from the fact i looked and enjoyed the video (maybe not the poor Wood main section of the handle, anyway) and waiting for the climax with a satisfaction clean cut (which is doable with quite any material)... unfortunalty we finished on a pushed (to not saying crushed) tomato skin, and hard melon who is bending on the pressure from the knife, anyway, who Care xD