Making A $2,200 German Chef Knife

in this video I am making a German style chef knife my name is Jeff Royer and I have been making knives for around five years all right we got a beautiful German style chef knife with a western handle kind of a hybrid going on here I'm getting my pieces cleaned up and ready to put a Billet together to start stacking my Steel I got some 15 in 20 and 1084 different thicknesses at different spots in the Billet we're going to get them all stacked up the way they go and we're going to enclose this Billet to get rid of all the oxygen so we get nearly perfect welds inside I love these time lapse photos of the Billet heating up as beautiful nothing beats that first smash on the Press also all that middle scale just dropping off of there and it's beautiful it's like the cans going pretty good got it wrapped up really tight getting some good welds get the core temperature up really hot and just take a little presses back in the Forge more heat make sure the core stays hot that way we don't get any slag inclusions or unwelded areas inside the Billet I feel like I got some really good welds in the initial press and the Billet so we're going to take this can off on the outside that outside skin nice gentle presses at first keep the heat up keep the core temperature up nice consistent presses now we're going to re-square the Billet to make some W patterns because our Mosaic Damascus is going to require quite a few W's right now we're getting it re-squared and we're going to start pressing it down gently nice gentle presses just a little bit of time Bill it's already too long to fit in the Forge so I gotta do this in sections the back half and the front half of the Billet draw it out we're going to get it ready to cut and stack you can see there I was using a 5 8 thickness stop so that the Billet is within several thousands all the way down from one end to the other on the same thickness just makes a nice constant pattern in the mosaic [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right [Music] can I get rid of that Mill scale look for any unwelded areas places that just didn't weld perfectly which there are very very few right here at the end you can see a little slag inclusions upper left that is from uh all the way out on the very very very end of the Billet that's not even going to be anywhere near all that's going to be worked out by the time we get this welded together so that's that's incidental at this point it looks like we got some uh beautiful 15 and 20 and 1084 contrast going on here right off the get-go and we got this re-squared and we got some W's going on when I cut this up into smaller chunks I number all my pieces to make sure that they Orient in the bill at a very specific way every time we've got them cleaned up restacked re-welded put my bar back on the end light the forge up and send her home there's the initial press again after I since I restacked nice gentle presses in the Forge quite a bit little presses keep the heat up to keep the core temperature up we'll reduce this just a little bit then we'll go right back in the fire this is around 21 2200 degrees right out of the forge sometimes 22.50 now let's see the 2150 2200 right in there now we're pressing on it the other direction against the welds and it's holding up really well we're getting the bar drawn out bars really constant all the way through good thickness [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] got pieces marked get them cut up get them back in the ferric chloride to etch the ends to see what they look like and so we can manipulate the pattern how we want the bars lay it out the way I want them so the pattern is going in the proper direction we'll get them welded up and back in the fire foreign dies on this on the initial press there's no really good way to press on a bars stack like this so with the squaring dies work really well it presses in nearly every direction at the same time now we're just working at the other end of the bar we're going to get this inch and a quarter Square [Music] [Music] that's nice we're gonna stack it up four-way it I think this is the last time get it welded [Music] and the squaring dies looking good and we'll draw it out a little bit [Music] doesn't look like much on the sides but boy you sure flip that thing over on the end and it's a beautiful pattern getting ready to jump out [Music] take it over to the surface grinder just take some of that Mill scale off the top just get it roughed in the same thickness all the way across do some layout set that on a 35 degree angle there thereabouts and I got a little stop on there so they all come out the same thickness welded them all up and we basically have another can with the Mosaic in the middle we just wrapped it up to get rid of all the air on a mosaic a lot of heat and just little presses makes really really nice welds eliminates all the little uh places that want to unweld gets rid of tears and the steel keeping the heat up and just little presses that was a view down the face of the knife just a little quick preview of what the knife is going to look like this is a bit of a modern spin on a German style knife with a western handle per client's request so I am going to forge this mostly to shape on that point it's going to distort the pattern a little bit right out on the end but it'll it'll smear and it'll stretch and it'll look really nice when this is all finished up it's going to be a beautiful beautiful looking piece I'm going to rough in these bevels just a little bit I'm going to leave the blade really thick probably 70 000 thick on the blade Edge and somewhere around 200 and 215 thousands at the spine then I'm gonna get ready to heat treat into the heat treat oven and we got her heated up to about 1525 degrees and we're going to drop it into the quenching tank and we're going to bring the temperature down to nearly room temperature in just a couple seconds and we're going to start shaping it down seeing where that knife is at in the middle of all this very nice looking spine nice and thick but don't worry about that we're going to give it a weight reduction program and we're going to leave that spine gently thick also and but it's going to be a very very fast knife it'll have an S grind in the middle of the blade on both sides and we'll take that taper down it's probably about twenty thousandths at the blade Edge foreign [Music] [Music] test topped through a 2x4 cut some things hair popping sharp still retains an edge [Music] I'm grinding in the plunge grind on the bolster here getting it all cleaned up as soon as we get that done we'll start grinding in our s grind [Music] I'll put these little wood blocks on here as a stop to make sure that I don't over grind or I don't under grind when I put the S grind in so these wood blocks will help stop on the Belt grinder I got the S grind in there and now we're getting ready to remove those wooden blocks we don't need those there anymore the S grind starts at the spine and goes all the way down to about maybe 3 8 of an inch from the blade Edge I'm getting ready to grind in the relief on the back side of the bolster send this over to the grinder and rough it in grinding all that in get all smoothed up and clean air everything flat and parallel and perpendicular [Music] I got the Tang laid out on this blockathoia Burl it's from my Morocco fitting that on there so it's tight all the way on we don't want it fitting really loose we want it to fit snug as we fit it on so we should go a little bit at a time cut fit cut fit cut fit cut fit this drill is a 3600 RPM it's more of a big rotary tool than it is a drill I do use it to drill but also put files in there or other cutting type tools to make it like a rotary like a rotary file it relieves the tangs very nicely I got all the Tang fitting in there really nice except for the very very end so we're using the cutting tool here to relieve up towards the bolster [Music] there it's on just right I'm betting this handle in epoxy before I shape the handle so it fits super snug on the Tang so I'll take this off here in a couple hours because I don't want to stay glued on there I've got a lot of shape and I want to be able to take that handle off and on frequently without it going to a different situation different place my granddaughters came over and visited the shop the other day and we sat there there I got like seven granddaughters uh eight now I got nine nine granddaughters uh four and under so when they come over to the shop we grab the fingernail polish and start painting fingernails or start working on the mill or grind on something whatever they feel like doing [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right we got that Tang bedded perfectly on that handle and we'll take the height gauge and we'll start putting layout lines on there reference lines and make sure everything stays straight parallel and perpendicular [Music] I got some pencil reference lines on there I'm just going to rough into them it's ease into a little oily so I'm going to make sure I took my time didn't burn it it seemed like it liked the burn easy so just slow down use good belts and slow the RPMs down on the Grinders I find using a paintbrush to wipe the dust off is a lot better than wiping it with your fingers or your hand because your hand will actually remove the pencil marks but the paintbrush the leaves and doesn't bother the pencil marks at all [Music] oh [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] historia's beautiful wood and nearly a nearly translucent it's just you can almost see into it it's beautiful I'll take this up to about 1500 grit if I take it over to the buffing wheel this is a uh Tripoli Rouge that it's fairly High High grit but I'll I'll end up taking it all the way over to a 0.5 Micron a half a micron [Music] I love this knife Vice as pretty slick very sturdy thank you foreign [Music] I have a carbide Mill bit I'm drilling through this high carbon steel that's been heat treated [Applause] oh my God put a little chamfer around the hole to make room for the brass to swell out so it just it locks it in it becomes one with steel I drilled a hole all the way through the Tang just a real small 44 thousands hole and that way I marked about where that hole would be in the Tang so I just take a brass or copper aluminum and fit in there that way when I do the the final fit up on that the handle and the Tang I can just drill through it thank you [Music] [Music] I'm ready to put my Maker's Mark on it put a reference line on there and up marks we got lineup marks on stencil helps keep everything nice and square and straight oh [Music] get the electro etching equipment out the stencils from IMG [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] the Maker's Mark is on the handles fit and shaped after I soak it in the ferric chloride to get it etched on the initial one or two passes of uh etching I will take a 3000 grit sandpaper and uh sand in between my etching sessions a couple times on the last session I won't sand it I'll just pull it right out of the freight chloride foreign [Music] [Music] Focus shot we are in the nest Cafe it's a bold dark roast and it's very very strong and that's what we use to put a finishing surface on the East blade I'm going to take a sunshine cloth here and just gently buff some of the high spots on the knife the the shiny spots this is a hundred percent Carnival Wax it'll leave a protective coating we also use it on the handles [Music] [Applause] all right [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] uh this particular custom build the client requested many of the aspects of this knife and he asked that I would incorporate the number 24 in his knife it's a lucky number for him so I was thinking about this as soon as he contacted me I was trying to figure out where to put it and how to put it and what to do with it so what I ended up doing I ended up putting pins in the spine of the handle so what I ended up doing is a layout on the spine of the knife so I made two domed bronze pins that they stand proud of the spine of the on the handle and then I put a couple spaces then I put four down below it so it represents 24. it'll also be a great place to index you'll always know where the knife is it's an additional indexing tool for the knife [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] these pins came out great their friction fit and also bedded in epoxy I melted the wire back on the pins it created Dome then put them in a special fixture that I made to get a shoulder on the Dome got them ready to fit right in was glued in epoxied in [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] and now we're going to drill that hole through the tang with that piece of brass was earlier and we're gonna put a bronze pin through there just for a little insurance policy the epoxy is really great but uh we're going to dome this pin to the Silicon bronze we'll slide it through the Tang all the way through the handle first then we'll Dome each side one at a time I have little fixtures I use to make sure I get the Dome consistent on each one so they stick up the same distance before I Dome keep looking at them flipping it over make sure they Dome evenly [Music] foreign [Music] it and ship it I put a transparent Scotch tape on there Kyle showed me that trick it keeps from Burrs from getting up on your Damascus while you're grinding on it sometimes you'll get some scratches or stray scratches running up your Damascus if you look at them underneath a magnifier sometimes you can see them by eye not very often but it just makes a really nice crisp line right where the tape meets the or the stone and you won't get any stray scratches up on your finished Damascus blade there's some good steel good heat treat [Music] this is the first kitchen knife I've made with this profile I liked it it's a very utilitarian knife for the kitchen it's going to be a great daily driver that was a fun build [Music] client had some input on it they were great ideas and it made for a beautiful knife I'll see you in the next video May the forge be with you bye bye foreign [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Kyle Royer

Views: 1,003,912

Keywords: knife making, how to make a knife, how to heat treat a knife, how to make a bowie knife, how to make a bowie, knives, kyle royer, kyle royer knives, making a knife, sharp, how to make knives, bladesmith, master smith, blades, damascus, knifemaker, diy knife, anvil, forging, custom, knife, great content, steel, bowie build, bowie knife, 10 inche bowie knife, blade, knifemaking, knife maker

Id: k383zFSergs

Length: 28min 51sec (1731 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2023