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I always love to mess around with old knives I find at flea markets.. I found this in a “All 1€” bucket. Is there anything better than “All 1€” buckets by the way?!
The thing I love the most is that these old blades have so much charater and odd features.. Take this one! The steel is so old you can see many impurities after the etch, just like in damascus steel! And it has been differentially heat treated, meaning that the edge is super hard (between 55 and 60 Rhc) while the spine is still very soft thanks to the edge quench it must have been used for this blade back when it was heat treated.
Furthermore, having to deal with so many materials limitations really makes each project of this kind unique in some way or another, and I like that a lot!
In this case I decided to go for a double brass bolster, inspired by old folding knives, and the separation between brass and wood is done at a 45° angle for extra fanciness! Jokes aside, I wanted to try this as a technique challenge. I don’t really have precision tools or machine to make this fit reliably, so I wanted to try doing it all by eye with just the belt grinder and a “v” block as 45° reference. I have to admit I am surprised by the fit! It’s not 100% perfect but pretty damn close. Better than I expected anyway!
And thanks to the brass pin in the bolster and the angle between those the wood in between is held in place just by one singe pin, no glue at all! That’s something you probably don’t want to see in a chef’s knife as water can infiltrate, but I’ll keep this one for me and I’m happy to have it all fit without glue just for the fun of it.
