My first knife: wharncliffe paring

Precise

Member
Heya, I just finished up my first knife finally! (Been forced away from my tools for a year).

First, the design. I'm a cook, and on the left bicep of my chef coats there is a small pocket. Most people keep pens and such in it. I keep a crappy lil paring knife. It gets used more for utility than direct food related tasks. I have to open boxes, chip ice, pry things apart, scrape stuff...etc. Anyway, I couldn't find a single paring knife anywhere that I liked...if they weren't cheap crap, then they were to delicate for what I needed. And thus the wharncliffe parer is born!

Blade length: 3 1/4
Total length: 7 1/2

Materials: 3/16ths 01 tool steel bar stock. Heat treated by me in the most pathetic attempt at a one brick forge ever. Then I tempered it in the oven by placing it on a firebrick (to help keep the heat on the blade even) and letting it roast at 500 degrees for two hours...twice. I think it was successful because the blade has a nice bit of flex to it and has really good wear resistance it seems. (judging by how eternally long it took to do anything with the steel afterwards)

Green liners, brown micarta scales, and ss pins finish up this full tang knife. Here are some really crappy pics...I need to get a better camera down the road. My next project will then be to make a slim leather sheath that contains magnets to keep the blade snugly inside.

It ain't pretty, but it is tough and designed the fit the contours of my very own hand; comfortable in every single grip I would use.
 

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Don't laugh at your heat treat and tempering method. I do it the same way. My quenching oil is used motor oil (20-50wt, AutoZone) from my minivan that has over 200K miles on it. I made a 7" slicer out of 3/32" 01 for a friend of mine and he said that it holds an edge much better than his regular kitchen knives.

Ric
 
I didn't have any used motor oil lying around, so I used canola oil in a pot that I kept nice and warm on a camp stove by my forge.
 
Great start. You can take good pictures with the camera you have, you just need a few pointers and practice :)
 
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