Merle
Well-Known Member
A couple years back Randy Lucius was kind enough to post up a template for his Cub pattern to share with the forum. I thought it was such a cool profile, I quickly printed it off and made a template but couldn't find time to actually build the knife. So I finally found some time last week and got an offering completed. It turned out "okay", considering I am strictly an amateur knife maker (less than a dozen completed knives). Steel is 3/32" W-2 with "Ember-glo" Dymalux handles.
It's another failed attempt at a Hamon, though you can see that there's "something" going on up at the spine. There's also a lot of splotchiness in general after the etch, which I'm wondering is due to not properly annealing / normalizing the steel prior to HT. Since I don't forge, I never bothered to anneal / normalize, but now I'm thinking it's necessary for stock removal as well. Just to get everything zeroed back to the same uniform grain. I think it might help the hamon too, to get a more distinct transition line from martensite to austenite (?)
There are also a lot of fine scratches that I didn't get out and didn't realize until taking the photos and zooming in. No excuses for those, I just need to spend more time sanding.
Just wanted to say thanks to Randy for sharing the pattern and I'll try to get it better next time!
-andy
It's another failed attempt at a Hamon, though you can see that there's "something" going on up at the spine. There's also a lot of splotchiness in general after the etch, which I'm wondering is due to not properly annealing / normalizing the steel prior to HT. Since I don't forge, I never bothered to anneal / normalize, but now I'm thinking it's necessary for stock removal as well. Just to get everything zeroed back to the same uniform grain. I think it might help the hamon too, to get a more distinct transition line from martensite to austenite (?)
There are also a lot of fine scratches that I didn't get out and didn't realize until taking the photos and zooming in. No excuses for those, I just need to spend more time sanding.
Just wanted to say thanks to Randy for sharing the pattern and I'll try to get it better next time!
-andy
