This knife that I am working on will go to a good friend in Canada.

It will be a knife built to see some good use and it will test me as a maker and test the stainless damascus made by Damasteel.

The Bjorkman Twist pattern Damasteel billet is 8mm thick and the knife will be about 360mm in total length.

 It will have a double grind starting with a hollow grind from the ricasso to the center of the blade, and a flat grind from there to the point.

 Handle is going to be micarta, possibly with bronze or stabilized wood bolsters.

 The sheath is going to be well thougt out for it to be as user-friendly as possible.

Below is a description of vacuume heat treating and why I like to use it rather that getting into heat treating myself.

A 7-ish feet tall vacumm furnace would not fit in my  workshop and it costs a fortune, literarlly, and the amount of electricity and cooling water needed is not even a remote option!

"By using a vacuum furnace you can heat treat materials, typically metals, to very high temperatures with high consistency and low contamination.

In a vacuum furnace the product in the furnace is surrounded by a vacuum. The absence of air or other gases prevents heat transfer with the product through convection and removes a source of contamination.

Some of the benefits of a vacuum furnace are:

Uniform temperatures in the range 1000–1500°C (2000–2800°F) Temperature can be controlled within a small area

Low contamination of the product by carbon, oxygen and other gases

Quick cooling (quenching) of product.

The process can be computer controlled to ensure metallurgical repeatability.

Heating metals to high temperatures normally causes rapid oxidation, which is undesirable. A vacuum furnace removes the oxygen and prevents this from happening.

An inert gas, such as Argon, is typically used to quickly cool the treated metal back to non-metallurgical levels (below 400 °F) after the desired process in the furnace. This inert gas can be pressurized to two times atmosphere or more, then circulated through the hot zone area to pick up heat before passing through a heat exchanger to remove heat. This process is repeated until the desired temperature is reached."

My main reason to heat treat like this is simply to get the highest possible quality rather than beeing able to claim "sole authorship"!

(Not that I ever would doubt the quality of heat treat of other makers!)

Here is a project with an interesting piece of steel: It is a Burt Foster CLI billet, a laminate with stainless steel sides and a carbon steel center.

It will be made into an "integral" with a leather handle.

Blade is currently on its way to Burt and is about to be heat treated.

(7th April)

The blade is now in the very capable hands of Mr Foster and getting ready for the special heat treat that this material requires.

(13th April)

After being expertly heat treat, the blade is now on its way back to Sweden, can't wait to get it!

(27th April)