The latest knives for me to share are from my first attempt at using S35-VN stainless.  I had a failure of the method I was using to prevent the blades from scaling in the heat treat.  They came out looking like they had been buried in a peat bog for the last 100 years.  There were 4 blades in the batch so I took one for testing and determined that they hardened as expected.  Other than the surface erosion and seriously tough oxide coating there seemed to be be no ill effect.  The test knife cut just fine and held an edge as expected.  The wife even used it to do some weeding in the front yard with no ill effect (in fact she liked it so much I put jade G-10 handles on it so she could have a utility knife she could abuse without feeling bad).

Since the blades looked 100 years old I decided I would make the handles look the same.  After slabbing up some African Blackwood, I shaped then distressed the handle pieces and repeated till I was happy with the results.  After attaching them with industrial grade adhesive I added copper pins and completely peened over the heads forming nice textured rivets.  I deliberately over expanded one of the pins on the chef’s knife and repaired it with a wrap made of reclaimed copper wire.   I am calling these the Zompocalypse Kitchen set, because who couldn’t use a set of high quality kitchen knives after the Zombie Apocalypse, especially when they are disguised as some rusty old artifacts.

Stats:

Blade Material: S35-VN stainless

Handles: African Blackwood and Copper

Chef- OAL: 12 7/8″ Blade Legnth: 8″

Large Paring- OAL: 8 1/4″ Blade Legnth: 4″

Medium Paring- OAL: 7 1/2″ Blade Length: 3 1/2″

[as usual click the thumbnails to enlarge]: