Even though I make my chef knives in an entirely different way than the Japanese do, there is still much to learn from them! I was watching some videos of modern Japanese smiths creating chef knives and saw them near the end of the forging cycle placing some water on the anvil.
I realized that this was nothing new and has been done for centuries, but for me it was a real leap forward in that I forge all of my blades to about 90% of their final geometry and remove the scale by means of a hand stone and water, then draw-file the final geometry.
Having less scale formulated throughout the forging process is a real bonus.
I shot this video of myself "Blowing the Scale Off" of a large 10"+ Chef Knife Blade.
This video represents a beginning for me in presenting information about my approach as a bladesmith specializing in chef knives.
Below the video a shot of the first two blades out of my new furnace which shows some fairly-clean, freshly forged blades, that represent this process of "Blowing the Scale Off" using water on the anvil. And another shot of how I descale by blades...pretty simple and yet effective.
And finally a comparative shots: the top blade where I used no water on the anvil and progressing down to the bottom blade that came out practically scale-free!
Enjoy! -DON:)
Good post Don and great looking blades. Controlling scaling and the resulting pitting is so important on thin forged blades and especially when stock reduction is primarily done by hand.
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