Kiridashi x3

Project: December 2020

Writeup: April 2021

Corkers

Everyone got a handmade present on Christmas 2020. I hope they liked them, because that was all they got. Felt slightly bad on Christmas morning receiving multiple presents from everyone waiting for the opportune moment to hand out one tiny box each. But hey-ho. Quantity over quality and all that.

I've had a very cheap kiridashi on my desk for years now. It's easy to sharpen and serves as a great general-purpose poker / scraper / slicer etc. They're often very simple in construction, which I appreciate. These were a refinement on the basic design concept. You often see kiridashi with a chisel grind: flat on one side with one bevel tapering the whole way. But these have a normal flat grind because that's what my example happened to have. I don't think there's much difference in practicality. I can see the chisel grind being more useful for a woodworking / marking knife.

Bevelled. This is right after filing, before any polish.

I didn't make a prototype of these, which is why each one is slightly different. I was working most of it out as I went along. If I did another three they'd all be much better! The bevels were cut by hand with a filing jig which I've used relatively successfully on a number of pieces now. I should probably put together a more permanent setup for that for a bit more consistency.

Hardening is nice and simple with these (in my normal 1095) because they're so small. The old blowtorch and coffee-can forge works a treat.

Three shades of woody. You can also see the evolution of my bevel filing technique here. I think the one at the front where the bevel is shorter and flows more smoothly into the body is better.

Handle scales were random picks from the hardwood pile. Usually kiridashi don't have handles like this, most just have the raw hammered surface of the steel. But these do help to center your grip quite nicely: your index finger and thumb naturally sit on the spine where the handle ends.

Mmmm, piney

These got special presentation coffins just because they were presents. The 20mm cork was relatively inexpensive and easy to shape. Cheap B&Q pine looks a lot better when you set fire to it. Or at least looks less like cheap B&Q pine? The little medallions are stupid, but I did them to match the brass knob (also with BV20) that went on Mum's handbag.

My biggest struggle with these was that I'm still incapable of cutting wood with any precision at all. Even these nice rectangles were all mismatched in all dimensions. I just need to spend more time planing / measuring. It's currently a bit of a vicious cycle where I can never get it right, so I'm not enjoying practicing so I just say "good enough". But if I could be more consistent all the subsequent processes would be so much easier!

Anywho. It's nearly May now, so I should probably get started on this year's presents...