Westmead Artificer - Knifemaking

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Artificer: [ART-IF-ISS-URR] : Noun: A craftsman who makes things

File to Tanto

This piece started out as a salvaged half-round file.
I annealed it and ground off the remains of the teeth, then forged it down to a square (ish) bar. After re-annealing, I then forged it down to shape and ground the bevels. At this stage, the blade was still straight.
Unfortunately, I omitted to take any photos up to this point...
I coated the back of the blade with fire-clay slurry, building up the coats to give a thick layer of clay along the spine of the blade, leaving the edge clear. This allows the rapid cooling of the edge when quenching, whilst retaining the heat in the spine, to give a differential hardness across the width of the blade - a hard edge supported by a softer, tougher spine.
The clayed blade was heated to critical temperature (ie. the non-magnetic transition temperature), soaked at that temperature for two minutes, then the edge only was quenched in lukewarm water until the spine was down to a dull red.
The entire blade was then quenched in the water, which was by this time at about 40C.
The remnants of the fireclay were then removed, and the hardened blade tempered at 215C for 1 hour.

A brief clean-up revealed this:

A suggestion of a hamon can be seen at this point, so I was hopeful of seeing it once polished and etched.

Several polishing sessions later...

Under different lighting:

Now to construct the habaki (collar), tsuka (hilt) and saya (scabbard).

The habaki is constructed from 1/8" brass sheet, folded around the tang and silver-soldered along the seam, with a small triangular fillet in the seam, as is the traditional arrangement. All bending was done cold, annealed between each bend. The initial fit was made tight, and then filed out to give a precise fit around the tang.

The saya and tsuka were built in yellow poplar (tulipwood), as this is a close relative to the magnolia (honoki) normally used. Magnolia is, however, a bit pricey in the UK!
I have used the aikuchi style mounting (no guard), as I like the look.
The fittings are buffalo horn and brass, with a bamboo menuki (peg).. Finish is a black gloss-surface woodstain over sanding sealer.