Zhen knife blanks are made in the damascus steel style of Japanese knife making and distributed in Australia by Professional Woodwork Supplies.
Initially I bought two knives for SWMBO; A small paring knife and a Santoku knife. The knife blanks were clad with one of the Casuarina oaks. I think it is bull oak, but I can't be absolutely certain.
The second pair of knives purchased were for my daughter and these were another Santoku and a chef knife. The scales from these were made out of spotted gum, the real one :) (Corymbia maculata) . I know this because I cut the trees many years ago when I was supplying timber for tool handles. I make this point also because there is a very interesting, but equally subtle grain on the trees to which I had access.
I like it, but acknowledge I am very biased.
The knife blanks come with comprehensive instructions which if followed will produce a good result for most people. The big decision after selecting the knife of your choice and timber to suit is whether to use rivets or just glue with epoxy.
I chose to use the rivets, which are supplied. You still glue as well not instead of. In fact extra rivets are supplied. The reason I chose rivets was that I am still not confident that glues are up to gluing some of the the denser, and rarer, aussie hardwoods. However this decision is up to the individual and completely dependent on the timber.
In talking to IanW at a later date, he advised that the casuarina was not that good in water, but as we make a point of not leaving any of these super sharp knives in the washing up water (for safety reasons) it probably won't matter. In both cases I finished the knives with a gloss varnish. It is not my preferred finish but it is relatively durable.
I fixed the rivets differently to the recommendations. I cut the first scale to approximate size and glued it to the knife blank. Then I drilled holes (three) from the blank to suit the rivet size (it is a two part male and female rivet) into the timber one it was firmly glued.
Then I glued on the second scale. Once set it was easy then to drill through from the first scale into the second.
Shaping was done with an angle grinder and a sanding disc. Pause here for the dark siders to pick themselves up off the floor :D . Initially I used a 40 grit, which I had been using for sanding the weatherboards on the house, but I got better results with finer grits. 80 to 100 seemed OK. You do need to go gently.
The recommendations are to put masking tape along the sharp edge of the knives while you are working on the handles. The knives arrive sharp and without the edge being protected you will cut certianly cut yourself. I put copious quantities of masking tape along the edges.
In shaping the knife handles I would also recommend placing masking tape around the bolster area to prevent damage.
After I drilled the holes for the rivets I drilled another hole slightly smaller than the rivet head to provide an interference fit for the rivet head. Judging the thickness of the handle compared to the length of the rivet is probably the most difficult single aspect.
You can see on the first Santoku knife in bull oak that I recessed two of the rivets, but I didn't really like this so in all the other knives the rivets were set flush. In practice this means you are restricted to a certain thickness of handle if you are going with the rivet option. If I had a criticism of the Zhen knife kit it would be that a slightly longer rivet could be supplied as well. They already supply more rivets than you need.
The rivets were pressed together initially using an engineers vice and if required a hammer and punch. After one rivet collapsed on me and I had to drill it out I sharpened the male half for the rest of the rivets. However I think it was me being cack handed rather than a fault of the rivet. Final shaping with the sanding disc on the angle grinder will remove a small amount of steel
to bring the head flush with the scale.
Sanding was continued with a ROS and varying grades of sandpaper until an acceptable smoothness was reached..
Damascucs steel was a method of protecting the very hard inner core so that it could be tempered to a hardness that was normally too brittle. Arguably today with modern steels that is no longer necessary, but the visual effect of knives forged in this way is still as dramatic as the way it was first done.
Incidentally the steel used is referred to as VG10. I have to say that I am not that familiar with it except that it can be hardened, but is less brittle. The steel core (the VG 10) is hardened to Rockwell 60-62. There is also available a small cleaver and a breadknife, which is not hardened to the same level. I suppose if you need a hardened bread knife you should think about changing your baker.
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I also made a knife block, which I will describe in the Japanese tools section.
Regards
Paul
