Here I have started to draw down the area that will be the handle. The billet is very thick at this point and we will be doing a ladder pattern, so I will be cutting grooves in the side of the billet, and then forging them flat again.
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Here the billet is marked with marker and a ruler to give me lines to grind to. The pattern is one off on the other side so that I am not cutting a grove in the same place on both sides. This causes the grooves to be alternating.
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Here is the setup that I use to cut in the grooves for the ladder pattern. This was the first time I tried this and was fairly happy with the result. You could also cut different with groves by changing wheels if you wanted.
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Here is a shot of the grooves that have been cut into the billet.
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A view from the top
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At this point I realized that I had burned a small hole in my jeans. I really don�t know if it happened during grinding or during some of the previous forge welding. One thing I have learned making knives is that you will probably burn holes in your clothes and aprons. When this happens it is a good idea to cut out around the hold to remove the charred cloth. Once the cloth is charred it will reignite with the smallest of sparks.
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Here the billet has been put back into the forge and pressed flat again. I was not really sure what the final dimensions of the steel would end up, but it worked out. The bar is about � inch thick and around 15 inches.
[img]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e185/pike3e/36.jpg[/img]

Here is the template of the chef knife we will be making. The blade with be about ten inches with a 15 inch overall length. The width of the blade is over two inches. Its BIG.
[img]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e185/pike3e/37.jpg[/img]

The template is under the billet so that you can see how much I still have to forge the blade wider. I am going to try to forge as evenly as possible to reduce the distortion of the pattern.
[img]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e185/pike3e/38.jpg[/img]