Made from 80CrV2 high-carbon steel, this full tang paring knife is the first knife I ever made. I worked under the expert instruction of Dossain Valencia, who studied blacksmithing at the New England School of Metalwork. This knife took three days to make and a total of 22 hours in the forge.

The process was split into three parts: 1) shaping the blade on the anvil, 2) refining its profile and bevel at the grinder, and 3) fitting and attaching the blocks of wood to the exposed full tang. 

I elected to leave the forge finish on the blade to emphasize the intensive work put into shaping the blade solely with a hammer. After phase 1, the blade was heat treated, tempered, and quenched to ensure the optimal hardness and toughness for rugged use. The grinding in phase 2 was tricky to learn at first because I had to manually create a flat bevel on the blade by maintaining a constant angle on the grinder on both sides of the blade.

Sadly, this knife was lost during a move. The following video is the only media with the knife.