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In the last video, we teamed up with Alec Steele to forge a blade for one of the most unique projects we've built to date. By layering steel and copper together, we've managed to make a blank for a one-of-a-kind chef's knife. And
Watch the creation of a unique Bugatti Chiron-inspired chef's knife, from forging to grinding and etching, culminating in a special birthday gift.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- Layering steel and copper creates a visually striking and unique blade pattern called Kumai.
- Precision grinding and etching are crucial to reveal and enhance the blade’s copper pattern.
- Expert collaboration improves craftsmanship and learning in knife making.
- The knife includes a hidden genuine Bugatti part, adding uniqueness and sentimental value.
- The project highlights the difference between handmade and mass-produced knives.
What the video covers
- The video follows the forging of a one-of-a-kind chef's knife blade made by layering steel and copper, called Kumai.
- The blade forging was done with Alec Steele, and the knife is a surprise gift for Matt Armstrong's birthday.
- Onar from Dyzen Every Fell assists with grinding and sharpening the blade, sharing expert techniques.
- The process includes marking bevels, testing blade hardness, and acid etching to reveal the copper pattern.
- Grinding and sanding refine the blade’s shape and surface, enhancing the visible copper-steel contrast.
- Multiple acid etches deepen the blade’s pattern and protect the steel surface.
- The video teases a secret genuine Bugatti part hidden inside the knife, revealed later in the project.
- The handle construction involves bonding and machining complex materials, with challenges like air pockets and curing times.
- The final reveal showcases the finished knife, emphasizing the craftsmanship and personal significance of the gift.
- The creator reflects on the learning experience and collaboration throughout the knife-making process.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and forging the Kumai blade
- 00:58Preparing to grind and sharpen the blade with Onar
- 02:24Marking bevels and testing blade hardness
- 03:45Acid etching to reveal copper pattern
- 04:35Grinding and shaping the blade
- 05:49Sanding and refining the blade surface
- 07:49Final acid etching and pattern enhancement
- 10:28Handle construction and challenges
- 20:44Final reveal and reflection on the project
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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that knife is going to be a surprise gift for Matt Armstrong's birthday. And the forging of the [music] blade, well, that was the easy part. The blade is still just a rough blank that needs grinding and sharpening.
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And the handle, well, let's just say things didn't go exactly to plan. And we're still keeping one huge secret. We haven't revealed what genuine Bugatti part is hidden inside this knife. But by the end of this video, you'll know
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exactly what it is. [music] So, watch us transform these parts into something that we've never built before.
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So, now we have our knife blank. We're finished with Alec. Thank you very much.
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And it's time to grind it and make this sharp. So, we are here with Onar from Dyzen Every Fell, and he's going to show us what to do. So, we've made this blank. [music] Uh, it's called Kumai. So, it's a layer
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of steel, layer of copper, layer of steel, layer of copper, layer of steel again.
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And hopefully, we'll be able to see the thread of copper going through the side of the blade.
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First of all, you've come to the wrong place. [laughter] So, who is Onar? And why did we choose him to help us sharpen this knife? Onar is a long-time YouTuber and Instagram creator who has made some of the most
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unique and one-of-a-kind knives out there. He's got amazing attention to detail. So, he is the guy to help us make something special.
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Yeah, so obviously, I mean, this is pretty thick, this. But, um, I'm assuming there's quite a lot of pattern in there.
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What we're going to do, we'll start off with, we'll, we'll get some Dychem on there, and then we'll mark it up where we want the bevels, and then where we want we'll mark the center line as well.
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And then obviously, once we're getting in the grinding room, we'll also take these edges off. Obviously, it's not just as simple as just putting a bevel on there. Uh, uh, and then obviously the further up we take [music] it depending
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on the steel. In fact, what we'll do to start off with this, we'll clean off this edge and we'll do a little test edge just so we can see where the lines are. Mega.
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Yeah. So, the first job is to make sure the face [music] is totally flat. And the reason we need to do this is we need to put a scribe line directly down the center of the blade. This is going to
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dictate where the knife's [music] edge is going to be. If it's slightly off center, it's just going to look and feel wrong.
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That'll be enough now we've got, we've cleared off most of it. Um, right, we'll give that a clean off and then we'll dip it in acid.
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So, the reason for the acid at this point is just to see where the copper sits within the blank. And this will give us a good indication to see if the pattern is going to be equal on both
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sides. But before we do that, we're going to test the hardness of the blade.
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Put these, uh, hardness testing files. They're not massively accurate. Um, this is a 55 Rockwell hardness. So, obviously the same as a file. It'll have a skate across if the steel's harder than the file and if the, if the file's harder than
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the steel then it bites in. And that's skating across there so that means that's harder than 55 Rockwell.
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We'll go up to 60 now. You can feel it just about biting and then this is 65 now.
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It's not biting in. I don't think what steel's that. So, this is, this, this is hardened and this is, this is biting in a lot.
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This is biting in but still skating so I'd say it's, it's, it's probably above 65 Rockwell.
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But I think being too hard is never a problem. But for now, let's just see what it's like with the etch.
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[music] There you go. Yeah, it's made the center darker, isn't it? So, now you can see the [music] the, the copper a bit clearer. Obviously, obviously the copper's got a thickness to it. But, when you, when, when it's just
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one thing, you can see a line, but you can't see how thick it is.
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So, in some areas there, you've got some quite a decent thickness. Yeah, so once we ground it, we'll re-etch it, and then it'll darken. All, all the steel what's going to be darker.
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Um, to be fair, I thought the outside [music] was going to be a bit lighter, but it looks actually same, but it'll look pretty cool once it's ground and all the, the copper's out there. [music] Mhm. Just having dark and then the shiny
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copper. So, now we can see what we're working with. It's time to scribe down the center. We're going to coat the whole blade with blue dykem spray, because when we make the scribe line, it will stand out nicely. Just so we can give
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this knife that me and Alec forged the attention it deserves. Now we're set. It's time to get on the tools, starting with this belt grinder.
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Probably the most important tool any knife maker can have. So, let's get straight into it.
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[music] So, just like the forging, I've [music] never done grinding like this before. But, Alec is here to teach me and guide me through everything I need to know.
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[music] [music] [music] So, how's it from my first grind? Yes, this is really good.
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Uh, problem [laughter] is you. Uh, I mean, to be honest, it's I'm, I'm You got It speaks for itself, really, don't it?
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You can see how sort of clean that line is and we haven't obviously finished and it's, it's a, it's a rough ground with a 36 grit, so that I'd be happy with that.
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I mean, it's probably better than what, what I, I could even lay down now anyway.
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So yeah. Um, can I have the 100 quid now? [laughter] As we continue to take the mass out of this blade, the pattern [music] keeps revealing itself more and more each pass.
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[music] And with a few more passes on the belt grinder, it's time for Ona to inspect my work.
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Look at all of that there. Wow. [laughter] You did that? I told him to do that.
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[laughter] Artistic with metal. I think he's very happy with that result. I know I [music] was. The next job is to sand down the top scale of this knife. So, we flipped the grinder on its side, attached this magnetic
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rail. This will give us the flattest and most perfect surface finish. [music] [music] We now need to give this curved section some attention. It's a challenging shape, but with each area we worked on, the knife became more dialed in and
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looking more like a refined piece than the bunches of metal that we started with. This is the difference between something [music] bought and something made. The hours and hours of hard work [music] and effort that goes into making
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something a meaningful gift. And after a few more hours of grinding, we're ready to dip the blade in the acid again [music] to see how the copper has presented itself.
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We've done the rough grind and we've done the flat sander. We, we? You. Me.
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Now we need to etch it. Etching is to darken the color of the steel, so it brings out the color of the copper in the Kumai blade. Uh, what else does the etching do? Does it protect it?
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It can protect it, yeah. It can form like a carbide on on there. The, the oils in your skin can can stop the acid from etching, so clean it off with acetone first.
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Clean any, any bits of crap that have been on there. That's cool. Yeah. It'll obviously get darker as well.
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That's very cool. That looks cool, that. That I think they add to it as well, them little streaks.
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Mhm. Go for another dunk, see if it goes darker. Yeah. It's [snorts] so cool.
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You made that. This is starting to look amazing. I mean, [music] look at that color, the copper and the black. It's exactly what I wanted. We'll go for one more etch and then we can see what the finished blade
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will look like. That looks amazing. That looks so good. So we're going to go back to the machine shop and start working on the handles. Send any Thank you so much. It's been absolutely so much fun and I'm so impressed with that.
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It was, it was, um, it was really fun. It was a lot easier than [music] I thought it would be.
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Brilliant. Thank you
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[laughter] So that's nice and easy, isn't it? That's so good. Yeah, that's so good. What a nice guy.
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He's so lovely. I've got my microphone. I know. Nice. Yeah, they've gone, yeah. Oh, thank god for that.
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To be fair, they were both I didn't really want to spend any more of talk with them.
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All right, then. I forgot my microphone. Ah. Cheers, mate. Hey, thanks. Nice to meet you.
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Stop what you're doing. I've got a challenge for you. 60 seconds on the clock.
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In less than 60 seconds, you can find out if you are owed thousands. If you've had a car on PCP or finance since 2007, [music] you could be owed an average of £829 per car. I challenge you to do this faster
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than I can because it took me 59 [music] seconds. If you can do it in better than that, well, I know you won't be able to, but if you can, I'll give you a free t-shirt. [music] It's completely free to check. You don't
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need to dig out any old paperwork or contracts. And if you don't get a [music] claim out of it, you don't have to pay. So, scroll down a little bit to the link below and you can click to see
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if you are owed any money from hidden commission or finance deals. And done. Right. Thank you very much to Refund Club for sponsoring this video.
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So, we've done the sharpening and we've put the first etch on just to see what it looks like. Now, I've Scotch-Brited off the etch off again just to uh finish sharpening. So, we're going to bring the sharpening up to about 90%.
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Then we're going to start building the handle, okay? We'll finish the sharpening after the handle's gone on because I don't want to scuff the handle.
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The question is, what do you make the handle from? [music] As some of you noticed, the actual blade itself wasn't made from anything Bugatti related for the simple fact that there isn't really much steel used on the car.
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Most of this car is made from aluminum and carbon fiber. And what aluminum part would look best in the handle of this knife? A Bugatti Chiron radiator, the same one that Matt brought all the way from America for me to copy. Now, you're
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probably wondering how we're going to turn this into a handle. Now, I'll admit this was not my idea. It was my friend Perry's idea and it's a fantastic idea. What we do is we cut it up, we cut a section out of
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it, we take some purple glitter and some epoxy, and we pour the purple epoxy into the radiator core.
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And when it sets, we can then chop it up and turn it into what we call knife scales. That's the little piece that goes on either side to make the handle that you can grip. And I've never done
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anything like this before. I'm not nervous, but I am What is it? It's Tuesday today. I have to give the knife to him on Monday.
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If I get this wrong, I've no guilt chopping it up because it's smashed up. It's it's uh it's useless. It's absolutely useless.
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It's it's for the bin. Also, like for me, this is a piece of automotive history. Like this is What do they call it? Auto memorabilia. I think that taking this history and putting it into this, you know, is is a really special thing.
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And uh It's the right way to go about it. right way to do it, yeah. So, let's do it.
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So, by nature, what's going to happen is there's going to be lots of air bubbles all the way through. And I'm going to be trimming this to be the knife the shape of a knife handle.
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When we cut through it, we're going to see air pockets and bubbles and stuff everywhere. So, what we're going to do is put it under vacuum.
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To do that, we have a vacuum [music] pot. So, first thing we need to do is make sure that the block is the right size. So, to make sure this is done right, [music] we need to stand the core on its end to
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make sure all the channels get filled with epoxy. They're the little tubes I was trying to get access to, so the air will put get out cuz it was like that before.
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Yeah. And this flex saw will make sure that we get the cleanest cut and all those channels stay clear.
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And now we wrap it up so it holds the epoxy. I'm not good at Christmas.
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[music] [music] [music] [music] That cured very quickly. Mhm, do you think it worked? I don't know, it seems a bit too quick to cure.
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I don't mind how fast it cured. I mean, that's like 2 hours. If I cut all the way through the middle of it, then I've wasted the epoxy and the bit of core.
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But, I also need to know what it's like down the middle of it. I don't see any [music] imperfections. This seems right. There's one hole there, one hole there.
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Which is going to happen. All right, yeah. That way. See, that's definitely that way.
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Mhm. So far, so good. The pattern looks incredible. But, there's just one thing. It's not purple enough.
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I just want it to be like This is very subtle. It's not a subtle color.
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But, I think once we shape it, I think it will bring out a lot more of the purple. And with that weighing on my mind, we had to get to work. We've only got a few days to get this finished.
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Thinking to make a very small amount of epoxy and a paint it on that side, paint it on that side, and then Bond them. Yeah.
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Bond them that way. So, while that cures, it's time to give the blade its final sharpen. This took [music] hours, so I won't bore you with all the footage. And while I did that, it gave the handle enough time to cure.
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Okay, it's all cured. Now, we need to split this in half cuz this is going to be the right-hand side, this is going to be the left-hand side.
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Bonded, flattened. Now, that's going to be too thick [music] for a knife, obviously. So, we need to take each one of these These are called scales, by the way. We need to take one of these and make [music] them thinner
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on both sides. I'm going to use my mill cuz it's the machine shop and we got machinery.
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And just as we thought everything was going to plan, we were about to have a major setback.
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Fine. Everything's going to be okay. Explain what just happened. I wanted to wash the oil off it from being on the mill, so I wet it and then we needed to evaporate the water off it, so I put it in a little box like this and
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[music] put a heater in there, but too hot. It's fine. I knew that would happen.
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So, all we can do at this point is try and glue it back together.
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Disaster. We have bonded the aluminum sections back on to the center of the handle again.
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I took it apart and it broke and fell apart again. So, that might be contamination issue, could be lots of different issues. So, we've tried it again. That's setting with some better quality the Um if that doesn't work, we are
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knackered [music] because normal Bob style, the birthday is tomorrow, so I have to finish it. What I'm going to do instead, and it's actually kind of working out cuz it looks better, is we have a pour that I did last week. And this
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looks awesome. I really like this. So, I was thinking I'll make the entire handle out of this instead. We did notice we had one or two small holes, so we're just going to mix up some new epoxy and
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fill them in. [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] It's still chunky, but we can machine that after.
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But, that needs sorting out. [music] I think I'm going [music] to take some of the bulk of the back of it on the bandsaw.
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And then, I don't know, I kind of want to start going at it at an angle grinder.
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I kind of trust I'll Yeah, hand sculpt it. I'm making this all up as I go along.
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Um, so I'm going to take the bulk of the back of the scale off now.
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On the bandsaw. [music] So, what I'm afraid of is the thin little bits of aluminum that's inside, when they get caught in like a saw blade or an angle grinder disk or something, they fold over a a bit. And that's what
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I'm afraid of. So, you can see it here where the epoxy hasn't gone all the way through some of the cores. It will tear because it's unstable. So, we need to try and avoid doing that. So, we're going to start using a lot less
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aggressive machines from now on. Uh like just like a normal house sander uh to bring the rest of this down.
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[music] So, after more hours of sanding, shaping, refining, we get it glued up and stuck onto the blade. And then, we can start [music] polishing this thing to see if we can get that purple pop and come to life.
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The knife is done. And [music] it's sharp. I'm going to put that away, stainless.
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And now to show you the final result. [music] [music] This has been really fun to make cuz I've learned loads of new skills and met some amazing people. All we've got to do now is give [music] it to Matt.
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Yes, it this a present for both of And thank you very much for all the opportunities and everything that has happened. You know, I'm nervous as well.
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But it's um [laughter] I can do. Oh, it's something you can use at home.
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Do you recognize that? Is that from the forget-me-nots? Yeah. What is that out? [laughter] That's from the Sharon. That's the Sharon radio. Smash it.
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way. No way. [laughter] What? That is sick. So, I have hand forged a blade with copper in it.
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Oh, my what's that out? the copper in the in the car. So, you use that out.
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actually the radiator. That's the actual radiator. Yeah. No way. Did you put the purple on it?
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Yeah, yeah. So, I mixed up purple epoxy with um uh purple glitter. That is wicked. No way. Oh, thank you.
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Yeah, nice. That's [music] wicked. Yeah, it's wall shot. So, it's a proper kitchen knife. So, you can use it. It's it's functional.
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Yeah, yeah. Don't let anyone know that. That's amazing. That's what we call the Sharon. Yeah, thank you.
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Well, did you make the box as well? No, no. That was Amazon. That got here this morning.
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No, wicked. Yeah, so. Oh, a lot of it. That's what we call [music] the Yeah, yeah. I'm about a week and a half for sale.
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Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Bob. Thanks James. [laughter] What started out as just an idea for a gift became something a lot [music] more special. I got to connect with some like-minded people who share the same enthusiasm to craft and create something
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that doesn't just represent hard work, but talent, too. So, if you enjoyed the video, make sure you like it, and don't forget to subscribe.
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I'll see you in the next one.
Topics:Bugatti Chiron knifechef's knife forgingKumai bladesteel and copper knifeblade grindingacid etching knifeknife making processAlec SteeleDyzen Every Fellcustom knife gift
