East meets west

After 10 mont's of working on 2 swords and Japanese forging skills, with a lot of broken blades (what is normal with water hardening) i made some more progress and my first Japanese hunter knife for myself.
Forged out of a tool steel (old tire lever) and water quenched with Yaki-Ire,  i used only reclaimed  materials.
It's a big drop point hunter/bushcraft knife.
The handle is made out of 15th century bog oak wood found in the water from Enkhuizen (the Netherlands)  and  the wood came originally from Russia, it's part of an old fundament from houses and it's got it beautiful grain and color from the water and mud.
The red copper has a  hammer forged pattern and  it's  a piece from a tool i got from my dad.
The black horn spacers and but cap are made out of buffalo horn.
This knife is actually my first knife i've ever forged some years ago, and it was waiting to get finished.
At first it was a big bushcutter roughly forged, i decided to finally finish it by cutting it smaller end grinding it down to a smooth knife, it's also my first mixture of Japanese style mixed with western style.

Another work in progress projects are the Ainu swords and a bunch of knives.
The first sword i worked on was a Warabite To sword, after 10 months of work i hardened the sword in water with a layer of clay and it had a crack in it.
This is alway's possible, even well trained Japanese master  sword smiths break them,  it's common that 1 on 3 swords can break.
Of course it's sad but i expected the worse case situation so i just moved on and made a short sword out of it.
This one cracked again, and after that 3 more times i tried to make something out of it, i ended up which a small knife yet to be hardened.
I am not said about it cause it helped me a lot and i learned more of the hardening proces with water.
Meanwhile i made a second Ainu inspired sword what came out perfect after quenching, it has a nice hamon on it and i am polishing the blade to get ready for the finishing product by making the tsuba, habaki, tsuka and other parts to finish the sword.
Here a few pictures, thanx for watching, take care Igor.