Took the wind right out of my sails.
Started on my second knife this morning! I got all the way through to the point of the final hardening quench when low and behold, we noticed a small crack at the base of the blade. 3 Hours of work and all of it for a broken blade. I must admit I was a little crushed and was very close to crying when I realized that it’s nothing to get that upset about. Cracks happen.
My uncle Ronnie couldn’t figure out why it cracked. He looked at it through magnifying glasses and a loupe, but the carbon crystals (which are beautiful by the way), were evenly dispersed and nothing crack-worthy was apparent. We are going to try again on Thursday, I’ll let you know how it goes. 
Here are some pictures of the knife’s fateful, short life.
The forge, heating up my blade and anvil.
Stretching out the tang.
Cooling down slowly before the final quench.
A rough grind to get off all of the scaley black carbon.
A closer image of the break. It started as a fracture on the left and Ronnie broke it off. It was definitely unusable as a knife. So sad.
