Studying at Western University starts with a knife-forging competition

Over the next few days, Lin Yuan focused all his energy on the cloud-patterned steel inlay technique of Doug's short cross-blade.

Without the rush, the pace of life naturally changes.

During the competition, every step was controlled by a timer. The forging, normalizing, quenching, and rough grinding had to be completed within two hours. The rhythm of the hammer falling was not determined by the participants, but by the countdown.

Now, in his own workshop, he can stop whenever he wants, and no one will rush him if he wants to check the temperature again before hammering.

This composure allows him to focus more on the details that he has to temporarily ignore during the competition—before each round of forging, he uses calipers to measure the thickness distribution of the billet to ensure that the thickness difference on both sides of the folded surface does not exceed a very small tolerance range.

The amount of borax applied has also been readjusted. Instead of roughly covering the surface with a handful as in the competition, it is now sprinkled by rubbing it between the fingertips, so that the flux just covers every inch of the folded joint.

The silver-iron alloy blank is sandwiched with alternating layers of 1084 and 15N20, with an initial structure of seven layers, just like in the competition.

But this time, after each round of forging, he would put the billet under a metallographic microscope for a few minutes to check the carbon migration state at the interlayer interface.

During the competition, he relied entirely on his perception of the heat and fusion process to make these judgments. Now, with a metallographic microscope, his perception and measured data can be mutually verified.

With each observation, his grasp of the temperature window became more precise. Eventually, he almost no longer needed the microscope—not that he didn't use it, but that he no longer needed it.

The feel of the screen told him that the interface was in good condition; the microscope was just to confirm that his judgment was correct.

The number of floors doubles round after round. Seven floors become fourteen, fourteen becomes twenty-eight, and twenty-eight becomes fifty-six.

Each time the blank is folded, the cross-sectional pattern becomes finer and finer, gradually changing from stripes that can be clearly distinguished with the naked eye to fine lines that can only be seen by getting close.

By the eighth round, the number of floors had reached nearly 1,800, which was close to the level of the dagger used in the competition.

But Lin Yuan didn't stop. It wasn't that he was deliberately pursuing a higher number of layers, but rather that the silver-iron alloy matrix of this knife was softer than ordinary 1084, and it would take several more passes during the forging process to fully unfold the curvature of the interface between the soft and hard layers.

During the competition, he spent an entire afternoon covering nearly 3,000 floors; this time, it took him three days.

The tenth round, 3,600 floors. The eleventh round, 7,200 floors.

By the end of the twelfth round, the number of layers had stopped at around eight thousand. Lin Yuan placed the billet on the worktable, stepped back, and took a look. Several layers of oxide scale on the surface of the billet had peeled off during the forging process, revealing the fine metal texture underneath.

He used a steel brush to sweep away the remaining borax debris on the surface, then clamped the blank in front of the belt sander to begin rough grinding.

Four hundred mesh, six hundred mesh, eight hundred mesh. With each pass of sand, the pattern on the surface of the blank becomes clearer.

When he ground it to 800 grit, he took the blank off and flipped it over under the light.

The cloud pattern has emerged. It's not the rough, powerful, layered pattern seen from several meters away during the competition, but rather a fine, almost needle-like bluish-gray streamline, layer upon layer, one piece connected to another, spreading evenly from the base of the blade towards the tip.

The edges of the pattern are not rigid boundaries; each line and its adjacent lines have a very thin gradient transition zone, making the entire pattern look as if it is not engraved on the metal surface, but sealed inside the steel.

The cloud pattern on the dagger used in the competition was turbulent, like cumulus clouds before a storm, heavy and oppressive.

The cloud patterns on this short horizontal sword are flowing, like the wispy clouds stretched into thin wisps by the wind in the evening sky, light and quiet.

He poured the pickling solution into the shallow tank and immersed the billet in it. The pickling time was a few seconds longer than usual—the denser the layers, the more precisely the corrosion difference between the dark and light layers needed to be controlled.

After soaking, rinse thoroughly with clean water, neutralize any remaining acid with baking soda water, and then dry.

Just as Lin Yuan held the blank up to the light, Daniel walked over from the office area with a half-cup of coffee in his hand, intending to ask if Lin Yuan wanted him to get a sandwich for lunch.

He glanced at the blank knife, then stopped, his hand holding the coffee cup hanging in mid-air.

"My God." Daniel was stunned for a moment before putting the cup down on the edge of the worktable, looking at it closely, but his hand remained respectful and did not touch it. "This pattern—it looks like the shadow of a cloud."

Lin Yuan did not answer. He slowly flipped the knife blank over under the light.

The cyan-gold cloud pattern flows with the change of light angle. The dark layer, after acid washing, presents a grayish cyan-green color, while the light layer is the pale gold of the silver-iron alloy itself. The two colors are arranged alternately on an extremely fine scale, creating a visual effect that is both static and flowing.

The stacking density of 8,000 layers has reached the critical point where the naked eye can just distinguish the single-layer structure. If you fold it up another round to 16,000 layers, the pattern will become so fine that it will become a blur and lose its sense of layering.

He knew that the forging process could theoretically stack an infinite number of layers, but eight thousand layers were already enough for a short crossbow blank. Going further wasn't impossible, but it was pointless.

Lin Yuan wiped the blank clean with a cotton cloth, placed it on the workbench, took a picture, and sent it to Doug. The photo was taken under fluorescent light, without color correction or filters.

Doug's video call came through within thirty seconds.

As soon as Lin Yuan pressed the answer button, Doug's rugged face filled the entire screen. Behind him was the corridor of the "Sword Forging Competition" studio, with works from previous seasons hanging on the walls, and an intern hurriedly walked past him.

Doug's voice was so loud it almost shattered the phone's speaker.

"Hold the knife up! Closer! Yes—that angle! My God! The grain is finer than the dagger you made in the competition! You took this picture under fluorescent lights? Natural light! Hurry up! Go outside and take a picture for me!"

Lin Yuan placed his phone on a stand, adjusted the rear camera, picked up the blank holder, and pushed open the side door of the factory. The sunlight wasn't too harsh today; a thin layer of clouds covered the afternoon sky, and the light, after being diffused, was evenly distributed on the concrete ground of the parking lot.

He held the blade blank up to the natural light and aimed the camera at the blade.

The blade changed its appearance under the sunlight.

Just now, under the fluorescent lights in the workshop, the bluish-gold color appeared cool and white, as if it had been tinged with a layer of blue by the color temperature of the technical lighting.

Now, under natural light, the color of the cloud pattern becomes softer, and a bluish-green halo slowly shines through the middle of the pattern. As the blade slowly rotates, the entire pattern seems to surge silently.

Doug was silent for about five seconds on the other end of the phone. Then he let out a deep, drawn-out sigh.

"My God, Lin Yuan. This is even more beautiful than the sword I held in the competition. That sword was a cold gold, it looked like judgment—this one looks like blue sky and white clouds..."

I can't quite explain it, but I had a completely different feeling when I looked at it.

Someone called his name from the other end of the hallway on his phone. Without turning around, he yelled "Wait a minute!" and then turned back to face the camera.

"What else do you need to make? The knife fittings? How much longer? I want to fly over there right now. If it weren't for work this week—you know what I'm thinking right now? I'd like to fly straight to your place, set up a folding bed in your workshop, and watch you finish it."

"That's what you said after you finished cutting that sword on the show." Lin Yuan pulled the blade back a little to avoid a ray of direct sunlight that was leaking through the gap in the clouds. The light was too strong and would overexpose the video.

"That's a sword. This is a knife. You can carry a knife with you, but you can't carry a sword. These past few days, whenever I had a spare moment on the show, I would take the sword you used in the finals out of the display case and look at it—Nelson said I was like a child sleeping with a toy in my arms."

"But look at this—this knife, it's more unsettling than any knife I've ever seen." Doug took a deep breath. "Alright. Let's get down to business. The knife fittings—what are you planning to do with them?"

"I was just about to ask you. What style do you want? Something glamorous, something simple, or a modern tactical style? I can make any of those."

"Don't go for a tactical look. A tactical look doesn't suit the pattern on this knife—giving it a black G10 handle would be a waste." Doug rejected the first option without hesitation. "And nothing so ornate as to be studded with gold and diamonds. I've seen many wrestlers do that on the show. It's not that it's bad, but honestly, some knives are already good enough. Just piling on jewels makes it seem like you don't trust your knife."

This knife—I don't need a row of diamonds on the scabbard to prove its value. You've made the blade itself this good; the rest just needs to be worthy of it.

"That's the traditional style, but without piling on the materials."

"Yes. That's the idea. You're making Chinese knives, so do it according to your aesthetic sense. Decorate them however you think is appropriate, I trust you."

"What kind of scabbard do you want?"

"You decide on the scabbard. I'm not picky. I really liked the stingray leather scabbard on your sword from the finals, the feel of it—" Doug paused, then added in a very low voice, "Can I make another request?"

"explain."

"Don't rush to send this knife after it's finished. Wait until I'm done with these next few weeks, then I'll drive over to pick it up myself. I want to see you in person, shake your hand, and then draw this knife from its sheath in front of you."

In the show, I took someone else's work from the display stand, but this time it's different—this time it's my knife.

Lin Yuan put the blank back on the worktable, picked up his phone, and nodded at the camera.

"Okay, I'll wait for you."

A smile that could almost be described as radiant spread across Doug's rugged face.