Muttt

I've been married twenty years. It's actually kinda simple. 1. She don't like the stuff you like to do. So, she is never going to be interested in any cost involved with any of those hobbies. 2. She don't like the mess that your stuff leaves around the place. Which goes back to point #1. 3. It's always easier to get forgiveness than it is to get permission. If you drag this out and turn it into a fight, it will just kill and enjoyment and will turn your hobby into an issue. If you continue to do what you are doing now, it is simply going to turn your hobbie and the clutter into an issue. If you just build what you need when she aint home, and put all your stuff neatly away and get it out of her areas, you will see that "wow, it looks so much better" and bitch a little bit about the money you spent. A week from now, you will be doing what you want to be doing and she will have forgotten all about the "extra money" your hobby costed and be happy that the yard looks so much better. Plus, if you every happen to get good enough to make some stuff you can sell, she'll be even happier with the money. It comes down to this. Your hobby, your house, the money and the areas belong to both of you. You can't take ownership of an area. And, "ONE" of you can't always be in control. Share and share alike. If she knits or something like that, don't bitch about her stuff either. Compromise. Either way, if you just do it ....... she'll forget about it long before we see one of your knew projects made in your new space posted on here ..... LOL. The risk is up to you. Mutt

I wouldnt think so. I don't think you'll get a sword out of it ...... LOL. But, if you were to weld a tang onto it, you would be able to make a nice little three finger knife with it. Weld on a tang and do a hidden tang design. It's worth a shot anyway. If you don't try, it will never be anything but a scrap of metal. Mutt

Frankly it's all xxxxxxxx. Going after the guns, ammo and now knives. Keep the masses stupid and unarmed. Then you can infringe on any and all of thier rights, and there is nothing you can do about it. Mutt

I am knew to this, but what scale I do get, usually comes right off with the first smack. I guess the law of averages ensures that at some point I am gonna end up with scale sticking outta my project when all finished. But, what I do know is that if you are trying to forge weld, you deffinitely need to get off the scale. It makes welding a living hell if you don't get it off. Mutt

I guess I am lucky here. I live in Bremerton. We have a ship yard here. They scrap old ships and submarines. There is also a scrap yard that is really close that gets truck loads of scrap from the ship yard. There is always tons of cable and huge pieces of high grade steel available. They let you walk around and look all day, as long as you stay out of the loaders way. I have gone there enough that they know me now. I can go in and trade stuff I can't use for pieces of scrap that I can use. Really nice place people friendly. Mutt

Same here ..... I hate the smell of burning automotive oils. I use peanut oil in my rock saw. So, since it works nice for cutting rock and I happen to have a surplus of peanut oil on hand, I have used it on several projects I recently finished. It has a very high flash point and has not even come close to flame up when quenching red hot metal. And, the fumes from the process are actually pleasant smelling. Plus, it's only like 8 bucks for a gallon at Walmart. Mutt

My buddy bought this thing for balancing a lawnmower blade. It is really simple. Excuse my picture, I know it is crude. The red part is the lawn mower blade. The blue part is a washer like thing with a pin that goes through the bolt hole in the blade. The black lower piece is a a metal cone. The blue piece has a small dimple drilled into the bottom. The pointy tip of the cone sits in the dimple under the blue washer thingie. Then you just set the blade on the washer and the washer on the cone. The blade will not only show balance from end to end but also from side to side. It's amazingly simple but perfect for determining proper balance of any blade really. As long as it has a center hole, you can check balance with this thing. I'm sure it would be so easy to make. Mutt

OK, Does the little thingie on the end hold the handle tight onto the blade?? If so ..... how did ya make it? I have an idea to weld a nut onto the end of the tang and use a small allen bolt to tighten it all together. Does your's work something like that? Mutt

The ring could have been used for a rope or chain? I just watched the movie "300" again ........ and was thinking combat. Roman Ninja throwing/retrievable thing?? Maybe not ...... LOL. I do like the way it came out. You know it looks good when it can go without a handle and look great. It would look great with a rawhide wrap with a reverse baseball stitch. Mutt

To xxxx with the neighbors. Maybe they will get sick of the noise and move. Problem solved ...... LOL. Mutt

Beautiful knives. Great pattern. What did you use to grind your bevels?? Mutt

I used to work at Home Depot. They have some very beautiful marble tiles for fairly cheap (per tile anyway). You can buy them one at a time. You can even go through thier pile and find a broken one and ask them for a 75 percent discount. Should be enough in a broken tile for at least one knife. Mutt

Thanks for all the suggestions. Mutt

That's cool, That is what I hate about posting. Sometimes, you don't get the intent behind a person's typed word's. I thought you were on the offensive. My bad. I completely mistook your comments. I do appreciate the schooling though. I had been using the terms loosely and back wards for a little while. I always hope to learn more ..... I'm not young but I am new. Thanks. Mutt

Thanks for the clearification. I was using the terms wrong. So ..... I can deffinitely see where that reply was confusing. Hope my later replies cleared it up. Oh, I was at a gathering and there were lots of people there working different kinds of crafts. Several guys there were forging (that's actually what got me started/interested) one of the bladesmiths there was Tom Sterling from Coupeville Sterling Sculptures ,but even though he was actually there doing other things including metal carving/etching etc. he was involved with some of the forging and was also very knowledgable. The well known bladesmith there was Blaine. He was very well known by all the others there, but it was the first time I ever met him. He was nice enough to teach me and my son what he could in a day. He lives in the Seattle / Tacoma area but for the life of me, I can't remember his last name. He had tons of his stuff there on display and has tought many of the guys that were at the gathering to forge and make knives. Hope that explains a bit. I don't claim to be all that great. I am just a beginner. But, the knives we made from disks came out great. As far as the well known bladesmith ...... I have no idea whether or not you know a Blaine in the Seattle area. But, the people there said he was very well known in our area. If ya know him ya know him ..... if ya don't ya don't. I'm just glad he was nice enough to help out me and my kid. Im not sure about austenite or converted fresh untempered martensite. But, all we had available that day was a small gas forge and a pan of oil for quenching. We did what we could with what we had and the results came out very favorable. I just figured I would reply and let the guy know that you can make a decent blade from a plow disk. As far as all the terms go and what happens on a molecular level ....... I wouldn't even begin to try to get into that kind of discussion. I used a term wrong and made a party foul ..... my bad. Mutt

Well ..... I did some draw filing. I wasn' happy with the results though. My files seem kinda rough for draw filing. When I was done, I had tons of parallel lines to deal with. Although, the draw filing did take out some of the woopdeewoo's in the blade and did get it alot flatter. But, I then needed to take out the 4 inch angle grinder again. I have 60, 80 and 120 wheels. I use the 60 and 80 for roughing and shaping. I use the 120 when I am smoothing things out. I went ahead and put the thing in until it was all non-magnetic and then did a full quench in peanut oil (you were right, no scaling ..... just a bluing of the metal). The quench went really well and it didn't warp or twist at all. I was afraid it would since it started as cable and may have memory left in it. But, I stayed really straight. Anyway, I lightly used the angle grinder/sander to take off the blackening enough so I could temper it. I slowly took it up to a straw ...... but, it was really really hard to get straw for some reason and I ended up with a kind of light blue. But, I am thinking that may not be so bad since it is so long and thin. It seems to have a little flew in it (I put some pressure against it to see of it would bend or spring back and it flexed without bending). When I was done with the 120 sanding with the angle grinder, I took some 220 and hand sanded for a while. It is starting to get a nice shine going. But, I still need a little more with the 120 on the grinder because there is still some stock that needs to come off in the bevel. I kept it thick so it wouldn't twist. Once I get it a little more bevelled and closer to and edge I will stop. I ordered some polishing disks for the 4 inch grinder from harbor frieght. They are 60, 80, 120, 220, 400 and 600 grit. I think the 400 and 600 will help me polish. I will then take 600, and 800 and hand sand. Here is how it turned out so far. I did file out a bevel near that tang (not sure what it's called .... where the blade edge stops) and filed down the tang considerably. I also filed the tang so it is thinner than the blade so when I slide on a brass fitting it will come flush. Anyway, it's closer to finished. Just needs some fine shaping and sanding. Comments welcome. Actually the more the better. This is my second knife .... so, the more knowledge I can compile the better. Mutt

Thanks .... i don't know why, but for some reason I had the idea that you did the filing and sanding after you heat treat. Because the blade blackens up again and needs cleaning after heat treating ....... or am I wrong. Can someone explain a little?? Mutt

So ....... how much are the two different swage blocks and how can I order one ???? Mutt

Wow .... I meant Muriatic Acid. I am so glad you guys steered me straight. I do plan on using it on Damascus ..... so, what would be preferable, Muriatic or Ferric Chloride???

Does anyone know where a person can buy Mercuric Acid to use for etching metal?? I have no idea where to even begin. I tried to google but no luck. OOOppps meant muriatic acid. No wonder I wasn't having any success. Now I am probably on a DEA watchlist ..... LOL. I guess they use Mercuric Acid for Meth ..... LOL. My bad ..... I'm glad you guys steered my right. Mutt

We tempered after quenching by slowly ....... really slowly, bringing the blade up to temp until it was a straw color. It took some of the brittleness out of the blade. The edge stayed hard as hell but the middle of the blade and the back was brought back to a little more of a flexable temper. Does that clear it up. When I used the term "normalize" I meant bring it back from that brittleness and temper it to a proper hardness. We edge quenched to get a really hard cutting edge and then after that had cooled, we tempered the entire blade. When we tempered the whole blade, it wasn't enough to loose all the hardness of the edge do to the type of metal we used. The metal from those disks is great stuff. Not sure of the official steel content, but it is already hardened for use as a plow. We just played around with that hardness when we worked it. We had a very knowledgable well known bladesmith teaching us when we did this. So, I am pretty sure we did it right. He was really please with the outcome of our second try. Here is the "close to final product" before final polishing and the handle. Mutt

Well, that welded cable I showed in the "Cable Won't Weld" thread came out really nice. I finally got a chance to grind that tanto blank down to the roughed out knife. I have it down as far as I want to go with the rough sanding. It's time to heat treat, but I have read that if you edge quench when you heat treat cable damascus it will ruin the way the the damascus looks when you acid etch. So, any suggestions on how to treat this particular piece of metal???? I was thinking taking the whole thing to non magnetic then do a full dunk in oil for the quench. Then, after cooling, take the whole thing back to "straw" and call it a day and start the final finish. Here is what I did so far with the grinder. Not sure how long to make it though ................. Gonna wait to heat treat till I school myself. I'd hate to ruin this piece of metal after all the work I put in it so far. Mutt

I made a skinner out of a disk. It is harder than hell. You half to be careful with the quench. The first one we made, we did a full dunk in oil and it shattered when we tried to cold work a twist. The second one we only quenched the edge of the blade then normalized. Boy it came out nice and holds one hell of an edge. Mutt