kbaknife

I just horse-traded for the materials to build a press, including the press frame. Everything here is in excellent working order, however, the cylinder is a 14" stroke and I need an 8/10 to accomodate my frame. The parts and frame I now have came from two different "directions" which is why the cylinder is too long. Anyone have the inclination or desire to trade? And I have a question, this Barnes pump has evloved into the Haldex and is now made in Sweden I think. Anyway, this model number no longer seems to be cross-referenced. The tag has ......-16G stamped on it. Think this means 16 GPM?

Bruce, I re-built and re-finished 7-9 foot concert grand pianos for 5 years. Nuthin' worse than a lingering scratch in the middle of the lid of a 9 foot, mirror polished black lacquer Steinway! Do every grit to its completion before moving on to the next one!

Quality of sandpaper is one thing, but EVRYTHING in knifemaking seems to only be the preparation step for the next one. Though you may have considered it before, allow me to give some advice when it comes to sanding out scratches: When you're "sanding out" scratches, you're not really sanding scratches. You're sanding everything that is NOT a scratch! The scratches don't leave until you bring all of the rest of the material DOWN even with the BOTTOM of the scratches! To put it simply, the MORE scratches you have, the less material you have to sand DOWN to the bottom of the scratches! So, do a REALLY good job with the sanding belts as you grind. If you just do a quick grinding job, then you've left yourself a LOT of handwork, because you've only done a rudimentary job of grinding and only have a few scratches. Go through your belt progressions slooooowly and completely, and when you get done, the hand work is a breeze, because you won't have any deep scratches left.

That's really nice, Matt. Wish I'd made it! I hope to see it in Atlanta.

You bet - I upset it with my power hammer to get a piece 1/2" thick.

Absolutely. It will do the knife justice.

I had a customer who inherited the Old family farm along the Mississippi river between Illinois and Missouri. The family decided to tear down the old farm buildings and divide the place up into rentable camp sites. During the destruction, they unearthed a few ancient files and an almost-rusted-away splitting wedge. They cut up some of the barn timbers, which I went through to get enough of a piece of old oak to send off and get stabilized. The file used here was an old "Arcade" with a logo like a horse shoe. I didn't etch the blade but the hamon in that file blade is phenominal. I just thought it would clash with the file teeth. Now maybe I can get busy with the Blade Show!

Hatchling = not quite a grown-up hatchet. I needed to make this for a waitress here in town for her Boyfriend's birthday. I didn't show it in the photo but I put his initials in the spine in silver wire as well. Forged from my 1" square 5160 and fully hardened. This was a huge amount of fun to make. Thanks.

That is correct. The stuff I have was pulled out of the basement of a building built in '07. Jim, that stuff is about 1 1/4" thick.

Absolutely.

A little something I'll be dragging along to Atlanta. Forged from 1084 with a little clay treatment for the Hamon addicts. Beautiful piece of African Blackwood that is sooooooooooooo smooth it doesn't even feel like wood! Mother of Pearl inlay on both sides and a slightly different guard and spacer combination you may be accustomed to seeing from me. See ya' in Atlanta!

Pretty straight-forward 5160 Fighter forged from my 1984 square 5160, mated with some 100+ year old Bakelite and hot-blued mild steel take-down fittings. Dead-on 8" clipped blade and 13 1/4" overall. Not much else to say!

I forged this out of a chunk of "stuff" I found on Jerry's floor. Just kidding! Believe me - I earned it. W2 and 203E twist from Jerry Rados' shop. Now, that handle is the first time I've used some Stabilized Hickory that I sent off a while back. Man! Am I impressed with that stuff! I've got a buddy across the river who does custom kitchens and such and he had quite a stack of Hickory blocks left over from a job that he was going to use in his wood burner to heat his house. I cut up some blocks, put them in my shop ceiling for about a year and sent them to K and G for stabilizing. I am so totally thrilled with it. It was AMAZINGLY hard and dense and has character and figure that I did NOT know was in there. Anyway, sorry. I just like it. A lot. You can sort of see the little "sparkles" in it that I think may be some type of resin or something. It really dances! And I liked the contrast it gave to the hot-blued Damascus and stainless take-down fittings. Thanks for letting me run on.

The only way you could straighten them is while they are above red and into the orange-hot color range. Annealing is irrelevant.

I got three of those springs. They were to go in the base of some huge hydraulic cylinders but were off-spec. and headed for the recycle dumpster! A buddy of mine works in a plant that manufactures those cylinders.

If you get one like this you can make LOTS of knives!

Knife Making Supplies

I just love using this end-grain spalted maple! Once it is stabilized it just turns into a solid piece of plastic. The mild steel take-down fittings were hot blued and the W2 blade was clayed for a nice hamon. (Will be on my table in Atlanta) 8 1/8" blade and 13 1/4" overall.

We didn't even touch the subject of what KIND of oil?!?

I'm thinking a couple things here. And putting them together indicate something to me. If you are blacksmithing you are more than likely forging in coal? Not all that important, but possibly. Are you using coal? If you are getting cracks from quenching in both water AND oil, then the cracks may already exist BEFORE the quench. You may have got extreme grain growth from forging at too high a heat. Which is common with untrained students. With chromium steel that is more than likely in the springs you are using, you need to do a couple of post-forging steps to normalize your forging stresses, or cracks will be common. As well, if these are 5160 which is a deep hardening steel, and you have forged at too high a heat, the reason you have a layer of material on top that did NOT get hard, and it seems harder underneath, then you may have created a layer of steel that has decarburized from the etreme heat. The exterior won't get hard now no matter what, but the deep hardening qualities of the steel you are using will harden underneath it. Problems in quenching are one thing, but many times, these problems are a result of the forging and post-forging steps improperly done.

Knife Making Supplies

Ed, there's a Fastenal in Decatur, Lincoln and Bloomington. Here in Watseka they keep quite a stock pile of O1 on the shelf in various sizes. But, then again, heat treatment on O1 is critical to achieve full performance from this steel. It most deffinitely requires long soak times with proper temp control, followed by a decent heat treat medium speed oil. If you have a heat treat oven, you're good-to-go!

Thanks, Karl. That's my name, too! Glad to meet ya'.

I cut them into handle sized blocks and put them up in the ceiling of my shop for a MINUMUM of a year. Then, send them off to be professionally stabilized. There is absolutely no home-stabilizing process than equals the pros like K and G or WSSI.

Well, I had given it some thought and came to the conclusion that I could not recall ever seeing anyone twist wrought iron for their fittings. I really wanted something different for this, being my first Damascus offering of Andersen Forge Damascus. So, I twisted a bar of wrought iron for the guard, heavily etched it, hot-blued it, and high-lighted it by lightly sanding some of the bluing off of the high spots that results from the etching. As well, the 405 layers of 1084/15N20 were hot-blued and high-lighted. A solid piece of Ebony was used for the take-down handle work. A LOT of black going on here, but she just DANCES in the sunlight! It's a true pleasure to post it here. I thought I might also post it showing the guard prior to hot-bluing.