Rangerdave

All good Rich. thanks RD

Rich I am not into stealing either. I don't have a problem buying the books just want to see it before I purchase. Especially via amazon and such. It may not have the info in it I am searching for, but truthfully I probably need all of them. I just need to pick and chose where I spend my $$ as I am just starting and need everything. I ask questions here and very much appreciate the responses. Matt is right on with what I was trying to figure out and doing a poor job of explaining. I wanted to know how the guard was on the frame handle and looked so perfectly fit but didn't know it was a frame handle (or what a frame handle was for that matter). My lack of experience and terminology shows. Sorry for the confusion. Thanks for all the replies. RD

I have the 50$ knife shop. Couldn't find the complete bladesmith and wanted to see it before buying it. It doesn't explain guards on a full tang. I will continue my search thanks.

Can someone explain how you make a guard (metal) on a full tang blade? Maybe show some pictures so I can figure it out. The knives I have seen with them don't show a good angle of the guard itself. It appears the guard wraps around like on a short tang, fitted with hole in middle. That can't be with a full tang right? I just finished a file knife and have 2 full tangs I have waiting in the wings and am unsure which way to go... metal guard or wood with no specific metal guard added. One is a kitchen knife the other a hunter. thanks RD

I did not know it was illegal to pick up anything on the RR tracks. That being said and obviously a fact... where do all the RR spikes everyone makes things from actually come from?

Great info Bigg. I was wondering the same about sheaths as I just bought leather etc... Love the knowledge here. Thanks a bunch.

Got them from the neighbor so I don't know. They are pretty light feeling so the fact it melted away I would say soft. Truthfully I didn't know there were 2 kinds. I will be looking to get a few hard ones from somewhere near me. I still want to twist and fold it one more time. Then hammer to 1/4" and make a cool knife. Gonna attack the chainsaw chain also. I have probly 25 lbs to play with.

I have the brick on the top of the koawool/itc 100. So i didn't reach that but ate 1/2 of the brick.

My very first (by myself). I am stoked. I took about 2.5 feet of twisted steel cable and forge welded to probly .5 by .5 inches give or take and 9 to 10 inches long. It totally destroyed a fire brick in the bottom of the forge. Is this the norm? Does the steel slag or whatever cause this or the flux? I continue to get internal server error or error 500 when posting pics. I resized to 600x800 as posted but it still won't work. I would like to show the pics but for whatever reason it is beating me down. RD

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am thankful for many things in my life, and one of those things is this forum and the knowledge/willingness for those here to help everyone (especially newbs like me). Best wishes, and thanks to all. RD

Thanks for the advise. I bought boiled linseed oil today and am going to give that a try. It amazes me how much you need to learn to do everything that goes with an an vil/blades. Seems you open one door and it opens 10 more of new and oh my how do I do thats. I really wish I would have started this interest 20 plus years ago. I would be so much closer to where I wish I was now. Never to old to start and learn new but patients is a virtue and that is the hard part right??? RD

I made a knife from a file and the handle from a hickory hammer handle. Would like suggestions on finish. I would like to darken the hickory a little and have thought using linseed oil or tongue oil. I want it to be kind of rustic looking. Anyone have a suggestion or other idea? It is not perfect as I want but for the first one I think it's ok. If I can figure out the pic situation I will post some. Getting errors for some reason. Thanks RD

For some reason I keep getting error 500 something when I try to post pics. I requenched today and did the warm oil trick. I think it worked well. Did skate with the file. I am tempering it now. Will do 2 cycles at 400 for an hour and see how it looks. I think I am good though. I will try and figure out the pic thing so I can post finished product. Many thanks to all for the help. RD

That was my screw up. It is a Simonds. I mistyped simmons.

great idea. never thought of heating steel and putting it in the oil. The normalize went well. After annealing I had massive scale built up. Sanded with 220 and it came off good. Did some research on scale build up and found good info here. Normalized and got it right no scale. Will quench tomorrow. Many thanks again. Will update once quenched. RD

I didn't think about that. I didn't warm the oil. will have to get a hot plate or something before trying that, and switch to olive or peanut oil. Don't really want to be cooking motor oil. I still have some normalizing to do so I can get what I need later. Thanks for the info.

bigfootnampa your are correct. I slow cooled after heat (annealed). I thought I had to redo the entire process from the beginning. I will normalize tomorrow and pray for a good quench and temper.

I never hit with a hammer just did stock removal. It's too late for the wait. When I quench again if it cracks I will have to chalk it up to experience and cry thru the learning curve. Nothing like learning the hard way, but I will remember (for sure) for the times to come. I will let you know how it turns out. Thanks RD

Yesterday I reheated to non magnetic and left it in the forge to slow cool. Took it out this morning put an edge on the blade with fine ceramic sharpener and although it is not as bad it still has areas with the same issue. I tried to take a pic and it won't turn out to where it can be seen. I will try heating it again today and slow cooling again and see if it changes tomorrow.

Yes I read the ht info and researched more in other websites. I think I am going to redo the entire process just for the heck of it. It won't hurt for the experience. Like I said it's the very first one I've done so maybe two's a charm. Thanks for the inputs. I will do the file skate test. Not sure I read that anywhere.

Any suggestion on the temper temp? I have spent a fair amount of time and my dad actually requested the file knife.

I didn't want to hijack the earlier thread so started this one. I am making a knife (my first) for my dad out of a file (simmons file to be exact).I annealed ( to nonmagnetic and slow cooled in the forge with it off). Then shaped the blade. Then thought I was normalizing did the same thing 3 times. I didn't let it aircool (my mistake I think) I left it in the forge again. Then I semipolished/ hand sanded the blade. At this point I thought I was good and quenched in motor oil. Used motor oil due to impatience and thats what I had. (I followed safety precautions....) Once cool I tempered at 375 for 2 cycles at an hour. Big issue/ question. I ran the blade on a ceramic hand sharpener and the sharpened part doesn't look smooth. It also almost feels like there are burrs on the edge. I cant take a pic that will show this without magnification. Is this caused by stressed metal and inconsistent grain size from normalizing improperly? Can I redo the normalize, quench and temper or do I need to anneal again also? I assume I can redo and all will be ok just not sure if anneal is needed too. By the way I'm using propane forge. Should I try to get the temps without the blower? Not sure if getting to hot to fast can cause issues. Thanks RD

I did not make a pass thru on the back. My next one will have a pass thru, and will be bigger. There is koa wool and its coated with itc 100. I use fire bricks at the front for a makeshift door. As far as the problem..... I'm a newbee. I have yet to weld by myself. I'm working on it and hopefully will figure it out in the near future. Just have hot spot issues. I worked on finishing a knife today so didn't fire up the mini dragon. Will continue and may try the wool to see if that works Phil. Thanks

I made my forge from a freon tank (pic posted earlier). I tried to forge weld yesterday. I know it gets hot enough as I was melting steel. The problem is it gets hotter in front of the burner hole into the tank. Has anyone had this issue and is there maybe an idea or two to get around this issue? I think I may try taking a corner piece of firebrick and setting it in front of the gas input to deflect a little and see if it works. Any ideas? Thanks RD

I am new also and built my own forge from a freon tank. On my first use a long bar heating up slipped and hit the top breaking the ITC100 surface. I just mixed up more and filled it in. It worked. It is not cheap though. I got a bought a 1/2 gallon figuring I can make another when I'm ready so I had it available. Hope that helps. RD