rhitee93

Hi All, I didn’t get into blacksmithing because of knives, but for some reason I can’t get them out of my head now so I might as well go with it. I made a really crude knife a couple of months ago as an excuse to practice a couple of different hammering techniques. That ugly duckling has become one of my favorite kitchen knives even though it has some really serious design flaws. Now I am thinking about making a few more knives for my own use in the kitchen. I have no delusions of grandeur, and will be happy if I make 20 or 30 knives that get left in the scrap pile just to get the 2 or 3 that I want to use. After all, this is all about gaining good practice time at the anvil right? One question I have that I don’t see discussed much in the knife making lessons is what shape of stock to start with. The rookie smith in me really wants to move a lot of metal and is inclined to start with 5/8” round bar and have a good time hammering away for an hour. The engineer and machinist side of me says start with flat stock much closer the desired shape. Not as much fun, but more practical. Now, I know that some steels are more available as flat stock than round bar, but other than that, is there a reason to choose one over the other? I see that there are concerns about grain growth at forging heats. Is that a reason to spend less time hammering? Maybe nobody talks much about it because it just doesn’t matter? Thanks…

Daniel, Thank you for posting this. I am a total newb, but one of my daughters has been after me to forge a ram's head do-dad for her room. I have seen a few videos, but your's is the first that made me feel like I could accomplish something that I would be proud of. Thank again!

Thanks for the memories. I haven't been on a strip for a few years now, but I used to really enjoy fencing. The '5' refers to the blade size, and would be considered full sized/adult. I didn't realize that sizing system dated back so far.

If he was anything like me, he probably happened along them one day and thought they were too cool to pass up. Then proceeded to hang onto them for years thinking that some day he would find a use for them. Did he ever work with glass? Blocks of graphite are very handy when doing glass blowing. You can use it as a tool to form the glass while it is hot.

Hmm, I think I messed up when I pasted the link. here it is again: http://www.metalravne.com/selector/steels/ck45.html

OK, I was a bit confused after reading all of the HT stickies. In one of those, Steve recommends 320 to 350 F for simple 10XX steels. However, multiple 1045 data sheets I read called out "400C to 600C depending on desired hardness", which is sort of a dodgy way to specify anything. After poking around quite a bit more, I found a much more informative data sheet from another steel company that had the following tempering temperature/hardness data for 1045: 20C - Rc56 50C - Rc56 100C - Rc56 150C - Rc54 200C - Rc52 250C - Rc49 300C - Rc45.5 It looks like not much happens until around 150 Deg. C which would be be about 300F for those folks on my side of the pond. This correlates much better with what is in the stickies. I'm posting the data here just to help the odd duck who may need tempering data for 1045 steel. Here is my source of info: http://www.metalravne.com/selector/steels/ck45.html

I guess my understanding of the tempering process is wrong. I thought that since I wasn't likely to achieve a very high level of hardness that there wasn't a need for tempering. It's been over 20 years since my last class in metallurgy, so I'll blame it on age... The charts I have seen say to temper 1045 between 400 deg. C to 600 deg. C to get the desired final hardness. I assume for edge holding I would want to shoot for the lower end of this temperature range?

Finishing the blade is where I really fell on my face. The only belt sander I have is a clapped out 1”x30” Harbor Freight special. I tried to go slow, and used my bare thumb to put pressure on the blade so I could feel the temperature. In the end I chickened out before I could get all of the pits out. I was afraid that if I kept going that I would overheat the blade. In hindsight, I wish I had left more hammer marks in. It would have looked better with the steel handle. Speaking of the handle, I treated it with hot wax. I wrapped the blade in a wet rag, and heated the handle with a torch until it went past a blue color and dipped it in melted paraffin. I don’t really have much in the way of polishing materials, so the blade still has a lot of scratch marks. However I don’t see a lot of point in trying to achieve a high level of polish on this one. It is what it is, and I plan on using it in the kitchen for however long the edge holds out. Oddly enough, the edge is still pretty hard. I started to create main edge bevel with a file, and it wouldn’t touch the blade except for a small spot near the tip. (I assume the soft spot got overheated during the grinding.) I ended up using the belt sander to create most of the edge bevel and then worked it in with a series of wet stones. Cutting Kiwi and carrots isn’t exactly demanding, but it cut pretty well. At any rate, I learned a lot doing this, and got in some good practice time. This won’t be my last blade, but I doubt that I’ll do another one for a while. Then again, I didn’t think I would do this one... My only motivation for posting it here is to be an example of what may or may not be achieved right out of the gate. There seems to be a lot of tension around here about people wanting to jump right into knives. Maybe this will show people why the guys who have been doing this for a long time tend to roll their eyes. I'm happy with what I achieved, but even happier that I have some understanding of what I have to learn to if I want to play this game for real.

Well, the last thing I should have been making was a knife. I only have about 15 hours total time standing at an anvil so I don’t really know much yet. I don’t even have my own forge yet. Once yet, I didn’t have any interest in making knives when I started coming to blacksmithing meetings. However, after looking at some of the work on here, and way too many YouTube videos, I became fascinated with the steps involved, and had to try it for myself to see how it goes. I started with a piece of ½” square 1045. I know that is pretty low carbon content for a knife, but I really didn’t expect to come out with anything at the end so I used what I had. There were 3 forging steps that I wanted to get experience with this project: Moving the metal in one direction only – I wanted to forge this in a way that the spine of the knife is actually the original surface of the ½” square bar. Working in the middle of a bar – I have struggled with managing the fire in such a way that I could heat a bar of stock up in the middle. Since I hammered out the blade to an even 1/8” first, I knew I would have to get the fire right to draw out the ¼” square part for the handle or I would burn the blade. Beveling the blade – Honestly, this just looks impossible when I watch people do it, and I had to try it for myself. This is the result of about 2 hours of work. I’m not setting any speed records, but I was actually surprised at how it turned out. I dislike grinding, so I was trying to get as close to the net blade shape as I could. At this point I was starting to think that I might actually end up with a knife and was regretting my steel choice. However, I went ahead and heated the blade until it was no longer magnetic, and quenched it in water. Most of the references I found said that 1045 could theoretically get to Rc60 at the absolute max, so I didn’t bother to temper it. I don’t have a hardness tester, but a file skated right off, so I achieved at lease some level hardening. I’ll post some finished knife pics in a bit…

I don't have much blacksmithing experience, but I have been working with wood for over 35 years. In my opinion, dowel plates are a fine way to make pegs for joints. Especially if you use glue in the dowel hole because the rough/torn fibers along the length swell with glue. Even if you prefer dry joints, a dowel plate can be made with holes of any diameter you want which allows you to adjust the fit of the pegs in your joints. I do agree with the other that dowel plates do not make pretty looking pegs, but that won't matter in a joint.

I have no knife making skills of my own so accolades from me aren't as meaningful as from the other folks around here, but I can say that your knife is one I would be proud to own and use. Wow, that is a lot like the old rust bluing process that used to be common around 1900. Have you ever tried to achieve a very even deep finish with repeated cycles? I've been wanting to try to rust blue some gun parts I have made, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

You folks in Alaska are a hardy bunch. If I went out and found my propane tanks were frozen, I'd go hide under the bed.

OK Guys, you have talked me into leaving the face alone for now. I can always grind it later if I decide I want to. Besides, right now it is a much better anvil than I am a smith :) Here are a couple of pics after a few minutes with a wire brush and some oil. I brushed off most of the rust, and sprayed it with some liquid wrench penetrating oil. I've done this before with other bare steel items, but I was surprised how black it turned. As I have seen mentioned on this site several times, oil mixed with light rust powder makes a very durable finish. Here is a close up of the pitting on the face:

About 3 weeks ago I decided that my own blacksmithing equipment was in order, and started putting the word out with all of the likely suspects that I was looking for an anvil. Several of the people I know have said they see them from time to time, and are now on the hunt. Meanwhile I see a Craig’s List add for a beat up post vice that is near me. After some emails back and forth, I decided that the vice was too beat up for the price. On a hunch I mentioned to the guy that I had just gotten hooked on blacksmithing as was really looking for an anvil more than a vice. His reply was something on the order of, “Heck, I’ve got two anvils, a nicer post vice, and lots of tools down in the blacksmith shop. Haven’t used any of that stuff in years, and I might as well sell it.” I had no idea the guy even had a blacksmith shop. When I got to his place, he had a little Fisher anvil sitting in his house. It was probably only about 50 pounds, but in nice shape. He asked if it was big enough for me, and I explained that I was looking for something a little larger. Then said we should go on down to his blacksmith shop and look at the bigger anvil. When we got to his shop, a 3-walled shack in the middle of the woods, I was a bit disappointed. He had an anvil on a stump, but it was still pretty small. It was dark, and the anvil was pretty rusted up so I couldn’t see any markings. However the edges were nice and the top seemed flat. When he said $150, I said sold. Then he said he wanted $35 for his blower, which still worked, and $75 for a nice 5.5” post vice. I felt so bad that I just blindly paid him a lump sum for a pile of tongs and tools without even looking through them. Then on my way out he threw in an unopened bag of coal, a 9lb can of some sort of flux, and an old blacksmithing book. At this point I was thinking I should try to buy the little Fisher, but he was starting to get seller's remorse and told me that all he would need is a little gas forge a hammer and his small anvil if he ever wanted to make another knife. After that, I didn't ask about the little one. Here is the anvil I did buy: It is a 105# Peter Wright. I was a little disappointed once I started cleaning off the rust because the face is pretty pitted. However, it is a start. I may see if one of the local machine shops can wet grind the face to clean it up. I think 0.030” would get rid of the pitting. Here is most of the rest of the haul: Now I just need to build a forge, and a shop to put it all in :rolleyes:

Hi All, I’ve been lurking around here for a bit, and finally registered. It seems like it’s only proper to move out of the shadows and introduce myself. My name is Brian, and I’m a 40-something engineer. (I know, I know, but don’t groan yet…) I have twin daughters (teenagers) and a wife that has put up with all of my tinkering interests for almost 20 years. We live on the west edge of Indiana right where the state border goes from a straight line to following the Wabash river. I do love to tinker. I have built things my whole life and much prefer to be in the machine shop at work than at my desk. I literally grew up in dad’s woodworking shop. When I got into college, I discovered the wonder of a machine shop. Now I can’t live without both of them. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to work alongside some great old machinists who were willing to teach me a thing or two. As a machinist, these days, I make a mighty fine engineer. However, I can find my way around and manage to pull off something nice once in a while. Here is a link to a steam engine model I built last year.