evant

Well 220 grit should be fine for finishing your blades, just make sure that the scratches run parallel along the blade edge and spine prior to quenching, that should help prevent any stress cracks from forming along the edge and spine, just a tip, hope this helps.

Loctite makes some outstanding epoxies for attaching knife handles of wood, bone, antler and man-made materials. Not the epoxy you find at Home Depot, Lowes or your local hardware store but their 'aerospace epoxy' - the 'E' series - about $16 for the 50ml dual syringe. I like E20HP, the 'E' standing for the type of epoxy, '20' setup time, and the last to letter are either the color ('C' = clear, 'W' = white, etc., or 'HP' High Performance'). They range from E05 to E120. E20HP is rated at 3000 lbs - 5000 lbs adhesive strenght, 300 degrees temp, chemical and solvent resistant. It is considered 'off-white' but virtually disappeared when I used it to attach antler slabs to my handle. My personal test was to try and remove a piece of elk antler I epoxied to a piece of steen. I used a 22 oz ball peen hammer and only succeded in breaking of bits and pieces of the antler - I could not seperate it from the steel. My personal test shows that it is also 'dishwasher' safe

Note, a very useful tip I came across was to sandblast the tang which gives the epoxy a much better surface to adhere to than just grinding or sanding. I used a simple and inexpensive ($13 - $16) siphon sandblaster and got excellent results.

The best place to find it was at Fastenal, they seem to have outlets everywhere and if they don't stock it can get it in a day or two. They also have the best descriptions of the various epoxies.

Looks good, the color after you snapped it off looks like it might be too hard. How much flex did you get?

Hi everyone, just thought i'de share results of a knife i forged not to long ago, I havn't completed many blades fully yet, attaching handles etc, because i like to test the steel to see if it performs well. Which reminds me if anyone can help, what is good epoxy for the handle material that dries clear? This blade was forged from 1095 carbon steel, i'm hoping to find some 1080 0r 1084 steel though, although i havn't had much luck. Overall the blade achieved its goals, i took the blade and whittled on some wood for a while, then i chopped on some wood, after that the blade still was shaving. Then i took the blade and snapped it to see the grain structure, the grain appeared as a velvety grey color, in the picture below, which was good. Overall I was pleased with the blade and am going to attempt some more blades hopefully soon, I'm going to create some blades and see if they pass the ABS tests that are performed. Thanks for reading and any thoughts, questions, or critiques are welcome.

I was reading some posts and doing some research and I found when quenching in used motor oil that it emits carcinogens, which are hazardous to your health. I've been using a motor oil and diesel mixture for my blades for some time now, and have been exposed to these fumes sometimes. I was just wondering if anyone had any safer oil formulas that work well for quenching knives, I've heard of using quenchants such as vegatable oil, etc, but was afraid the oil too be to thin causing blades to crack. The steels I use are 1095,5160, and L-6 steel. Any advice would be appreciated on this matter.

Hello everyone, I was just curious about an idea I had, I have a piece of railroad track and i was just wondering if it would make a good axe head if i forgewelded a bit of high carbon steel for the blade edge. I'm just wondering because I planned on forging a few camp axes eventually. I'm not sure of the carbon content of the track yet because i havn't tested it yet. Also any suggestions on steels for an axe head would be appreciated, i was thinkin about 1050?

Thanks for the posts guys, they've given me a better idea of how i'm going to make my sis kabobs.

Hi everyone, I was just wondering if anyone could offer some advice about a steel choice for a sis kabob. I'm going to make this as a gift for the holidays and I was just wondering about any suggestions on what steel to use, since it would be washed and exposed to water. I've got some low carbon rod in the pile, but I'm afraid it would rust too readily. Also any ideas on handle material? i wanted a real traditional, maybe wood handle for the kabobs. Any advice towards this project would be greatly appreciated.

Hello everyone, I've been looking around on this site and really enjoy what I have seen. I've been forging now for about a year and a half, and really enjoy it very much!! I'm glad to have found this site and so many people interested in forging as well. Thanks to everyone on this site for the posts, they really help a lot!