rebelbuck24

I'm working on my first knife and have finshed shaping and am ready to heat treat and tempur...I'm clear on heat treating. My question is specifically with tempuring. I've read through a lot of posts here and have a lot of ideas on what to do but still many questions. So here goes... Basic skinner knife. Small with a three inch blade. I've read using an oven set at a particular temp for a set time I've read heating the spine of the blade slowly to a straw color stopping prior to reaching the blade. I've read something about placing the spine of the blade on a thick piece of steel and heating that piece with a torch... SO what do i do??

I would love to see some pics. My first set of tongs took two days with a combined time of about 6 hours. They look pretty crappy too. Second set took about an hour. Still not pretty but they work.

I have ran into the same problem with my first and second setup(one 4 hour session). I melted my grill body and brake rotor. (pics are coming) I'm using a converted vacume cleaner motor now. I started over and put in a ball valve with a t joint and plug in the open t for bleeding off pressure. I haven't fired it up yet, but between the plug in the t-joint and ball valve i can either slowly send air barely enough to feel with your hand or blow pieces of charcoal about 18" in the air out of my fire pot.

yea me and a buddy were talking this am over some coffee and we decided that i was probably pumping way too much air in. I wish i had took some pics. I laughed really hard for a while on this one. My wife thinks i'm nuts but i had a blast. also glenn, i just read your attachment, so the sparks off my steel was a bad thing.......i wish i had took pics, the more experienced folks would have laughed the a** off at my ignorance.....but it was fun :)

Well i started building a forge about a month ago and fired up for the first time today. Built it out of a old grill body to hold everything, then fire bricks and a brake rotor for a pot. ran air in underneath with steel pipe. Fired it up using royal oak. Then started practicing on some cold roll steel. Apparently, the grill body wasn't the best choice. i burnt through it in about 45 mins. So i let it cool down and started over. Since i live in ga. (red clay capital of the world), i buried the pipe and dug the brake rotor in to the ground and bricked it up for insulation. I'm also apparently having a problem regulating my heat. I melted my metal. I was just trying to beat out a round into a flat and break everything in. Then decided to fold it over and try a weld. Got it to weld twice, folded it again (practicing for knives) and put it back in the fire. The next time i pulled it out to hammer, it was just about burnt through. Also generating alot of scale. Any ideas on this????

Are there any commercial stores that carry those kind of steels...ie...ace, tractor supply, home depot, lowes, or would i be wasting my time trying to find them? Right now i'm going to pick up some cold roll for practice beating on metal. I'm clear on the 10xx numbering system of steels but i'm confused on the O's and D's W's stuff. I read over a pdf file that was linked somewhere on here and i'm even more lost now.

I'm wanting to make knives. Probably start out with some sort of kitchen knife and then work my way up to nice hunting knife. Also will be forging. Finally got my forge built. Eventually try forge welding. My local hardware store sells flats and rounds of steel but they are just marked hot and cold rolled. Would either of these be suitable for practice until i'm ready to start a good build.

I need some help with the proper types of steels i need to consider to make knives out of. What grades of steel should i be looking for and how are they identified in the stores?

looked around hardware store and found a box of borax....but question...is 20 mule team borax the same thing as i read about on hear??? its marketed as a cleaner at the store...just trying to get things right in my mind.

Just getting started first off. but...i have an anvil, some hammers, and picked up a nice brake rotor for a fire pot. I have an old grill body to use as a shell so to speak to hold everything together. Now for my problem.....went to the hardware store today looking for pipe to make a (not sure of proper term) but pipe to bring air into the forge from the bottom. Around what size pipe should use? i found a video on youtube of a guy making a forge from a brake drum and used like 3 to 4" pipe with a verticle section running to a T-joint, and a section running horizontal for air intake, then a cap at the bottom. However, my home depot doesn't carry anything near that size... does it need to be that big..or just big enough to bring plenty of air with the pressure supplied. the biggest my home depot carries is 2". Any ideas??

i live around polk/floyd county.

I'm new to this and i'm sure this has been discussed but.....where can i buy coal in NW GA suitable for forging blades??? actually for supplies in general.....borax etc...gather supplies for tinkering before i dive into my first serious attempt.

Hello all. Just wanted to introduce myself. I live in NW Ga and have decided on taking up a new hobby. Deer season will be over soon and i have to have something to kee me occupied so i decided on making knives and such. I look forward to chatting with everyone and I am sure to have questions. The first of which anybody live around my area???