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dps9999

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Everything posted by dps9999

  1. ok thanks guys yeh everything i have including the cocobolo is stabilized
  2. Ok thanks guys yeh usually i keep things seperate as much as possible and i dont know why i did that....well yes i do lets say it was a day of lots of stupid little mistakes that i usually dont do it cost time effort and some of my sanity by the time i got to the buffing stage i just wasnt in the right mind i usually wipe the handle down with acetone but i just wasnt thinking and its not cross contamination of compound it was deffinitly the g10 dust it was a brand new wheel i only used it 2 times with the white diamond stuff so the wheel hadnt turned black yet but as soon as that dust filled handle hit the wheel it went black quick....that was the last of the stupid mistakes that day just one of those days i am usually good with the buffs i have never made a mistake like that before thats why i asked oh well ill have to order a couple new ones hey its a excuse for me to get some more handle material and belts thanks tho guys i appreciate it! oh one other question a lil off topic but i have never used wood (well once way back when i first started) i have always like the options between g10 micarta carbon fiber all that stuff but now that i am starting to sell some of my blades i have to make them appeal to others so i am working on one that will have cocobolo handles so in some reading and vids i have seen people oil the wood handle is that something that is done ontop of buffing or in place of it?
  3. Hey guys....so i got some white diamond compound for use on handles...so i used it once or twice on a buffing wheel. hadnt been used enough where it was loaded and starting to cake on the wheel yet. so i was using black g10 handle material and did the shaping on the grinder then when i went to move to the buffing wheel i was stupid usually i clean it off before i buff this time i didnt i wiped the handle (with my shirt) and took it right to the buffer the wheel instantly turned black (it did buff the handle fine) i guess all the exxecess residue on the black g10 transfered to the wheel. so now my question is is that wheel contaminated should i only use that buff on handles or do you guys think it will be alright to use on polishing a blade i have one blade that i am about to bring to a mirror finish and this knife i sware is jinxed i made sooooo many stupid little mistakes on this one i dont want to have to back step because it got all scratched up on the wheel. has any one done this before??? if i had more wheels i would just use a new one but i dont and dont want to order just a wheel if i dont have to. i am kinda torn on this one on one hand yeh its deffinitly contaminated but on the other that g10 dust is so fine and should be softer than metal so maybe it wont. either way just wondering if anyone has contaminated a wheel with handle matterial before this bad
  4. i have been working mostly with stainless lately all of that stuff only works on carbon steel right?
  5. Hey guys so i had some one ask me about if i could coat a knife black at the time flat out no.....but got me thinking i like that look myself on certain knives even grey or tan SOMETIMES. so i did some research i heard about moly coat but the 2 that keep poping up are dura coat and cera coat.......has any one ever done this any ideas on what companys are better or worse or even colors that came out good i would appreciate any info i deffinitly want to try it but its not cheap so i dont want to waste too much money experimenting if some one can help wit that THANKs guys
  6. hey guys sorry i have no pic my sister still has the camera...i tried using a phone camera but as i said as i went up in grits it got harder and harder to see and now that i have buffed and got it all nice and shiny it is really hard to see so thats a good thing...you gota look for it and catch it right at the right angle and light to see it and i couldnt catch it with the phone camera....i will just have to deal with it...but even tho its still there if ya look hard its 100% better than it was at start....thanks for all the help i am finally going to go buy my own camera when i get paid next week so if something like this comes up again i can get a photo up right away
  7. no mix oil is parks 50....i am going to try to get a pic up later when i get the camera back
  8. hey guys sorry about the pics....my camera is in my sisters car and she hasnt been here ill try and get something up as soon as i can.....its not from tongs i HTed it in a even heat oven and used long pliers to grab th back edge of the handle dip it in the oil and as soon as it gets in the oil i put a hook through a hole in the tang...i did keep grinding this since its suposed to be polished and it did seem to go away a little the higher up in grits i went its still there but like a holagram you can only see it in the right light
  9. i cant get a pic up until tomorow (dont have the camera right now) its stock removal and new matterial 1084 steel from nj steel barron .....heat treated in a even heat oven and quenched in oil....
  10. hey guys so today i was working on a blade and these weird circle like things show up on the blade....at first i thought it was a finger print or ya know how while grinding you dip the blade in water to cool and the water dries and leaves a spot that is exactly what this looks like but this wont wipe off or even grind off! i started to notice it about 220 grit and 400 and 600 (thats where i stoped for the day since i was getting fustrated) but these marks are still there in the exact same place (so i know its the same mark not a series of them) i have NEVER seen something like this and its not to distinct like i said looks like a fingerprint and you gota catch it at the right angle ...does any one have any idea...the only thing i can think of is some kinda defect in the steel or maybe i did something in the heat treat?? i am clueless on this one
  11. thanks guys! The gun black may be a idea, i have gun blue and i have used that before and tried to get a black color with it and couldnt ill have to try the black stuff......the cerakote is also a good idea ill have to see if there is anyone local that does it....the aluminum is something i have on had i have big enough bars to form bolsters i have never done bolsters with out polishing them all the way up how would you get the brushed look just stop half way up the grits? or is there another technique?.....Ok copper is something i didnt even think of at all the only copper i have tho is pins and bolts but it may be a nice accent ill have to see how it looks togather...thanks again guys
  12. Hey guys this may seem like a strange question but anyway i am in the middle of creating a couple '"prototype" blades for testing and if things go well i am going to make a couple of each design to sell (i have a few people waiting for me to sell some) but i am also making a knife for a friend and she wants pink handles...ok no problem there but i dont want a plain knife with just pink handles it needs to have something else to the design first i thought bolsters but brass and pink would look horible so SS and pink might look ok but i am NOT polishing this blade since she will be using it for light stuff and when you polish that kinda knife it scratches bad and i dont thing shiny SS bolsters would look good on a non polished knife with pink handles. black might look good with pink at first i thought maybe making a bolster out of black paper micarta but the pink scales are g10 wich doesnt have tha wavy pattern when you grind it and the black micarta would so i dont know how that would look. i may be just overthinking it but i cant come up with a good idea for this one and i want it to be good she is deffinitly a important person and it will be the first knife i am giving to some one besides close fammily (mother, father) ANY ideas guys would really be appreciated!
  13. I know posting this i am going to get all sorts of resposes like "do it freehand jigs are garbage" that kinda thing....that being said i am just curious if any one uses one of those hollow grinding fixtures (like the one jantz has) if so do you like it, what can and cant be done with it ect...
  14. dps9999

    Pricing

    THANKS GUYS!....i had to take a trip and wasnt around a computer for a few days. I had alot of reading when i came back but i just finished and you all have good ideas and i thank you for that. i had just finished putting a couple of blades through destructive testing, i had done this many times before but new oven and steel figured i should do it again and actually they all met my requirements and most of the testing exceeded them. so now i have come up with a couple prototypes i am in the process of finishing up so maybe ill post some pics once they are done and see what everyone thinks and see if my price ranges on them are too high too low or spot on. after making these prototypes and writing down everything from how long they took to cost of materials i may make a couple more of the same designs maybe change the grind on one or handle material on another and sell them. i have had many friends familly and their friends ask to buy some even when my mother posted some pics on her facebook alot of people asked her "will he make me one" so i plan on selling the ones i make but also at the same time tell people if you dont like that and you have a idea for another lets talk and see what we can come up with. This is all how i see it in my head i am sure it wont go exactly as planed but hey at least i have a plan right? ill throw up another thread when i get these prototypes finished thanks again guys
  15. Hey guys so its time to order more steel...i have been using 440c since i got the oven so i am going to get more of that but they also have over stock items where you can just buy a small piece usually a foot. so i want to get something to try so i was thinking of trying out cpm s30v or cpm s35vn.....do any of you guys have any opinions of wich one to try first (and why) thanks guys....oh and i do have a even heat oven and access to liquid nitrogen for the heat treat so i think i am good there with either one
  16. dps9999

    Pricing

    hey guys thanks for the advice sorry its a late response i have been having a few problems with the computer the last week or 2....i am curious as to what you would think about some of the knives i have done if i put pics up ill try and get some up tonight or in the morning...thanks again
  17. dps9999

    Pricing

    hey guys ....so maybe from my last couple posts you will know i am trying to get more into forging and forge welding but i have been doing stock removal for a while now and i have been getting people ( familly, friends, acquaintances, even the repair guys that came to fix the furnace) asking if i would sell any of my knives. so at first the answer was "no" or "not yet" because yeh in the beginning they looked good but i wasnt 100% on the functional quality. and i did not want to take anyone's money (even if it was $5) for a knife that i was not 100% sure would do everything it was supposed to do and perform better and last longer than a commercially made knife....now i have been getting to that point where i have tested enough of them both in regular day to day use and destructive testing. and i know they will cut and cut good and they will not break and they look good too (of coarse i can improve on some things i dont think i will ever make the "perfect knife" i dont think anyone makes a perfect anything things can always be improved) and now that i have the even heat oven i can use more steels besides 1084 and 1095 and also i can control the heat treat much more than in a forge that gives me a lil more confidence too. so i have a couple avenues to try and sell some knives...first all the people that already asked me, then my nephew is a tatoo artist and the owner of the shop also owns a store that sells alot of knives i already know he would be willing to sell my knives (of coarse he will profit from it somehow i imagine) i could also make a web site and maybe advertise a lil on facebook. anyway so my real question is how should a beginner knife maker go about pricing his knives and is there any sort of knife that might be better to start selling obviously just starting out i am not going to be selling a $10,000 knife to a collector (yet : -) ). i guess i will figure these things out in time just looking for a direction to go in on one hand i dont want to try and charge to much and loose a sale but i need to learn how to at the very least have this start paying for supplies and a lil more......i was going to post a couple pics of some knives i have done so you guys could see what type of knives i have been doing and the materials i have been using as i am sure that will play into price but i left the camera in the car that my sis has ill post a few pics tomorrow but enough of my rambling. any advice at all on how to start out with this from any of the makers out there would really be appreciated!!! thanks guys!
  18. dps9999

    NEW burners

    hey guys THANKS! sorry for the late response i have been having problems with my computer.....anyway thanks for the description it gave a me direction to go it but as you said buzzkill i think it will take a lil bit of just messing around with it and looking and listening until i figure out that "magic" combination of air and gas i have gotten it running pritty good tho....as you guys were saying there are 2 valves on the propane end of things and a gate valve on the air end. i think the needle valve is kinda a combination of what you guys were talking about it may be over kill but it does help if your not using a regulator or if you run 2 burners from one tank and regulator it would let you adjust each burner independently neither of wich i have to deal with i am running each burner off its own tank and regulator (it just seems easier and i dont have the hose that splits to 2 burners but i do have 2 regulators and hoses so ...it works for me) i did finally get a email back from the guy i got them from and explained my whole set up and he basiclly said the same thing with the way i am running things i really dont need to mess with the needle valve just leave it open and use the regulator. either way i am happy i got a new toy! one thing i thought about tho....today i had a couple of guys come in to fix the transformer on a 30 something year old oil/wood burner furnace that heats the house long story short we are going to scap that one and get a new one so it got me thinking i am just curios (it would probily be more of a project than its worth) but has any one ever used oil instead of propane and use the burners that are in side these things...one of the guys actully showed me one of the newer burners he had in the truck and it seemed like it would be easy to mount and all that its got the main little pipe with a nozzel on the end and 2 smaller pipes one on each side and angled towards the nozel where the almost meet and that supplies the air....like i said easy to mount but how easy to make it work? as i said just curious if this has been done and how it worked out
  19. dps9999

    NEW burners

    hey guys so first let me say if this info is out there please just point me in the right direction i did do a search couldn't find much and what i did find seems to have conflicting info to other stuff i found......so that being said i just built a new forge and got two new burners. my old set up was only 10 in deep 8 in diameter 1 inch of inswool and satinite with a fire brick floor and a VENTURI burner. the new one is mostly the same 8 in diameter pipe 1 inch of inswool satinite fire brick floor but this one is 24 inches deep and has 2 FORCED AIR burners. so i have never used forced air burners before this so i am looking for a little advice on how to tune it. yesterday (while i was waiting for the satinite to dry on the new forge) i decide to take one of the new forced air burners and put it in the smaller old forge to see how it works. So now the only 2 things i played with was the air gate valve and the propane regulator. these new burners were bought from hightemptools.com as a kit and i put them together. so besides the air gate and the regulator it has 2 other valves (i always get the names of these two valves wrong but...) i think the one that has a handle that just piviots 90 degrees is a ball valve right? all that does is act as a quick shut off right??? the other valve is called a needle valve i THINK (if you click the link below it shows a picture of the burner the one i am talking about that i think is called a needle valve is the last little valve on the propane intake right before where the propane hose screws in) so anyway i didnt mess with that one yet. what is it for is it another shut off or does it help in tuning the burner? any help or advice on how to operate and/or tune these burners and what the "needle" valve is and how it works would really be appreciated! THANKS guys! picture of forced air burner.......
  20. thanks guys any one know where to find a blower to the burner at a reasonable price?
  21. ok thanks....is there any rule of thumb how much space a blown burner will heat up to forge welding temps? (say the one on hightemptools.com that has a 2in body with a 1in burner tube)
  22. Hey guys, quick question.....right now i have a small forge with a 3/4 in. venturi burner (side arm style) I also have another venturi style burner that is a bit smaller that i had started with before getting the bigger one. any way i have been making knives using the stock removal method and using the forge to heat treat them. Now that the weather is nice (i dont have a big shop so my forge needs to be kept outside) i want to learn how to forge some blades during the summer. So i have decided to build a bigger forge. so what i really want is to have it set up with a forced air or blown burners. however funds are kinda tight right now. so i was thinking of getting one blown burner made and a blower and then for now also have the bigger venturi burner i have. so the forge would have 1 blown burner, 1 3/4 sidearm venturi burner, and if i need it i have the smaller venturi burner. then down the road when i get some more money to spend switching to all blown burners. so my question is will that work? i have never seen a forge with both blown and venturi style burners some one told me that the blown burner MIGHT effect how the venturi burner will work. Has any one done this? does any one see any reason it will or wont work very good for the time being???? Thanks guys i really appreciate it i havent been able to find much info on this.
  23. Yes andres and jmcustom both hinted at what i was trying to say yes you could do it either way as andres said but if your goal is to make knives then your better off at starting with stock removal...as jmccustom said if you forge a blade you will always have to grind it and for a beginner you are going to end up grinding away most of what you forged..so why not start with stock removal and learn to grind first. any time you try and learn to many things it get very frustrating and alot of people leave the hobby when the get frustrated in the beginning that is why most of us will give you advice to make it as easy as possible (we dont want to see you get frustrated and give up) also as i said in my opinion heat treating is the most important thing to learn first since if not properly heat treated you blade is scrap metal....however what i noticed as i said in my last post i grinded a bunch of blades heat treated them tested and broke them to see the grain structure....so in the process of learning to heat treat when you grind each blade for testing a side effect is you have learned (somewhat) to grind a blade since you did it for heat treating...to me that is the most logical step to takes...again any questions please ask i just went through learning all the beginner stuff last year so i know how frustrating it can be and i also said i dont want to see people getting frustrated and giving up...i would have if i didnt have a good group of guys on the forums to help me
  24. Hey and Welcome....i am still a beginner too. Yes i have made a bunch of knives up's and downs the whole way through and i still ask for help all the time....i figure when i can EASILLY make a blade EXACTLY the way i want it i wont be a beginner anymore. So take this how you want everything i am writting was told to me when i first got going and alot of it i didnt listen to and everytime i didnt listen to that advice ....i wasted time, wasted money, broke things, and generally just did things backwards ..now all that advice makes perfect sense (some of it didnt at the time tho) so first yes everyone wants to get metal hot and shape it to there will. however as a beginer it makes more sense to learn stock removal first get your self some KNOWN steel (not a file or a leaf spring or somehthing you just dont know what it is.) Also make sure it is a high carbon stee (1084, 1095 ect...) unless you already have a $1000 heat treating oven...you can not sucesfully heat treat stainless or the more complex steels in a forge. Ok on to the forge dont buy one they are so cheap to make. Go and get a stove pipe or cut the ends of a EMPTY propane tank or anything that will give you a metal cylander it really doesnt mater on how thick it is it can be thin sheet metal bent in a circle. Then go online to hightemptools.com or another place and buy some inswool (or koa wool same thing) get your self some satinite, as far as the burner is concered you can buy one or make one buy it if you want it now make it if your trying to save money. wrap the metal cylander with the inswool (on the inside) and coat the whole thing in satinite add the burner and you got your self a forge, as i said yeh you can get some metal and move it around and play wiith it for a while but no matter what being a begginer you are going to have to grind that blade alot to get what you wantt. so why not skip that part until you can do all the rest...take that bar of carbon and cut/shape it into a knife shaped object then use a grinder (or by hand with files if you dont have one) get it almost done then Heat treat that knife if you get it all right on the first shot your a miracle man. I was taught the Heat treat is the most important part if your blade is to hard and chips or breaks in half its useless if its too soft and doesnt hold a edge its useless. The only way to learn this is to experiment and test. the first one i did the guy that was helping me had me do all the tests. brass rod test chopping up a 2x4 ect...then he told me strap it in a vice and break it in half well i thought he was joking...he wasnt by breaking it you can see the grain structure and therefore how good or bad the heat treat was....i ended up testing and braking about 6 or 7 knives before i got the heat treat down. All of that is alot to learn by trying to forge a knife instead of doing a stock removal you are adding a whole lot more to your plate...i am not saying dont ever do it but learn to make a quality blade first then take that skill you learned to new levels,,, if you just want to "play" with metal and make a "knife shaped object" by all means dont bother learning the heat treat and just forge a blade. To me since i just went through all this the NUMBER ONE thing to learn is heat treating as i said your knife is almost useless if not properly heat treated. i am not saying you CANT learn by forging but your just making it harder....I know alot of this you may ignor (i did sometimes) trust me when you look back in a few months you say all of this is right and i am not saying i came up with all this, this is the way it was taught to me and i am sure this knowledge is the collective knowledge of many blade smiths and blacksmiths alike over the years that have had alot of experience...i know there is alot here i am trying to help i was in your spot a year ago and i made it hard for myself sometimes cause i am stubborn trust me try not to do that if you have any questions about this feel free to send me a private message or ask another knife maker here i am sure most (if not all) know exactly what i am talking about
  25. ok thanks guys, thats good to know that the time isnt a extended period and more of a "quick bath" some of what i read says the same thing but alot of other things say the knife is left in over nite....maybe it only needs a quick soak but some people leave it in over nite either THINKING it will help or maybe just lazy??
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