HEAP of JEEP

Thanks, Das. Come Hell or high water, I will get that last millimeter! LOL Thank you. My first time trying the stacked leather. A few issues to work on, but I'm very happy with it for my first try. After sitting down with the knife to talk through our issues over a beer... Two things happened... one, the knife didn't back talk at all. He was very respectful and listened to everything I had to say. And two, he didn't drink his beer, so I felt that was an invitation for me to drink it. The quickest way to my heart is by giving me beer, so with those two gestures, the knife and I are a great terms. LOL. Seriously though, I made this for a person who lives close by, so she could give to her husband as a gift. Seeing the look on her face, and then later, hearing about his reaction was he saw it for the first time, took away all of the bad feelings about not getting it "right". So in the end, more lessons learned. I think my knives keep getting better, and they are still fun to make, so I couldn't ask for much more.

So it might not have been what I was shooting for, but I do love the end results. It is, by far, the most favorite knife I have made yet. Where as the pattern isn't even on the sides, I still love the uniqueness of it. Calling it a happy accident, instead of a mistake. It is my first try at a stacked leather handle too, and I love how it feels in the hand. I know I'll be doing more of those in the future. I still see a few things in my fit and finish that I will have to work on, but even that is getting better with each knife.

Hijack away... No worries from me. Old Jeeps are not for the feint of heart... or at least not for people that don't want to put some money in to their vehicle to keep it on the road... but the payoff is tons of fun when you take it out in the woods. It was all of those old Jeep parts that led me to taking up forging. I was looking for something to do with all of the scrap (to lazy to load it up and take it to the scrap yard) so took up a new hobby and was making small trinkets... hooks, bottle openers, etc... just to hand out to the guys I went Jeeping with. Got asked to make a knife, so I did out of one of the old leaf springs, and have been hooked ever since. I've moved on to mostly known steels for my commissioned blades, but I still love to grab something out of the junk pile and have some fun.

There's my dilemma... I am Jeep guy... I made that channel to just show how I fixed up my old Jeeps. Had it for almost two years and had a nice group of loyal subscribers... Then I threw up a forging video, just for fun, and started getting requests for more. The more videos I make about knives, the more requests I get to do more. So now, every video I've put up for the last few months has been forging videos, and in 4 months, my subscribers have doubled what it took almost two years to get from just Jeep videos, and the forging videos are getting 4-5 times more views than the Jeep videos ever did. I just do the videos for fun, but I still make a few bucks a month from them, so I do want to do what my subscribers would like... so wondering if I should change the focus of the whole thing to forging. I still so new at this, and make so many mistakes that I question doing that... but who knows? As long as its fun, and maybe interesting, I'll keep throwing them up.

I'm no expert, so take my advice for what its worth, but I've found with cable, that you get the best results of hardening by actually forge welding a hunk together, and then heat treating that like you would a finished blade. The individual strands are so thin, they burn before you have any hope of saving them. With every stand of cable I can get from the scrap yard, I sacrifice the first few inches to a test billet. I used to try the individual strands, but got "burned" (figuratively) when I thought they hardened up, but when I did a blade, it stayed nice and soft. My guess is I burned the strand, which was so thin, it reacted much like you described.

Wow, Thanks. I didn't take any video while I was making this one. It was only my second attempt at trying to get this pattern where I want it. First one was all cracked, this one is uneven... once I get the process down so my results are consistently where I want them , I will absolutely do a video on how I did it.

Thanks guys. After my last one, with the self inflicted cracks, I was mainly concentrating on making this blade so it didn't have those. I think I ended up grinding the sides different. I was shooting for the pattern in the top picture to be on both sides, and I probably forged in up a hair off, so when I did my rough grind to true everything up, I must have been off on the one side. That's about all I can figure out. It will still be a cool blade, and as always, it is a learning experience.

So trying another of those "Gator Back" knives, and one side came out perfect, and the other side... well, the center san mai section of 1080 migrated to one side. Its gonna be cool, but still not perfect. Adding a stacked leather handle, and then we'll try it again. Practice makes perfect, right?

Beautiful work. Hope I can get to that level some day.

Thank you, sir. I get plenty of "whoops" myself... I just really hate the ones that are self inflicted because I was trying to rush things.

Starting the next one tonight, and think I have all of my issues sorted out. The person I made this one for originally is paying for his sons wedding so he doesn't actually want it now for a couple of months, so that gives me time to make him a better one. The one I'm starting tonight, I was given pretty much free range, so I will try this pattern and style again, and hopefully with some minor tweaks to my technique, I should be able to nail it.

"hope no one minds" lol... Advice from JPH is like liquid gold. We all crave it. BUT... I do know how they came about... it was by my own hand, trying to speed up the process of filing in the groves for the dog star pattern. I usually do it by hand, but this time, me being me, I said, "An angle grinder will speed things up a lot!" and it sure did... it sped things up so much that i cut them way too deep. When I went to hammer everything flat, I knew I was in trouble. I couldn't take the blade any thinner, but some of the grooves were still present, and I'd have to take the blade down, paper thin, to get them completely out. So, I don't know what the term is, but they aren't weld shearing... maybe "cold shut" would be proper... but the most accurate would be, "Bone headed move by a novice"

I knew when I did it, that it was a lost cause, but I decided to finish it anyways... I was trying some new ideas and techniques, and ground the channels for the dog star pattern to deep. The blade got to thin to finish grinding them out, so now I've got some nice permanent cracks running down the bevels. They don't go all the way through the blade, so I don't think it will be a major problem, but it sure is a lousy feeling to know that it was my own fault for creating a pretty major flaw on an otherwise pretty cool knife. Lesson learned though, so yet another mistake I won't be making again. LOL

No sale. Gift all the way for your generosity.

Something I've been meaning to do... just need the time. I'm finishing up a knife I've been working for the last week... hopefully done tomorrow. Then I've got two knife commissions that might come through in the next couple of days. I want to start fixing up the post vice I found.... to much to do, and not enough time. lol

This one was from a cutoff from a knife I made from 1080 and 15n20 I sell them for $48... and size.... probably about an inch and a quarter wide, and a couple inches tall.

Ferric Chloride, diluted about 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 with water. Same stuff I use for my knives. Etched it for about 15 minutes, then a quick sanding with 1200 and this was the result.

They're selling like hot cakes... I'd rather be making knives, but I like beer money. Finished this one up tonight.

Ok, I see what you're saying. guess that will take some monkeying around too. Shouldn't be to difficult to rig something up to keep that from spinning.

Yeah, it is an old wrench. Its wedged in there pretty good, so just left it in there, and I'll mess with it when I get home from work later. I've got plenty of old leaf springs from my two Cherokees around, and have a few coil springs that were donated by some Wrangler friends, so between them, I should be able to muddle something out. I've got so much on my plate right now, I won't be able to mess with it for a few more days, but hopefully I should have it ready for business by this weekend.

Haven't measured, but I'd guess they are 4". I don't know enough about them to know what is original or not, but for that price, I didn't care. It could be the ultimate Franken-vice and I still would have brought it home. Scrap yards and me are dangerous... I always justify it by taking a load of scrap with me, but for some reason, I seem to always leave with as much as I take... sometimes more.

Was wandering my local scrap yard this morning on the way to work, when I came across an old welding table with this bolted to the top. I quickly removed it and took it to the owner of the scrap yard to see what he would take for it. $25 later, I own my first post vice. Its an Indian Chief, which I don't know much about. I'll need to forge up a new spring, but everything else looks to be in good working order.

Make sure you normalize after grinding, before you heat treat. Grinding can add a lot of stresses to the steel. Are you aware that normalizing is a heat treatment?

Another lesson to keep in mind... when forging knifes out of damascus, it will show more layers if you grind the bevels, rather than forge them. I learned that lesson the hard way.

Finished up the the other knife for the His/her set. They couldn't be happier... well, he could be. She didn't want to pay for a second sheath, so he's going to have to figure out a way to carry it in to the woods. Ran in to the same issues with finishing on his, but I guess I can't complain. I can get them whipped out quickly, and sell them for an appropriate price at this level of finishing.