overmodulated

same thing happened to me last night, using simple high-carbon steel (approx 1090), except I edge quenched in water. Two separate deep running cracks started at the edge. A second knife was fully emersed in water w/o problem. I wish this were a better science rather than a crap shoot

Although I ordered the recommended ceramic platen liner, I have to wonder what's wrong with a cut piece of leftover ceramic floor tile? It's smooth (i.e. low drag), and dammed straight. Why not just epoxy a 2X10 strip of that on the metal platen? Another thing I'm not gettng is the so-called lip below the ceramic liner. If the epoxy fails, I don't see how any form of catch (lip) could work well, at least any kind of lip that wouldn't severely interfere with grinding. So if someone can make that more clear to me it would be much appreciated. Pardon my confusion

Folks: how many of you will take the near-finished knife to the buffing wheel and cover the handles that way too? I find the buffing wheel to be dirty (dark) from the dirty buffing compound after metal work, so it stains the handles. In light of this, isn't sandpaper better for the wood handles? Thanks

much appreciated! am ordering one now

Folks: am using the Grizzly Knife Grinder, which has graphite padding on the platen. This pad wears down easily and becomes very uneven, which affects the flatness of items I am trying to grind perfectly flat. Have tried operating the grinder without the graphite padding, and found out what a difference this makes in the resistance against the belt (I can easily bogg down the 1 hp motor. I even snapped a belt. Interestingly it didn't break at the seam.) What are your experiences with this and is there a good workaround? I read somewhere that someone used a ceramic backing with success, in lieu of the graphite. Thanks!

There are solders, even for electrical work, that have lower melting points, say in the 3 hundreds (F). Why then is this particular solder recommended by some on this forum for knife making? Just curious - can't help but be curious over this one. Thanks for any feedback

Thanks for the compliments folks. Yes the handles are maple burle. I compression pinned them but did not use JB Weld (I hope that was not a mistake). Still have to coat them with something to make the grain pop. Tung oil? Forging does rock. It wouldn't be the same starting from a perfectly flat pristine piece of bar stock, as tempting as that sounds. Turning scap into shinier scrap seems more rewarding. Thanks again for all the inspiration from this board.

After hitting the forum for a couple of months and learning from most of you, I took on the project of making my first knife with handles (as opposed to the primitive one-piece blacksmith knives I had been making previously). So this is a big step for me. The stock is a RR anchor clip (shown) Finished product is a heavy lengthy bowie I'm fairly happy, save the divots and pits in the blade. Any feedback, recommendations would be welcome. Thanks for all of your useful info and shared pictures that guided me.

Hi Folks: a hopefully simple heat treatment question: Once hardened and essentially unfileable, could a blade be annealed again for any major reshaping (by file)? I read somewhere on this forum that it is recommended to happen no more than once. Am wondering how subjective that is, and what the drawbacks are of annealing more than once. Thanks for any feeback!

Thanks for the feedback and the warning. Although I don't know where to turn for permission to take some of this material, I'll seek permission. Since you mention up to 0.80 carbon, I'm assuming this might be simple carbon steel as in 1080. After some reading, this appears to be slightly less corrosion resistant than 5160 but otherwise a real good blade material. BTW, I wonder what the hell those guys in VA wanted with a long piece of track? I can see a short piece being used as an anvil, but there seem to be very limited applications of a long rail that had to be dragged away, unless they wanted to try to sell it as scrap metal (?)

Thanks for the pointer - I read the post below and many others, including the blueprints. There's a lot of information there but not a bottom line opinion on how good any of this metal is for blades. What I'm really hoping for is an opinion of the e-shaped clips and anchors as blade material. How does either compare to coil spring? Thanks again

Hi Folks: For my first post here, a question on steel types for RR applications: Today I came across an enormous heap of scrap RR track parts: anchors, e-clips, bolts & nuts, plates, spikes (please see pic). I read one gentleman's post favoring the clips as decent quality for blades, but can someone kindly tell me how this rates to the 5160 spring steel I've used a few times for forging blades? If given the choice, would you rather work with automotive suspension coil or any of the stuff depicted in this scrap heap? Thanks much!