junker

wow that's almost as far from here as i drove to get here

my recruiter is having us run 3 miles daily... not used to that... just up and running 3miles sucks lols... and what's thee name of the closest town to you?

thanks for the replies. means alot

thanks for the reply... and sadly not till april 5th

i am visiting family in near collins GA. if there is anyone out here hit me up :lol:

thank you all for the replies. im back home tonight and am officially signed and sworn into the army as a combat engineer. i have full intentions of going sapper and airborne. thanks again to you all, and now ill go to bed cause my sgt wants me back at the station at 6am for pt :P

combat engineer, and thank you

both you and him have my prayers

im sorry if it is inapropriate to put this in this section. im leaving tomorrow for MEPS, and on thursday i will be completing my physical and signing/ swearing into the army. my family (mainly my mother and grandmother) are pretty broken up about it. im asking for a little prayer for them. hopefully from military mothers and fathers who know what they are going through. im happy with my decision but i hate to see my mother so broke up. :(

i had the opportunity to look into the new k-bar knives at al's army navy in sanford. honestly i wasn't impressed, they where of the old style but of course, new. they felt kinda cheap and flimsy. i don't know if these are just a cheap low end model, but i was kinda worried. does anyone know if these are still being issued to our soldiers? :(

horse manure specifically? :blink:

i actually have a 3ibs harbor freight cross pien, i also have an old "rock hammer" (for lack of a better description, never really use it). my mentor actually trained me for the use of a hofi hammer, and to use the square faces to help with drawing, so the found faced hammer can be a bit annoying at times. but hey, ya work with what ya got :P

good idea, although i do know that all steels included in this billet are oil quenching(thank god lol)as i have made a crude knife out of the "knife steel" a while back. with just the cable and bandsaw steel it's around 1ib, i plan on doubling it with the other steel, i have a very strong suspicion that it's in the 10xx series because i cleaned up a piece and etched it and it came out this incredibly dark black, looked just like the pic of the etched 1084 i saw posted on here somewhere. although i worry that if it is 1084 or similarly high carbon the billet might be a bit too high carbon for anything that sees alot of stress, probably make better kitchen knives or something

... it frightens me...

i had forgotten how hard cable is. takes forever to get the stuff to move

wil do. nothing worth posting pics of yet (it's just a block lol). i am worried that the latest weld didn't take but time'll tell when i draw it out

i decided to try it out. so i took some cable i had laying around and welded it. i drew the cable out to 1/4in. x 1/4in. and cut it into 6, 4in. sections. i then stacked it with bandsaw blades and welded the stack. as i was welding the stack the centermost weld didn't take and as i was straightening it it folded on top of itself. so i just decided to go with it and welded it together like that. after i finished welding it up i decided to give it a really severe twist to see what it would do to the pattern, when i was almost finished with the twist either a weld popped loose( or i just didn't have it welded together properly, probably that one) and i had to re weld it as i drew the twist square again. i plan to draw it down to 1/4in. x 1in. and however long it'll go. then ill cut it into appropriate lengths and weld it in a stack with "knife steel" (unknown steel sold to me from acme industrial surplus, although it is both quite hard and very springy). ill then give that a very light twist and then make it into whatever knife strikes my fancy :P

has anyone tried to weld cable to any other type of metal? what is this pattern like? :blink:

no i meant to aneal it to soften it up for filing.

where can you pick up 1084? it isn't avalaiable in any of the metal sales places around me. is there a specific place online you get it from?

im sorry if i made it seem like this will be a combat knife. it will not. it is a utility knife. he has an army issued k-bar style knife (except double edged) for fighting. if this knife even gets used it will only be utility (knowing him he might just hang it up on the wall to remind him of home ) im just trying to make my bud the best knife i can before i go to bootcamp too lols.

that's a bit more work than i have in the knife up to this point . it might be better just to restart with a different alloy of steel. what steel is simple yet similar in hardness to the o1? and again please remember that this knife is going to afgahnastan so 1 of the biggest reasons i chose o1 was that i had read that it held a great edge yet wasn't shatter prone. what steel would give these charicteristics? and im keeping this knife kinda thick for maximum durribility so that might be a factor too.

as far as style of tongs i've always been a fan of horseshoe tongs.

wow my head is spinning from that. and all i have are basic tools (forge, hammer, files, etc) i've never really wanted to get more complicated than that. always thought making knives old school meant going REALLY old school lols.

isn't vermiculite styrephome? wouldn't it just melt?