Fire plus Bird

Been there, done that. Just taught myself to weld this summer with a little Century FC90 flux-cored machine. I went a little overkill in response and bought both a leather welding cape and coated cottom welding shirt. I though I'd get a lot of use out of the cape while at the forge (all of my shop aprons are canvas) but I've ended up just using the shirt 90 percent of the time. It gets dang hot in the shop when I have the forge running for more than 15 minutes, even using one burner. I definitely don't weld withouth arm protection anymore!

I'm not super worried about them failing catastrophically because they are marking knives and the guys I have in mind to give them to are all seasoned woodworkers who would do anything stupid with them. *Probably* It's more that I want to give these guys good tools what will work well and be symbols of the respect I have for them. I get why you'd want to save notable firsts pieces, Frazer, which is why I'd definitely take pics of anyting I give away. Giving away the first things you make is a concept that my good friends and relatives from native communities have shared with me. It's a way to honor elders and people who have helped you along. When my pops bought a hunting rifle for me, he made me promise to give away the first animal I took with it. I gave away both my first deer and my first elk, which was definitely a bit hard to do but sure made a lot of folks happy.

Great info. Thanks guys. I guess after I clean up the profiles on these two and flatten the backs I'll re-normalize them a few times to bring the grain size back down if possible. It will be interesting to see what the destructive testing shows. I was taught that the first time you make something new, as in start a new craft, you should give it away. I have a few friends I have in mind to give kiradashis to. However, I think I should treat these as pratice pieces as far as heat treating goes and, having learned what I can, make some more to give away.

Anneal then normalize, huh. I've always seen people doing it the other way, but I'm the noob. I agree that hardening the blade end only is the way to go. I'm only going to fully harden the long one so I can to the grain structure check. Good idea about checking another piece of fully hardened metal to compare. I don't know if any of my files is fully hardened vs just surface/case hardened. Luckily, there are lots of pictures only that show grain structure, so that should help.

Just starting to dink around with knive making after deciding it was something I wanted to try several years ago. Figured I'd start with something simple, so I banged out these two kiridashi preforms from some steel I got from my pops. He's pretty sure it's 5160 that someone gave him (99 percent of the steel he smiths with is used/recycled). These to have had two normalizing sequences and are now annealing in vermiculite. I forged the slightly shorter one second and I like it's lines better. Because the first one I banged out is probably a bit longer than it needs to be, I think after I quench it I'll chuck it in a vice with just a bit of the tail end exposed and crack it with a hammer so I can see the crystal structure. I'll be able to grind the tail round and it should be good to go. For making knives, I'd think toughness would be a bit more important than overall hardness, so I was thinking two temper cycles at 450F, yeah?

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. And especially thank you JHCC for pointing out the issue with using a VFD on the motor that comes with the Brodebeck. It's much more helpful that the stock "you can't use a VFD with a single phase motor" that lots of people give. Apparently you can use them with some motors, but figuring out which is above my pay grade. And you're right, it'd be silly to key my purchase of a tool to a handful of consumables I bought in a grab bag us stuff years ago (sunk cost). I only brought the belts I have up in explaining what made me start looking at 48" models. Good point about the 72" Steele. I coudl get the shop wired for 220 eventually, but besides the cost there might be a complication with slots on my breaker box. All the slots are currently filled, but a couple are for old in ceiling heat that doesn't work in a few rooms. It's possible we can figure out which breakers power those circuits and change them out. I was thinking that, if I got the 72" route with the Steele I should be able to by a regular three-prong plug and rewire the VFD to 115V for now. Right? The key would be finding easy to understand directions, or, better yet, a visual tutorial. I suck at learning technical things unless I can see them demonstrated, then it's easy to pick it up.

Hi all, first time poster and novice smith with a grinder buying conundrum. I've got a 4x36 benchtop wood sander, but that doesn't cut it for what I want to do (pun intended). I've got a little cash burning a hole in my bank account so I figure it might be time to pull the trigger on something better. I thought about building a grinder, but that could take me a while to find the right round-to-it, plus I'm not an experienced metalworker. I figure the time I could spend kludging one together and making it work right would be better spent learning to do what I actually want to do, making blades and other neat, sharp things. I want to spend south of $2,000 at the moment, which isn't a ton where grinders are concerned. I happen to have a few 2x48 belts (they may be 2 1/2 x 48, actually) that I picked up with a whole mess randon of Klingspor paper, most of it in small rolls, from a salvage building supply place that folks donate unused or still usable stuff to. So that had me thinking about 2x48 grinders, which led me to the 2x48 Steele Grinder, which is ~$1,600 for the non-tilting model with a 2 horse motor wired for 1.5 horse with a VFD for 115 v house power. The flat platen on the Steele grinder has a neat design with a 2" contact wheel on top and a 4" contact wheel on the bottom. I figure buildind a tilting base similar to the one they sell wouldn't be too hard and I probably have all the steel I need for it laying around. Alternatively, I could get a Brodbeck 2X72 with a single speed 1.5 horse motor, flat platten, a small wheel attachment and a 6-inch contact wheel for ~$1,840. I like that the Brodbeck tilts, but I'd have to paint, assemble and wire it while the Steele maching is pretty much plug and play. I know most folks prefer the bigger grinder, but becuase I'm looking to do this for fun and not income, maybe the difference won't matter, at least in the next few years. Some considerations: At some point I could probably get a VFD for the 1.5 horse single phase motor that comes with the Brodbeck at this price, or even upgrade to a 2 or 3 horse motor and VFD down the line. But I'm pretty clueless about anything electronic. I figure it might be possible to turn the 48 inch Steele Grinder down the line as well and it's motor can be reqired to get the full 2 horses off of a 220 circuit if I decide to get one put in my shop. So, what it boils down to is this question. Will I be happier right now and for, say the next 2-3 years, with a smaller variable speed grinder or a larger single speed unit? From what I've picked up 1.5 horses is the bare minimum for a 2x72 inch machine, so that power might feel better with smaller belts. I know the 42-inchers will wear faster and there's not as wide an array of selections, but they are cheaper, right? Oh, and one more conundrum. The VFD on the Steele (A KBAC model like a lot of other grinders use) apparently doesn't play nice with GFCI/GFI outlets. And, of course, my shop is wired with GFCI outlets. If I use a spike bar, would that short circuit the problem (there's one of them there puns again...)? I guess I could always run a power cord out of the shop into the hall to a normal outlet... that would be stupid fun, or just stupid. Love to here what folks think. Thanks in advance.