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I was cleaning my workspace earlier this week and I found a piece of rebar under my anvil stand from my failed attempt at making tongs. I needed to get my friend a Christmas present and I know he likes knives so what happened next is obvious. Took about an hour or two (not counting the time in the oven for tempering) total of work to do. This is my third knife and I think it’s better than my first and failed second attempts. The reason the blade looks cracked is it wasn’t cleaned off completely in the photo. I wish I had an anvil with a hardy hole and some hardy tools; it would have made bending the handle much easier. The tip was purposely not worked much because I didn’t want to screw it up with barely any charcoal left and Home Hardware closed for Christmas. This wasn’t meant as a heavy-use item otherwise I’d have made it from one of the HUGE leaf springs I got for free. What do you think of it?

Hello to you all! I've realize this little new friend from a forge weld test, and it look quite good to use! I will spend much more time sharpening it with some stone!

Hi all, this is my first post here. I've been working with steel as a blacksmith and welder for about five years and have made a few knives from 1085 and 1095. I have some 15n20 that I am going to use to make my first attempt at pattern welding and wanted to know if anyone has ever used 15n20 as a blade. My thought was to make a shaving razor, and it would probably hold up better than a carbon steel under the conditions. Has anyone used 15n20 as a blade steel and if so what was your experience with it?

First blade of 2019! W2 cutting edge stacked with a twist core and wrought iron spine. Blade was deeply hot blued then sanded back ever so gently to make the pattern pop. Cast bronze fittings with buffalo horn. Theo

How much would you pay for this knife i have carried it for a while and friends and family ask me how much for a knife like that and i do not know what to give them for a price...i do not want to over price it nor under price my work so can anyone help oh and its 1095 steel with kirinite scales and that is the only pic i have of it new

Last blade of 2018, woot! Happy new year yall! Forged 80CrV2 full tang drop point with hamon. The blade is blued for added protection against the elements. Handle is buffalo horn with 3D printed cast bronze fittings - I like to leave a bit of the casting texture on the bronze for character. See ya next year! Theo

I am happy to finally show off the economy custom chopper series we've been working on the past six months! The blades are all 80CrV2 high carbon tool steel forged to shape, rough ground, and heat treated by yours truly; then final ground and assembled by Justin Kirck, who also made the leather sheathes. Handle materials include stabilized burls, hybrids, micartas, and hardwoods. While this isn't the completed set, the choppers here are great representation of the fun materials we got to play with. Truthfully, and I will only say it here; this was way more work than we thought it was going to be, and we struggled to keep up with the timeframe the whole time. Who knew teaching and do a run of knives would be a lot for just two people?! :3 More collaborations are on the horizon, I will keep yall in the loop! TheoRockNazz.com - JustinTheBlacksmith.com

Pair of ulu’ish knives diffrentialy tempered 1095 brass and cocobolo left them in the etch a little too long but they ended up really pretty anyway du

So i made myself a chefs knife out of o-6 tool steel being lazy i did not want to drag out the forge just to heat treat one knife so i grabbed my torch and went with a simple diffrential heattreat not expecting anything other than function.... this is what i got. Once i realized i had a hamon... my first all be it boring as no clay was involved i had to go all out on the fittings. I went with solid copper scales soldered to the tang then hammered and polished the blade was etched in my vinigar picle bath i use for removing scale 10 min then rubbed with silk then 10 min soak anout 6 cycles Tell me what ya think du

It seems I have been a good boy this year!! I just received my copy of " Introduction to Knifemaking" by Steve Sells. I wasn't expecting it until January, this is a nice surprise indeed. Thanks again for all the hard work you put into this book Steve, it is greatly appreciated. John

Hiya folks, I had a day all to meself at the shop few days back and made an incense holder and a housewife's knife for my better half. The incense holder looks a bit too short here, I had no measurement for it, just went by feel. It turned out allright though, all the ashes have been caught so far. I made the knife from a piece of old hay rake spike, hardened and tempered. More on the type of knife: https://nordiskaknivar.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/emannanveitsi-womans-knife/

*I realize I accidently posted in the blacksmithing forum instead of the bladesmithing forum...however I am finding it difficult to put this in the appropriate area, my apologies!* So I'm working on my second knife project (posted my first one earlier), and I had some questions with regards to the heat treat (which I am planning to do tomorrow). The piece itself is a dagger I am working on out of 1095 steel. I have the profile and grinding done for it, and am getting ready to heat treat, but a bit nervous about the quench. I am planning on using clay along on the spine of the dagger on both sides, but wasn't certain if there was a certain time to apply the clay, or if you just put it on before you begin heating the blade for the quench? I was thinking this would help keep the spine from getting overly hard and brittle, which would give the dagger more strength and flexibility of movement when thrusting into hard objects (not that this is the intention, just trying to learn and practice things for now.) I also was thinking this might help prevent cracks/breaking of my blade for the quench. The reason for this is because I am going to attempt to quench the blade in water, not oil... I am going to use some hot railroad spikes to heat the water up, which I am hoping will decrease the chance of any serious damage to the blade. My question there is, when I got to quench the dagger, do I plunge it in tip first with the edges perpendicular to the ground, or the flat of the blade? Are there any hints, tricks, or tips that could help me from ruining this piece? (I mean if I did, I would treat it as a lesson learned...but I'd like to avoid a catastrophic damage if possible). Also, any advice on fixes if the blade develops a warp or a crack during the quench? Thank you all for reading this....hope I made sense above haha.

Hey There! Thanks for letting me be a part of this wonderful group. This Sunday just passed I had my first blacksmithing lesson with London Blacksmith Kevin Boys and managed to come out with this basic Viking ladies knife (I think? ), pictured below, in a little over 2 hours! I have been simply obsessed with blacksmithing for about 2 years now, but haven't been able to pursue anything... Partly to do with living in central London ( You know how hard it is to find a forge in London?!) and also with me finishing my University studies. This is the first time I have been able to put things id learnt on paper into actual physical use and nothing has ever felt better! Its so primal and elemental! I thought I would join the group so I can learn more and more every day, and that I can also keep some folks up to date with my progression in my weekly 2 hour class and my quest for a reasonably priced workshop! Thanks all and hello!

so as a newbie if i was to go and try to forge a knife out of a leaf spring- after checking for cracks in the stock- what is the worst that could happen if i "forged it wrong" i really know nothing about this so please let me know what i am dealing with. cracking? shattering? also if this is already discussed in another thread then pls redirect me. thanks in advance i dont really care if my knife stinks, but what are the dangers of breaking etc.

Ok I'm starting a new hobby hope to make a few hunting style knives myself. I'm hoping to keep the cost down at this point so salvaging and reusing parts as much as possible. I been collecting parts I believe are necessary. So far I have, 1. Big old anvil and assorted mini sledge hammers. 2. Used freon gas tank. Planning on fabbing a propane forge. Pretty much getting ideas off you tube. (Is it to thin?) 3. Motor for belt sander (need to know best way to make this. What size belt? How do I make the pulleys? Pulley tensioner?) 4. Black pipe and assortment for burner. 5. Working on making 2 burners as of today. See what works best. 1st. will be a high pressure line to a benzo nozzle, using tank 20lb. pressure. 2nd style is regulator with gauge to fabbed up nozzle using assortment of 1" and 3/4" pipes with reducers and nipples, stoppers etc. Guess I just looking for tips and ideas of how to get my shop together. What's am I missing? What mistakes can you guys and girls help me avoid as a complete novice. I will check this any post for questions I can answer to help you help me. Any info is much appreciated and look forward to learning more about this timeless skill. Happy

Hi, I'm fairly new to forging and am having issues with my blades rusting alot. It seems like every time I make a knife 1-2 weeks later I will look and see light rust building up on the whole blade... any ideas on how to keep this from happening?

Hello people ,well as my title says I have very limited tools , meaning I don't really have power tools and all that sort of thing but I wanna make a knife. I know I sound weird talking about how I have nothing but I wanna make something, but the design is somewhat simple, like a kiridashi knife. Um for the steel , I have what appears to be a lawnmower blade ? But smaller. How would I go about trying to make this without power tools and stuff , I have files and just tools that I need to put more effort into but I don't mind. Also , the bevel , would I be able to get it somewhat "Razor sharp"? This way ? If anyone thinks I can , please list out things I would need that would replace power tools , Thank y'all in advance.

I've looked for hours around the web, and I know this was a stupid error on my part (wrong kind of heat treat on mystery spring steel, too lazy/hurried to test on a few scraps). The crack actually took place about 8 months ago, and I'm considering revisiting the blade. I don't want to weld or braze the crack shut (or at least not until I ensure that it won't propagate) but I had an idea. For glass, you can sometimes stop a crack by drilling a hole at the termination. I was thinking by using a large enough bit, I might catch even the microscopic end of the crack, and then either cut/grind/weld/fill/heat treat it and have a mostly serviceable blade, and if that fails, at least I still have a nice looking shelf knife. Unfortunately, I already made a sheath for it (before heat treat) but I guess I can re-make a similar enough blade to fit if all else fails. has anyone else used this method on a blade? what degree of success if any? Thanks!

Recently finished my latest project, 3 years in the making, mostly rusting in a box, but this blade is finally done! Forged the blade in late 2014 (October sounds right, predates this phone though!) at the last ABS hammer-in in Tulare under the tutelage of Jason Knight, David Mirabile, Bill Stuart, Ray Laconico, and Michael Vagnino at various times throughout the conference. Special thanks to David for recommending "The Art of Tsukamaki" by Thomas Buck, such an incredible resource for Japanese style handle wrapping techniques, and to Ray and Mike for some blade grinding pointers (sorry guys, quality is still not there, but is improving!).Enough flapping, specs!10" OAL, 5.25" bladeStarted out as 3/16 by 1-1/4 1080 carbon steel, forged to shape.Fuchi (collar at the top, where a guard would be) and Kashira (pommel/end cap) are brass sheet that were raised/shrunk/hammered to shape and soldered together. The Kashira had a flattened copper wire inserted into the seam to fill the gap that I filed in to allow me to clean up the joint without needlessly flexing and bending the part to get files and paper in the slot.The Omote (outside, as worn) side Menuki (ornament beneath wrapping) are the cartridge ends of a .50 caliber S&W 500 handgun I fired at my bachelors party, and two .308 Winchester rounds from my rifle. These were cut off their respective casings and soldered together.The Ura (inside, as worn) side Menuki is a cut off from a copper and brass Mokume Gane billet forged in a class taught by Jay Burnham-Kidwell at Adam's Forge LA (no relation), lightly forged to a sorta teardrop shape and rounded on the grinder.Wrapping material is gutted red paracord over black leather, nothing fancy there. Finally got an edge on it just now, took it up to 600 grit on the wicked edge and then stropped on my green paddle, the edge looks terrible but it will draw blood as well as anything else. It shaves hair with minimal back and forth, makes spaghetti out of my grizzly catalog test paper, and pulls nice (my carving skills are the limiting factor) feathers out of mystery wood. It doesn't bite really deep in chopping because it's relatively light, but it's quite comfortable in hand and you can really flick it through the swing and get the work done without needing to swing super hard. Definitely need to make a sheath for this so I can take it out for some field trials in something safer than a cardboard and duct tape taco! any thoughts, comments, suggestions and advice on things to improve or keep doing would be greatly appreciated, don't worry about delicate feelings either, I can't improve what I don't realize is bad.

trial etch on the cable knife. I also used it to chop a 2x4, and got a slight delamination on the blade edge that you can JUST see with the single exception, I thought this turned out pretty good it was actually supposed to be a leaf bladed dagger, but the steel wanted to be a bowie, so that's where I went with this WIN_20170529_21_46_55_Pro.mp4

So in the way of an introduction, My name is Robert. I live just north of Fox, Alaska with my wife Kristine and a spoiled Chocolate Lab named Brandy. We live off-grid, haul our water and poop in a bucket when it's -40'f outside. We live in an unfinished house as most "Alaska Bush People" do, but it's paid for and it's warm. I'm hear to tell ya it's no place for a Yuppie, they will not even come inside. ;-) We paint with oils, we hunt, we fish, we trap, (sorta) and mostly stay to ourselves. About 18 months ago I had my first grandchild enter our life and decided to build him a nice Diamond Willow cradle. After the cradle was finished I had a nice piece of willow left over, while twirling it around in my hand, I thought it would make a nice handle for a knife. That was the last reasonable thought I had. So... many thousands of dollars and hours of shop time later I can say with all Honesty. "Hi my name is Rob and I'm a blade a'holic". It was not long after my first few knife builds that I noticed a show on T.V. called Forged in Fire, I took it as a sign from the Gods and sat down to watch. From then on it's been my goal to not just do stock removal, but also learn how to forge my blades. I'm getting there slow, but sure. I've sold a few knives and try to be reasonable about things. Folks seem to like what I've made, so that is a start. Anyway that's pretty much it. I enjoy this and if I can make a few bucks so much the better, but I mostly work now to support my knife making habit. Peace.

Made my first integral handle blade. The handle is temporary until I can get ahold of something better. It was made from a piece of leaf spring I found. Quenched in vegetable oil. Then did 2 cycles in the oven at 400degs. The spine is about 1/4 as wel as the handle. finish is rough but I am over all happy with it.

This started out as a half round file... I don't know if it was hard to get it into shape because it started out as a semicircular shaped object, or if it is simply that small, thin knives are more challenging than the big choppers I've been making... But this thing's size is no tell of how hard of a time it gave me, nor the sense of accomplishment it gives me as a baby knife maker to be able to say that I hand forged my latest edc knife (which fits better in pocket than a thick bodied pen). And look at the snakeskin pattern the half round file gave it! I figured it would be an uggo when I first started hammering it into a square rod... but it ain't bad compared to some of my others.

I tried my hand at a file knife. Actually one of the first blades I have made. I pretty happy with how it turned out. It was good enough to cut up the thanksgiving bird. I do still have a lot to learn about edge geometry. It took forever to get a sharp edge on it.

This is the third knife that i have made it is made from a railroad spike and is sharped to cut paper smoothly and i have put bees wax on it as some what of a polish and to stop it from rusting. I would like to know what you guys think and what suggestions that you guys have?