Patterned Kitchen Knife Question

[archiphile]

So,as it goes,I am feed up with cheap, pour edge holding, poor quality knives. I had thought of putting together a billet for a patterned welded blade.

My questions are as follows:

How wide do I make the billet? (I want my finished product to be 12 1/2"overall and 1-1/2'-2" at the widest point with a thickness of 3/64"-5/64".)

Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Best,

Archiphile

[Steve Sells]

So,as it goes,I am feed up with cheap, pour edge holding, poor quality knives. I had thought of putting together a billet for a patterned welded blade.

My questions are as follows:

How wide do I make the billet? (I want my finished product to be 12 1/2"overall and 1-1/2'-2" at the widest point with a thickness of 3/64"-5/64".

Make your billet however wide as your stock is, if its too narrow, widen it.

I have some Questions for you.
Have you even made a knife before? Have you ever forge welded before? How much material loss have you had? Are you using the same steels? some will scale more than others.

[ThomasPowers]

With forged knives you do more with *weight* than starting size allowing for at least 50% loss for pattern welding and finishing if you are new at it.

So I could make that knife out of 1/4" sq stock or 2" sq stock using different lengths of each.

Note that in pattern welding the wider the billet the more chance of crud getting stuck between the layers as it has further to go to get out when you go to weld. In general I do not weld up billets greater than 1" wide without access to a good powerhammer.

OTOH starting with a narrow billet means a lot more drawing the stock out and can be harder on your welds---how good are your welds? I did a piece that I welded up to 400 layers or so and then stood it on it's end and reduced it to a less than 1/8th inch thick disk---the welds held...

[archiphile]

Steve,

I have forge welded before,all though, not for use on a knife. This will be my first knife. I can not answer the last question because I do not know the answer.

As for material, I have some 4140, and some 1095. The thicknesses on the steel is as follows, 3/8" and 5/16",respectively.

From what you said Thomas, it looks like I will be using a 1" wide billet,which could yield a knife of the size that I want as far as width goes.

With the thickness of the steels that I am thinking of using, if I start with three layers that should be easily forged by hand.

Thank you both for the replies. Keep them coming, I need to know all that I can before I start.

[Steve Sells]

4140 not the best choice in a blade. Plus heat treating issues when mixed with 10 series. may pull apart due to different expansion coefficients.

[archiphile]

Perhaps I will save my money and wait till I can get some O1 and the like.

I do not want to waist all that effort and have it turn to junk during heat treat.

[new guy]

maybe 1040 and 1095 would work. just a guess based on some reaseach of my own. or you could make wootz steel.

[matt87]

If this is your first knife, use a piece of stock steel rather than trying to learn pattern-welding as well as knife-making in one operation. There's enough things to learn as it is.

[Ecart]

I completely agree with Matt87. I'm of the stubborned sort and have been bound and determined that I can "do it like the pros" my first time out. As a result, I have worked on many knives over the past three or so years and actually finished a grand total of ONE! I'm not so stubborned these days.
Also, listen to the suggestions about steel choices. You're on the right track in saving for a good steel. There are plenty of good steels out there that will make an excellent monosteel kitchen knife. But I agree with you. I'm sick of cheep kitchen knives.

[matt87]

Another point to consider: what makes a 'kitchen' knife a 'kitchen' knife? I have used to great effect in the kitchen various inexpensive knives by Frosts Knivfabrik of Sweden for instance. None cost more than

[Charlotte]

For what it's worth. Admiral Steel had some of their knife steels on markdown.

I bought some 1085 1/8 X 1 1/4 X 60 for $ 7.00 stick. I bought some on spec and because I wanted to make some quick Kitchen knives for my own use.

Personally I'm tired of stainless steel kitchen knives. But in the regular catalogue.
440C stainless is 3/16X1 1/2 X 18" is $20 and change. I recently checked out a resturant supply company in my area. All of their commercial knives were made of 440 C. The manager offered the opinion that home products are made by companies that contract out the work to people with out first class heat control. "Not bad steel, just bad management"