Easy project please

[philip in china]

Most of my work is fixing/making farm tools or making sculptures. I have never made a knife. I would like to try. I have some about 3/8" spring steel which I could forge fairly easily. An idiots guide please to what I should do.

[nc_cooter]

Is your stock 3/8" round bar or flat bar? You could make a small knife from 3/8" round. To overly simplify the steps, forge the round stock flat to about 1/8" overall thickness and set the basic shape of the blade, ricasso and handle. Next refine the bevels and distal taper. Use files or a belt grinder to further refine the blade. Make sure you leave the edge thickness at least .030"prior to heat treat. Keep your steel hot while forging to avoid stress cracks.
When you are ready for heat treat, I'll try to take you through that mess.

Here's a pic of some of my rough forged blades. The bottom one is a small black smith knife with a 2 1/2" blade. You might want to try this style for your first kinfe. The second pic shows the finished top and bottom blades from the first pic,

[bigfootnampa]

Simple, he says. I assume your spring steel to be old leaf spring... really hard but makes a nice knife when you are done.

1. Hot cut down to reasonable blank size... don't start with a big knife, learn faster with more small ones.

2. Forget the ricasso, guard etcetera... forge the tang first... for a small hunting knife about 3/8" square tapering to 1/4" square over
3 1/2" of length.

3. Using the tang as a tong handle, forge the basic blade shape... keep it simple to begin with.

4. Grind and file to refine the shape but leave the edge thicker (about 1/16" to 3/32")

5. Harden. Heat entire blade (NOT tang) to bright red or dark orange heat and quench in oil.

6. Grind/sand/file to remove scale. Remove most all scale at this stage to see colors in stage 7.

7. Temper. In a household oven about an hour at 375 degrees and another hour at 420 degrees, will give you a nice straw color which is very hard. You could improve this temper by drawing to darker colors along the spine with a flame. This refinement is trickier than it looks as the thinned edge will draw heat very quickly so to get the thick edge heated without ruining the temper of the thin edge, requires patient heating with a small flame (I like an alcohol lamp for this) moving constantly along the area to be softened, while watching like a hunting hawk, and quenching instantly when the colors are achieved.

8. Carve and attach handle. Use any nice available hardwood to carve the handle shape as desired. Drill it full depth (for the tang) with a 5/16" bit and then half depth with a 3/8" bit. Heat the tang, low to medium black heat, use tongs as a heat sink to protect the blade temper. Melt the tang into it's socket... use the tongs to insert the tang in the predrilled hole and then holding the blade just above the tang (with the tongs), tap the back of the handle against the anvil forcing the hot tang into the handle.
Done right, this will melt the square tang into the round hole creating a near perfect fit with just a bit of room on some of the flats... the resins in the wood will act as hot glues and the slight compression of the fibers in the socket strengthens them.

9. Sharpen and test cut. I like a belt sander to sharpen with but use what you have. I like to hone with a diamond file and remove the burr with a butcher's steel. I am not happy with an edge until I can cut hair from the back of my hand with it.

10. In lieu of a guard, ricasso etcetera... leave a space between the blade and the handle. You can just leave the tang a bit overlong and round the corners on it a bit or grind a finger size notch at the back of the blade's edge. This makes sharpening much easier and helps to keep your fingers away from the sharp edge.