August 23, 200916 yr Hello Everyone, I am posting a photo of a knife I made as part of a trade for materials. I am sending this back to the person who gave me a few lengths of cable as a show of grattitude. It has 5" blade 4.5" handle. walnut handle, brass bolster and butt cap, leather spacers. I hope he likes it. Advice, comments, etc. are welcomed. thanks for looking, Kevin
August 23, 200916 yr Author I am terrible at sheaths, and I don't really like to make them. He could probably make a better one himself. Of course, he could probably make a better knife himself, too, but... Its about reciprocity. Knife karma... kc
August 29, 200916 yr ive been practicing my cable damascus the past few days and was wondering what your HT process is. all i have is about 8 inches of welded cable so im a long way from a finished blade but i would like to know how someone who has done it goes about treating. if i need to repost this let me know. thanks guys.
August 29, 200916 yr Hey Kevin I am glad that you speak Canuk. I thought The_White was asking if you were going to make him some bedding :p
August 31, 200916 yr Author ive been practicing my cable damascus the past few days and was wondering what your HT process is. all i have is about 8 inches of welded cable so im a long way from a finished blade but i would like to know how someone who has done it goes about treating. if i need to repost this let me know. thanks guys. Hey, thanks guys. heat treat - I took a small bit first and verified that it would harden in oil. just cool oil. It depends on the diameter of the original cable - Wayne Goddard has a discussion of the relationship between decarb and overall cable diameter in one of his books. If you have a fairly large cable to start (around 1" dia), and you flux and control forge atmosphere and grind away decarb... then oil should work. Any less diameter, and you will likely need warm water or even brine. I just ground last of decarb off, normalized 3x, and heated just past critical and quenced in light canola oil. Then, 3x temper at 390 F. I left it a little lower temper than monosteel since there would be bands of iron around bands of steel due to decar and since it is only a 5" blade. thanks for asking. I am no expert, but it came out well for me. This is the 4th knife from the same big bit of cable, so I had time to practice on this specific steel. Kevin Edited August 31, 200916 yr by kevin (the professor)
September 6, 200916 yr Very nice looking. I got some cable I'd give you if you could make me a knife like that! :-) Wish I could do that. Ah well, more welding practice.
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