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I Forge Iron

Test Knife I forged


evant

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Hi everyone, just thought i'de share results of a knife i forged not to long ago, I havn't completed many blades fully yet, attaching handles etc, because i like to test the steel to see if it performs well. Which reminds me if anyone can help, what is good epoxy for the handle material that dries clear? This blade was forged from 1095 carbon steel, i'm hoping to find some 1080 0r 1084 steel though, although i havn't had much luck. Overall the blade achieved its goals, i took the blade and whittled on some wood for a while, then i chopped on some wood, after that the blade still was shaving. Then i took the blade and snapped it to see the grain structure, the grain appeared as a velvety grey color, in the picture below, which was good. Overall I was pleased with the blade and am going to attempt some more blades hopefully soon, I'm going to create some blades and see if they pass the ABS tests that are performed. Thanks for reading and any thoughts, questions, or critiques are welcome.


post-5495-1263756272548_thumb.jpgpost-5495-12637564857602_thumb.jpgpost-5495-12637563817567_thumb.jpg

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Looks good, the color after you snapped it off looks like it might be too hard. How much flex did you get?


Well the blade flexed about 30 to 40 degrees or so, I didn't temper the back portion of the blade to a blue color which would have made it flex more, because this was mostly for me to test the cutting edge. I did temper the blade to a light straw just to test the cutting edge and it seemed to do pretty well. Also the camera might make the color appear just a little different then it actually was because of the lighting, but I was curious, how you can tell if the grain is too hard?
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Well the blade flexed about 30 to 40 degrees or so, I didn't temper the back portion of the blade to a blue color which would have made it flex more, because this was mostly for me to test the cutting edge. I did temper the blade to a light straw just to test the cutting edge and it seemed to do pretty well. Also the camera might make the color appear just a little different then it actually was because of the lighting, but I was curious, how you can tell if the grain is too hard?


Loctite makes some outstanding epoxies for attaching knife handles of wood, bone, antler and man-made materials. Not the epoxy you find at Home Depot, Lowes or your local hardware store but their 'aerospace epoxy' - the 'E' series - about $16 for the 50ml dual syringe. I like E20HP, the 'E' standing for the type of epoxy, '20' setup time, and the last to letter are either the color ('C' = clear, 'W' = white, etc., or 'HP' High Performance'). They range from E05 to E120. E20HP is rated at 3000 lbs - 5000 lbs adhesive strenght, 300 degrees temp, chemical and solvent resistant. It is considered 'off-white' but virtually disappeared when I used it to attach antler slabs to my handle. My personal test was to try and remove a piece of elk antler I epoxied to a piece of steen. I used a 22 oz ball peen hammer and only succeded in breaking of bits and pieces of the antler - I could not seperate it from the steel. My personal test shows that it is also 'dishwasher' safe :D

Note, a very useful tip I came across was to sandblast the tang which gives the epoxy a much better surface to adhere to than just grinding or sanding. I used a simple and inexpensive ($13 - $16) siphon sandblaster sandblaster.jpgand got excellent results.

The best place to find it was at Fastenal, they seem to have outlets everywhere and if they don't stock it can get it in a day or two. They also have the best descriptions of the various epoxies.
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Loctite makes some outstanding epoxies for attaching knife handles of wood, bone, antler and man-made materials. Not the epoxy you find at Home Depot, Lowes or your local hardware store but their 'aerospace epoxy' - the 'E' series - about $16 for the 50ml dual syringe. I like E20HP, the 'E' standing for the type of epoxy, '20' setup time, and the last to letter are either the color ('C' = clear, 'W' = white, etc., or 'HP' High Performance'). They range from E05 to E120. E20HP is rated at 3000 lbs - 5000 lbs adhesive strenght, 300 degrees temp, chemical and solvent resistant. It is considered 'off-white' but virtually disappeared when I used it to attach antler slabs to my handle. My personal test was to try and remove a piece of elk antler I epoxied to a piece of steen. I used a 22 oz ball peen hammer and only succeded in breaking of bits and pieces of the antler - I could not seperate it from the steel. My personal test shows that it is also 'dishwasher' safe :D

Note, a very useful tip I came across was to sandblast the tang which gives the epoxy a much better surface to adhere to than just grinding or sanding. I used a simple and inexpensive ($13 - $16) siphon sandblaster sandblaster.jpgand got excellent results.

The best place to find it was at Fastenal, they seem to have outlets everywhere and if they don't stock it can get it in a day or two. They also have the best descriptions of the various epoxies.


Thanks reefera4m, this really helps, I'll defenitely have to try sandblasting the tang, thanks for the tips!!
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I use Loctite Professional Heavy Duty epoxy as well - just not on knife handles.

It's just a question of performance vs cost. Loctite PHD epoxy has a strength of 1500-2500 psi bond strenght vs 3000 - 6000 psi for the Hysol 'E' series epoxies. If you look further, the Hysol 'E' series are formulated to bond metal to wood, plastics, etc., while the brands available through your local hardware are not.

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