just finished a blade i have been working on for a while. I am very pleased with it made from a HC r/r spike it measures 11 1/2 inches long, blade 6 1/2, handle 5.Deer antler handle brass pins and polished to an almost mirror finish. I tried to stay away from the grinder and did most of the work w/a file and sand paper but the buffer w/a little emory compound went a long way. When tempering the edge got an almost perfect straw yellow and this blade actually holds a pretty good edge unlike a lot of my spike knives but recently aquired some leaf springs out of a big rig and we did some banging on some this weekend. Oh boy what a difference! we used twice as much coal and got half the work done not sure the carbon content but i'm told its pretty high.Can't wait to get a little further on them. Any and all comments appreciated.

THANKS GUYS

scott

looks ok so keep on keepin on. leaf spring is "5160" but that a best guess, so ya got what ya payed for. but anyway have fun and let us know how it goes,jimmy

Great looking knife - resembles a small scimitar.

looks good but when youre messing with that spring steel remember to use an oil quench instead of the water or super quench used on RR knives.

hey thanks guys its always good to hear some + input i have been using oil to quench everything so far
should i be using brine on my spikes?

just finished a blade i have been working on for a while. I am very pleased with it made from a HC r/r spike it measures 11 1/2 inches long, blade 6 1/2, handle 5.Deer antler handle brass pins and polished to an almost mirror finish. I tried to stay away from the grinder and did most of the work w/a file and sand paper but the buffer w/a little emory compound went a long way. When tempering the edge got an almost perfect straw yellow and this blade actually holds a pretty good edge unlike a lot of my spike knives but recently aquired some leaf springs out of a big rig and we did some banging on some this weekend. Oh boy what a difference! we used twice as much coal and got half the work done not sure the carbon content but i'm told its pretty high.Can't wait to get a little further on them. Any and all comments appreciated.

THANKS GUYS

scott

Leaf spring is commonly 5160 (.6% carbon compared to 1095 which is .95% carbon), However 5160 also has .8% chromium, which makes it considerably harder. You did well to get half the work with only twice as much coal compared to a RR Spike. It took me 5 times as much coal and I only got 1/3 as much work done forging 5160 , which is why I switched to using my propane forge for leaf spring steel!

well finally got to do a little forgin this weekend managed to get one knife roughed in out of my leaf spring i started with a piece about one inch xthree and a half inches long xabout 1/2 inch thick the blade is about 5"x1 1/2 @widest point with the tang being about another 5 inches. tang is about 3/16thick x 3/4 wide with the spine tapering pretty even to the point.
the other two blades are from my last round of forgin' both are spike knives so i guess letter openers but either way i'm pretty happy with the outcome. on the antler handled one i split the bone on my scrollsaw and used a dremel to hollow out the impression for the tang.the handguard is a piece of an old plow bottom cutoff w/a cutoff wheel then hammered flat also used a hot chisel to punch slit in for the tang. the wood handled one i used same scrollsaw to cut fingergrooves in some old native oak planks that came out of my grampas' barn and a lot of filing/sanding
I used loctite 5 minute epoxy and brass pins 3/32 thick [barely peened]to attach scales

finally got some more work in on my first spring steel knife
fired the forge up this weekend and annealed it-sorta don't have a good substance to properly anneal @this time so i heated to cherry red and let air cool 3x it softened it up suprisingly well let her soak in vinegar 2 days and a little grindin lots of filing and this is what i've got.
go easy guys this is my FIRST spring knife :rolleyes: