Ok, here goes....

This is my first shot at forge welding. I love san mai knives and wanted to do one of my own so this is what I did. I started with a rail road spike, cut the head off of it. Then I stretched it and widened it a little. Then I hot split it length wise and made it like a V. My piece of 1095 I heated and beveled one side then put that in the V shaped railroad spike and forge welded it together. Man I must have tried 3 times before I got it to take. I didn't let it get hot enough at first, so I put the spike in first and after a while I put the 1095 in so they would get to temp the same time. After that, success. Well here are the specs:


OAL 13"
Blade length 8.5"
Scales White Corian (like for counter tops)
pins Stainless tubing.

ps. I am by no means a photographer, so I apologize in advance. ;)

Looks great! How does the corian work? I have a piece I've been wanting to try for scales. Bart

Thanks! Corian works pretty much just like micarta, maybe a little softer. This was my first time working with it and I must say that I am definately going to be using it again. It feels really good in your hand.

Man you beat me to it. I was planning on doing something like that with several of my spikes when I get my shop area set up. What i was curious about was How you did your heat treatment of the blade. Most people i Know use brine or water (or really fast oil) for Spike quenching. But did you quench differently because of the 1095 core. also how large was the bit of 1095 that you welded in, and or how deep did you split the RR spike. I was thinking of using some slivers of L6 from saw blades (the little cut out sections from when i cut up the blades to make other knife blades) or maybe some garage door springs which are around 1/4inch or larger round stock.

Tiapan,

I attached a picture of the 1095 I used. As for the railroad spike, I first stretched it to roughly the same length as the 1095, then I cut it almost all the way through, I would say about 7/8's of the way. For the quenching, I quenched this just like I would any high carbon knife, in oil, then I tempered at 300 degrees for an hour. The knife, is pretty springy yet it also holds a great edge.

Here are some close up views of both sides of the knife. It still had a good bit of oil on it from wet sanding, that's why it's so shiny.

Nice, although I'd personally like to see the softer steel run a bit closer to the edge. Did the spike harden at all? 1095 needs a very fast oil, but even that may not be enough for a HC spike.

You would quench for the edge material. Good place to get corian is from someone who installs sinks or counter tops. The cut outs for the sink(s) will provide a lot of material!.

I have often thought about slitting a spike, spreading it to insert a HC bar and forge welding it up but never tried, but it's in the works. Glad it worked out! One thought I had is that 300 seems a tad low for a temper, I mean, yes it will hold a great edge, but at that hardness I would think the edge would chip on you? Let us know how well it holds up. Nice work. Wes

You would quench for the edge material. Good place to get corian is from someone who installs sinks or counter tops. The cut outs for the sink(s) will provide a lot of material!.

Sounds like he did. I'm just wondering whether it was fast enough to harden the spike at all.

This was my reasoning with the quenching. Most of the time on a working knife you want an hard edge with a softer spine. Some people differentially temper the spine of the blade to bring some softness back. What I did was essentially the same thing, only now I don't have to worry about the spine because it is already soft. I tempered at 300 because I wanted the 1095 to stay pretty hard because this knife is for my wife and is going to stay in the kitchen. They worst it will have to cut is probably carrots. :)

This was my reasoning with the quenching. Most of the time on a working knife you want an hard edge with a softer spine. Some people differentially temper the spine of the blade to bring some softness back. What I did was essentially the same thing, only now I don't have to worry about the spine because it is already soft.

Sure. But the spine would've been relatively soft either way, since the spike wouldn't harden much regardless of what you quenched in. I was just curious if it hardened at all.