Dennis hl Making a Knife

[Glenn]

IForgeIron Blueprints
Copyright 2002 - 2011 IFORGEIRON, All rights reserved

BP0304 Making a Knife
by Dennis hl

 

 

This same techniques could be used to make a period knife or something similar.

 

This is where I started, a piece of scrap spring steel from the pile. I cut the pointy end on the right off. The area I'm working with is about 1/2" by 3/8" by about six or so inches long.

I roughed in the general shape on the anvil. Don't worry too much about making the end into a sharp point.

Begin drawing out the blade on the face of the anvil. Do not make it too thin, we'll take care of that later. Draw it out and shape it, but try not to thin it out beyond an 1/8" or so.

Here we're working out the general shape of the handle, again do not thin it out too much. Keep it to a little better than an 1/8" or so.

When you get the basic length of the handle in mind, cut it off. Give yourself a little extra, you can always trim it off later.

Continue to work out the shape of the handle, working it to about an 1/8." You may find that the blade wants to curl on you, flatten it out while you still have a bit of red heat in it. Do not flatten it while at a black heat, I've found that doing so stresses the metal and you'll have to work it out when you normalize it, more on that later.

The back of the blade my develop a bit of a "sway" back. You can straighten it out by giving it a bit of focused heat...

...and then gently tapping down on the blade's edge with the hammer lightly driving the "sway" back down against the face of the anvil.

Eventually you will end up with the basic, roughed out blade.

Nothing special. A simple pair of pliers, a ball peen hammer, and a pair of tongs. You saw the cut off tool already (above).

The are the three files I used to shape the blade. The bastard file is for general shaping and rough filing, the round was used to clean up the transition from the blade to the handle, and the small fine file will be used to clean up the surface and the edge.

Here's the knife filed to shape. Next we'll clean up the front and back by draw filing.

Clamp the knife to a sturdy surface in an area that'll give you a lot of freedom of movement. The clamp holding the blade down is a knuckle buster, push it back so it's laying flat against the bar (you'll hit your knuckles once and never forget to do this again).

Next clean off as much of the slag that built up on the surface while forging the blade. I use a worn piece of 120 grit wet/dry sand paper.

Now we'll start to draw file the blade. We left the blade a bit thick to allow a some room to clean up the surface. Draw filing is easy once you get it you may wish to practice on some scrap iron before working your blade. Place the file perpendicular to the blade and with a bit of pressure push it up the blade. This takes a bit of practice to get the proper rhythm down. The resulting filings will look a bit like steel wool. Keep at it until to file the blade smooth.

All cleaned up and now ready to rough in the cutting edge. Use your bastard file to do this, the fine file will be used to clean it up after we normalize the blade.

As you rough in the cutting edge don't forget to blend it in with the rest of the blade. The pencil lines are a visual representation of this.

Here's the blade prior to normalizing. I've pre-drilled the holes before normalization. I do so at this stage, just because, if you wait until after you harden the blade you'll burn up a lot of drill bits  In the next few updates we'll normalize the blade, clean it up, quench and polish, and make the handle. Stay tuned.