First one out of the coal forge. Poor little piece of rebar. Went from a fire poker to this on one bored night.

That's cool. Nice work. Now to cure the boredom with some nice HC steel!

Yeah!  You are wasting your talent doing such nice work with rebar!  Not that I haven't done the same... but make that out of an old mower blade or file and heat treat it nicely and you'll have a FINE knife!

Nice work, an attractive variation on a blacksmith's or viking knife.   My own first knife attempt (from a RR spike no less) was far more laughable that yours.

Thats really nice looking, blade looks clean, The re bar gives it a nice look along the handle, Extra grip i guess.

When you change up to better materials you will be able to harden the blade too making it look alright and perform alright

Very nice first knife. I remember my first knife........thats why I don't make knives. :)

Thank you for the kind words.

A few process pictures. That poor little re bar had no chance. I know its tiny. But the thought process was to stay small and not get discouraged doing it all hand file.
I am reading "The Complete Bladesmithing" he mentions how he don't know if any body really has a natural talent for file work but I will say, I LOVED IT! My knife making tool box:

Dewalt grinder with a very worn flapper wheel
Bench grinder (half a stone) buffer wheel on the left (no rouges yet)
Four files (half round/cross cut, rat tail, small three side, small round and a brass rod)
Lansky set, a few small wet and dry stones and lots of sand paper.

Well, like others mentioned above, it probably doesn't have the material characteristics for knife work, BUT it looks like a good size and shape for a VERY cool lookin' letter opener...

Rebar isn't good nife or tool steel by any ones estimant, but it usualy has enugh carbon to make serviceable tools. As a lot of high carbon steal has entered the scrap stream, and code is demanding better materials for roads and buildings it's turning in to fair if inconsistent material. Just try making a shoe out of the stuff.

This knife has bout got my mind ruined. I like it so much that I want to make them but the rebar just isn't suitable. I like this design so much that I am contemplating trying to build a rolling mill to reshape round stock to look like rebar so I can make some of these knives. Great work.

I would be more inclined to make a set of swages rather than try to involve gears, drums and framework for a rolling mill, maybe even a set of faux rebar dies for a guillotine :)

I would be more inclined to make a set of swages rather than try to involve gears, drums and framework for a rolling mill, maybe even a set of faux rebar dies for a guillotine :)

I was thinking swages too, or make a knife out of normal rebar and just weld in a bit and make it San Mai

I like the swages idea. the only reason I was thinking rolling mill was so I could do a lot at the time but I guess for the price difference it would be smarter to make a set of spring swages or something of the sort.

spring swage may be the way to go, or set up your guillotine dies (if you have one) with a stud sticking out somewhere and set up a compression spring underneath it so your die will stay raised up between strikes, that or make the dies with enough angle on the edges so you can just pull/push the stock through and have everything slide.

 

or, even simpler :) the pattern has a rib left down the length of both sides, leave the dies at a steep angle, forget any kind of spring return, just strike to set that groove, give it a quarter turn (the rib on the side will push the die back up) slide forward, quarter turn back, strike, repeat.

What I think I might do is make a spring swage type deal that just sits closed and does the top and bottom at once so basically if I decided to make it for 1/2" round stock it would be a roughly smaller than 1/2" opening so that the stock holds it open a little bit then I can hammer it till it's closed and that should do it. I might make a "multi-swage" to make the ends of my tang uniform for threading and get my rebar swage and maybe one more if I can come up with one.... Sorry to hijack your thread like this, I just felt inspired.