making draw knives?????

[monkeyboy]

hey guys,
do you ever make draw knives? if so, what steel. heat treat and so forth??
what size is best or easy to make??
any photos would be very cool.
also how do you fit handles and what wood do you use???
how do you make the little tang collars or do you skip this part??
thanks for the help,
buzz

[johnny99]

Leaf springs w/ oil qench.
Whatever size I need. THe procedure is pretty much the same. Set down both ends & draw out to rat tails of correct length,forge the ends round. Forge single bevel, straitening blade as you go, or prebending first, Whatever you prefer.Bend rattails 90%, Then thread the ends.
Drill 1/4" hole lengthwise through a couple of chunks of wood, 1 1/2 X 1 1/2" X 5 1/2". Drive a 1/4" dowel into the hole, then chuck it in my little wood turning lathe. Turn to a suitable shape.
Ferrules are made from 1/2" copper tube, or 1/2" emt conduit. By shrinking over the square cut end of an appropriate piece of rod held vertically in the vise. (hot for emt, cold for copper).
Then every thing is assembled in order and epoxied. finaly I usually use an acorn nut threaded on the rattails to cap it all.
Sorry, no pictures. I suppose I could make one in the next week or so and take some if the explanation wasn't clear.

[Glenn]

A quick search turned up the following Blueprints:

BP0387 Draw knife from a File
BP0054 Forging a Small Draw knife

[monkeyboy]

where or how do you find these blueprints on this site?

buzz

[Glenn]

Go to http://www.iforgeiron.com
Click on the "Blueprints" tab top left of the page
The first 200 Blueprints are available to any viewer.


Go to http://www.iforgeiron.com
Log on to the site by entering your name, password, and click the box "remember me"
Click on the "Blueprints" tab top left of the page
The Blueprints are in groups of 100 so if your looking for say BP04xx, click on the 400 series, then the Blueprint you want.
ALL the Blueprints are available to any registered user of IFI.

Another way is to go to the opening page of IForgeIron and click on "search" on the left column. Enter the BP number your looking for and it should bring up that number as a hot link.



There are 3 search engines on IForgeIron, one for the opening page (home page) one for the IForgeIron Forum, and one for the IForgeIron Gallery.
The more specific you are in your search key words, the more specific the search engines can be in their hits.

[monkeyboy]

been reading and studying for an hour at least. i'm glued to the tools now.
thanks for the help.
got to make this little draw knife from scratch.
and a hammer as soon as i get some good steel and a fire striker and....:o
buzz:cool:

[monkeyboy]

i picked up a box of old files and rasps at auction last week. 25 or more in that box. half of which are mill-bastard and the rest rasps of one kind or another. coulda bought two draw-knives for $16 but what fun would that be!!!@#$@!
so anybody make draw-knives from files or rasps???
if so give.
buzz:D
cost / box of files $2.00

[Finnr]

right now I am doing a run of draw knives from coil spring stock. I have used files they work just dandy. Follow Jr's BP and you will do just fine.
Finnr

[Phil Dwyer]

A quick search turned up the following Blueprints:

BP0387 Draw knife from a File
BP0054 Forging a Small Draw knife

Hello Friends,

I am floundering and need some help please. It appears the pages are actually not searchable. When I do searches on various terms (with search selection PAGES selected) on terms I have confirmed to be present in some of the published pages I get empty results. Is that correct? I therefore have manually perused/browsed/scrolled through the lists of the various sections of pages/articles/blueprints (I believe according to instruction, by selecting the little icon in each section to list all the items in that section) I also have not found either of these blueprints (BP0387 and BP0054). I wonder if I missed them or if they haven't been posted yet? Can anyone advise me? I noticed in this thread, Lookin for Blueprint bp0387, a similar inquiry. Is there anyway I can get them?

Thanks for the help!

All the best, Phil

[bigfootnampa]

For my work I have found that I want a drawknife with at least ten inches of usable blade. The smaller ones tend to flex too much and do not lend themselves to slicing cuts. If I need to work finer than a ten inch drawknife will, I switch to a carving knife or files. It takes a big file to make a good drawknife so springs or heavy mower blades are better. I just make square tangs and hot set them in the handles. Epoxy or Kwik-Poly drizzled into the cracks around the tang helps to assure adhesion and to strengthen the tang socket. This way I can (and do) skip the tang collars. I have brought the tangs clear through the handles and then peened them over a washer cap but it seems more work than necessary.

I notice that the drawknives that I like best generally have stiff blades with either thick blades or ridges at the back of the blade to stiffen them. You can exert a lot of force with both hands and doing a lot of rough shaping you will... any flex at all tends to make it harder to control your cuts. For the ones that I make it seems easier to just taper the blade to a fairly thick back rather than forging the thinner set down at the blade edge that commercial models often have. This seems to work equally well in my experience... it tends to make a slightly heavier knife but that's not all bad as the slight extra weight is little hindrance and some help in use. Makes for a bit more work sharpening if you would grind back to the thicker area... but I find that this type tool goes VERY far between sharpenings and I could always reforge if my edge area got too thick.

Have FUN and make yourself a shaving horse as the drawknife is but half a tool without one!