m31desantis Posted June 4, 2013 Share Posted June 4, 2013 Looking to make a Knife for my first real project and i have about 6ft of 1/4th in thick 1018 steel, Ive seen poeple make knives out of 1/8th thick, Would it be to thick for my means or could i make it work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted June 4, 2013 Share Posted June 4, 2013 you have the wrong steel, read through the knife section, we even have knife making classes posted! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John McPherson Posted June 4, 2013 Share Posted June 4, 2013 How do you know that it is 1018, and not A36? You would be better off looking for freebies like old lawn mower blades to play with at this stage. Like Steve says, you need to do a lot of study at this point before you jump in over your head. 1018 mild weldable steel will not make a real knife, or even a sword, too little carbon to properly harden. Even less than a RR spike. Save it for guards, or general blacksmithing projects that need lots of hammer deformation. 1060, 5160 is about right for big choppers: bowies and axes. 1080, 10100, 52100 are more what you are looking for in edge holding ability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thingmaker3 Posted June 4, 2013 Share Posted June 4, 2013 What is the purpose of the knife? A fillet knife needs to be thinner than a machete. A bowie should be thicker than a scalpel. Whatcha makin? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted June 4, 2013 Share Posted June 4, 2013 Your question is very common here,,,,as above thickness for knives depends on its future use...with a hammer anvil and hot steel youi can make a blade fom round or square,,flat,,,wotever you you have...and make it any thicness you wish. A couiple of key points, to add to the carbon content mentioned above: when youi are new toforging yoiui may put the steel back in the fire more than someone who has done it many times...each time the outside of the piece has a laye of wot is called decarb form...that is the surface finish that has lost some of the properties wwe want tos ave..the inner part rermains the same providing youi do not burn the steel. So when the pice is close to the shape youwish youi need to remove this outer layer..files, grinders, belt sanders. abrasives..however youi wish..get down the the steel that shines up nice and youi have it...When youiheat treat you will have to do this again but not as much.. You may have also textured the surface of the steel with a hammer ,,,a lot or little,,maybe even none depending on your skill. That needs to be cleaned off also. This clean up step is made much easier if youi anneal normalize then anneal the steel after forging. To help youi iand the others satarting ouit we did a whole series of knife making lessons and they are posted on the site, spend some time with them..maybe even print out qa shop notebook from them...it4 is worth the effort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m31desantis Posted June 4, 2013 Author Share Posted June 4, 2013 What is the purpose of the knife? A fillet knife needs to be thinner than a machete. A bowie should be thicker than a scalpel. Whatcha makin? a wall hanger for my first blade, no real use Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m31desantis Posted June 5, 2013 Author Share Posted June 5, 2013 you have the wrong steel, read through the knife section, we even have knife making classes posted! Ive been told that, whole reason i bought it is because mild steel is much easier to play with and i figured 6ft would be as much as i needed for the learning curve, Then i will move to 1060 and then 1095. So for learning perposes, do i have the right steel? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 learning wot? like riding a bike, starting with a schwin 10 speed is fun but has little to do the a big v twin Harley :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 Since knife grade steels forge differently than mild steels you may be learning habits that you will have to break when you move up to the "real" stuff! You also can't learn heat treat on 1018 and heat treat has often been called the "soul" of a knife. My suggestion to beginners is to get a nice car or pickup coil spring and slice down opposite sides getting a dozen or more ( pieces this will give you a lot of the same steel to learn to forge and to heat treat---and if you have beginner's luck you have a *knife* and not a wall hanger! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan C Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 I've forged a lot with the HC RR spikes, but haven't done much with heat treating high carbon steel. This is my first knife from an old Nicholson file (I've made many letter openers from spikes) Both the knife and sharpened scrap piece were heated to critical temp, quenched in motor oil and then tempered over stove burner. Not pretty, but you can shave w/ each. Anyway, I wanted to test the tempering of the scrap piece by hammering it into wood and twisting the blade out. The area of the blade that's purple or blue near the risoto did okay, but the point which was tempered to straw snapped immediately so I decided to temper the point on the knife to a purple using a plumbers propane torch. I'm going to temper the piece of scrap more and then retest it. Then here is another file I'm working on. It's at the rough grind stage and hasn't been HT'd. Sorry to highjack the thread. This didn't seem worthy of it's own and seemed relevant to the topic onhand. The role of the first knife is a kick around hobby knife and the 2nd one will be a camping/cooking prep knife. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eseemann Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 Dcraven, Toaster Oven, go to the good will and get you 2 or 3. Then go to Walmart and get an equal number of High Heat Oven Thermometers. You can then set them all up and then record what oven does what termp. Much easier then using the torch or stove. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan C Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 Thanks eseeman, great suggestion! That'll also make my wife happier that I'm not using her oven, stinking up the house and I can get more consistent results. Could still do a differential temper on the point and back of the blade with the torch or stove. I've made alcohol stoves for camping out of a beer can, it'd be nice to do something like a bunsen burner which would use denatured alcohol. FYI, found an ehow on making a denatured alcohol lamp, doesn't get any simpler than that assuming it gets hot enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 Nice to see youi have the drive to work through this...just have one question...isn't risoto a food dish? (seroiously don't take this hard...it really helps when you use the right terms when you are typing in here..) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan C Posted June 5, 2013 Share Posted June 5, 2013 Yes, dang it! And by the time I realized the error it was too late to go back and edit the post...ricasso, ricasso, ricasso! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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