First knife shaped thing WIP

[Cosmo]

I began collecting knives two or so years ago. Right from the outset I wanted to make my own knives at some point. This summer I took a basic blacksmithing course. After a couple months of acquiring tools, and fooling around I almost have a knife like object finished.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it during the early stages. These picture were taken after forging in the basic bevels, and a fair bit of grinding. It was forged from a bar of 1084 that was 1.25" x 3/16". The current width is somewhere in the area of about an inch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see it is far from perfect. I still need to forge in some shoulders (I plan to do this at right where at the portion where I haven't ground the edge in), extend the tang, and unmangle it (I plan to do this at right where at the portion where I haven't ground the edge in). Also there are some cold shuts in the tang area that I need to deal with.  I should be able to grind them out, as the tang is roughly 4mm thick. And of course, I will need to harden it.  I am still not quit sure what form the finished product should take. I originally intended to make a puukko-esque thing, but I knackered the point. After hammering in the bevels, I decided that I'd better start grinding it. I tend to get hung up on details, so I decided that if I tried to forge my first knife perfectly there wouldn't be a first knife--I would just spend forever trying to get it right. This knife is obviously pretty rough. My plan is to finish it to the best of my ability, and then make the next one less terrible. To me it kinda looks like a petty knife, but the geometry is too thick. I am thinking I may just use it as a general purpose outdoorsy knife. I have never been terribly fond of the curved tips common on scandi knives, so this will be a bit of an experiment to see if this sort of profile is useful I guess? Anyway, I am looking forward to your comments and criticisms.

 

Cheers! 

[Geoff Keyes]

A top and bottom fuller is a good too for setting the shoulders, I made this one from two pieces of truck spring.  The existing edge is nice and round.  I took a heat and flattened them and left them to air cool.  In 10 years of use the top of the top leaf is flattened just a bit, but that's it.

 

 

You can pinch a piece of steel in half with one of these in just a couple of heats.

 

Geoff