My 3rd knife.

[Joe H]

Well, I guess it's the 5th, but two never actually made it to knifehood.

I made this one yesterday. It started out as an old leaf spring. I forged and finished it, quenched in ATF, and then polished the scale off. After that it went into the toaster oven for 2 hours at 400 degrees for tempering. I liked the coloration from the tempering so much that I decided not to polish it off.

I'm not happy with the wrapped cord handle... It's a temporary solution until I get some nice wood for it.

Razor friggin sharp too! There is a funny looking bald patch on my arm to prove it.

[julian]

Hey Joe,

I like it I'm glad you're concentrating on the knife's heat treat and cutting well. Wood handles are a big leap from chord wraps, so (if you've never done one) don't get discouraged.

Keep up the good work!

[sandpile]

Julian- I just now looked at your website. It has been a while since I had seen any of knives. You have really come up on them and the hawks are nice also.

As much as you have done, you have stayed out of trouble.grin You have been at the forge and anvil quite a bit.

congrats

chuck

[Joe H]

Thanks Julian. I am nervous about the handle thing... I don't particularly like working with wood, never have. We'll see how it goes.
On the heat treating and cutting thing, I can't see myself doing all that work and not trying to make a good working blade out of it. I bought the toaster oven specifically for blade tempering. It's a convection type oven with a heat range to 500f.

I checked out your gallery, really nice stuff there. I hope that one day I'll be able to do work like that.