phabib Posted October 30, 2015 Share Posted October 30, 2015 As my son's birthday approaches I've got a copy of Mr. Sell's book hidden in a closet for him. I'm not sure if I should be buying him some high carbon steel or letting him get the hang of shaping and forging on cheaper stock first. He has made 1 knife so far from mild steel for his grandfather's 80th birthday so he's got some learning still ahead of him and I don't know if he'd learn any better on something he could heat treat afterwards. What do people think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGGUNDOCTOR Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 The best bet is to not make lives at first but items that make use of basic skills like tapering, drawing out, square to round,round to square, etc..What these projects do is build the necessary hammer skills to make something like a knife down the road. They can also be done with scrap metal that is found, scrounged, or bought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cliffrat Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 I'm a big advocate for learning to move metal first. That means making stuff from mild steel which is easier to shape than tool steel. Another really good book is any of the Skills of a Blacksmith by Mark Aspery. Volume one will cover all of the basic techniques and provide a lot of projects for the beginning smith. Like Big Gun says, those basic skills need to be the fundamental building blocks for making a knife (or anything else for that matter). I am very happy to hear that you are giving him the support he will need to start down this road. How old is he? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phabib Posted October 31, 2015 Author Share Posted October 31, 2015 Thanks for the advice. He's turning 12. He's got the basic metal moving skills already. He's made hooks, skewers, a BBQ fork, a wizard head, a few small lizards, and that one knife. He was able to get access to a power hammer at the CBA spring conference last year and since he's not a big kid that made a big difference for him and since he already had experience moving metal by hand he was able to put it to good use. I think he's likely to have his first few tries not be very good so I'm not sure if its worth adding the better steel, or if it makes sense to treat those first few ugly blades as good practice to learn and practice the hardening skills. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 Well what I advocate for people in that situation is to get a car coil spring and cut it down the sides a couple of places getting a dozen+ "(" pieces all of the same steel to practice forging and heat treating and TESTING using the same material. I also suggest trying to get the springs from a place that does lifts or lowering on new cars/pickups so as to get springs with minimal use rather than springs that were ready to fail from age and abuse.Automotive coil springs will make decent knives and he can practice on steels that if he does have a "good day" he has a knife and not a piece of sharpened mild steel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cliffrat Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 Well what I advocate for people in that situation is to get a car coil spring and cut it down the sides a couple of places getting a dozen+ "(" pieces all of the same steel to practice forging and heat treating and TESTING using the same material. I also suggest trying to get the springs from a place that does lifts or lowering on new cars/pickups so as to get springs with minimal use rather than springs that were ready to fail from age and abuse.Automotive coil springs will make decent knives and he can practice on steels that if he does have a "good day" he has a knife and not a piece of sharpened mild steel.Better advice than that, you just can't get. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 If a person were to drop by the office of the local spring shop, being nice to the secretary maybe gift her with a forged something nice you might, just MIGHT be given free run of the scrap dumpster or even drops.I haven't visited the spring shop in Anchorage in years but they only made leafs. Talking to the foreman years ago he said they were thinking about getting into coils. I'd love to get some new coil spring, I make lots of my tools from coil.It's hard to beat new spring steel, you don't need anything fancy to cut it, plain old metal band or hack saw blades, HS drill bits and cutters butter right through it. It'll even cold bend within reason pretty easily.Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 Isn't drill rod from the hardware store O1? I would get the boy a couple of 3 foot sections of 3/8 or half inch drill rod to play with. Readily available and a straight forward heat treat. He'll get a feel for working higher carbon steel too.Did he get to use the Nazel at the Spring conference? That was one sweet hammer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phabib Posted October 31, 2015 Author Share Posted October 31, 2015 Thanks for the help. We'll look around for coil springs to straighten and use. There is a 4WD shop near my work that might have a few laying around.We spent most of the conference in the teaching area where they had a 15kg Anyang set up and used that a lot. We saw that Nazel but were both kind of intimidated by it. Our hammer is due to arrive in a bit over a week so maybe by next spring we'll be brave enough to try the big boy toys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cliffrat Posted November 1, 2015 Share Posted November 1, 2015 Michael, I don't know about drill rods at hardware stores, but MSC and ENCO both sell consistently high quality O-1 drill rods in a wide variety of diameters. I buy 3 ft sections of 1 inch rounds for knife making. 3-4 inch pieces of that go a long way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony San Miguel Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 The last time I went to Fastenal, the drill rod they had in stock was O1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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