First knife

[DreamsofIron]

Hello all, after a few months of lurking about on the website, I decided it was about time to introduce myself, and share this first foray into the dark side of blacksmithing. The Knife, as my family has been calling it, is made from a leafspring of a 2014 Nissan truck, and after some  research, I found that it was made from 5160. I triple annealed it just to make sure I would be able to file it. After the third time, I hammered it flat, and left it in the dying coals over night to fully ensure that it would be free from any stresses. This might be a little overkill, but this particular spring had broken in half while on the truck. After I had retrieved it from the    ashes, I traced out a few designs before settling on the Bowie. I broke out the hacksaw, and cut out the majority of the metal off it. Then, I took the files and spent the next few days filing the bevels in, and finished up the shaping of The Knife. I took one of the antlers I had, drilled it out, and filed the inside of it to just fit over the tang. I then took a old washer and filed it to fit the knife. I heated up the knife to nonmagentic and quenched it in pre-heated vegetable oil. It was hard enough that files skated over it. I then tempered it in the oven at 450 degrees until the edge was a pale straw color. I assembled it using epoxy.  The blade is 12 inches long, 2 1/2 inches wide, and a 1/4 inch thick. 

[ThomasPowers]

Just wait until you learn to forge---so much easier than doing all that cold!

What colour was the spine when you tempered the edge straw?  As the edge will heat faster  I am worried that the spine may still be brittle hard unless you drew it back separately.

[DreamsofIron]

Thomas, I did forget to say that I heated the spine to a dull blue pior to putting the knife in the oven. and yes, forging in the bevels sounds much better then drawfiling for hours in 100 degree weather! 

[ThomasPowers]

Makes me MUCH happier to hear that!  Big knives either get no use at all or heavy abusive use in my experience.  I tend to plan for the latter---I remember a fellow freaking out when he say me digging a fire pit using a pattern welded knife.  I told him "there isn't anything I could do to it that I can't fix---I made it!