My first attempts at forging and stock removal.

[Lar45]

Hello everyone.  First I'd like to say thank you for such an awesome forum, and for all of the information contained here.  I've been reading knife making 101 for several days.

The boys and I were talking about making some knifes, so the wife bought me a propane fired forge for Father's Day.

The only thing that I had on hand to start with was some 3/4" round bar mystery metal.  So I chopped off a piece, got it hot and started hammering. This is the blade roughed out and draw filed.

The blade turned out at 7" and just didn't look right, so I chopped an inch off and reshaped it.  When It looked about right, I heated it to just past non-magnetic and quenched in a bucket of tractor hydraulic oil.  Then put it in the oven at 400F for an hour.  A file would skate across the flats without digging in, so I hope I did something right.  I've since read that I should be using Canola oil, so I'll get a few gallons before my next piece.

I saved a cedar stump that we had to clear out this spring and cut some pieces out of the heart and used that for a handle.

This is the first knife mostly finished.  I made a lot of mistakes, but learned along the way.

While I was part way through the first knife, I ordered in some 5160, 52100, 1080 and 1095 in various sizes.  For my next knife I picked a piece of 52100 and thought I'd try stock removal instead of forging.  I got the profile cut out with a jig saw and sawsall with carbide blades, but they dulled and barely got me through roughing it out.  Maybe I should have annealed it before I started?  I ground and sanded to get the profile about right, then drilled some holes for the handles and cut some black micarta to fit. 

I got the handles sanded to fit, but not rounded yet.  I bought a bunch of belts for my 4x36 belt sander and thought I'd try grinding the taper into the blade, but my eye was not as good as it was with a file, so It's close, but will need some refinement.  I'm thinking of making a jig to hold it at a steady angle.

This is where I'm at with the second knife.  The bolts are there to just hold the handles on, I'll glue and pin it in place with some brass pins.

I'd welcome any comments or pointers of things to do and not do...

[JHCC]

Welcome to IFI! If you haven't yet, please READ THIS FIRST!!!

I'll leave critique to the knife guys, but I will say that your keeping a notebook is a very good idea.

[sfeile]

First thing, if you haven't already, get the inside of that forge treated so you don't have kaowool dust floating around in the air. That's not very healthy. Check the gas forge section for the name brands and places to get it. There is a member here that sells all the supplies you would need at a reasonable cost.

On to the knives.

The forged knife doesn't look too bad at all for your fist knife.  I'm glad to see that you are neither afraid of reading or of a file. Both are very useful tools and will help you go far. I see a few heavy hammer marks, and I see some rough looking spots in the steel. Looking at the photo of your anvil I think that is a little of your problem. The hammer marks will go away as you become more skilled. The rough texture of the steel looks to be in part from either hammering scale into the steel or just from the anvil face. It looks like a cast iron anvil to me. Take a flap wheel and clean the surface of it. It doesn't have to be mirror smooth, but get the rust/dirt/corrosion/pits out of the working area so they don't transfer into your work. Keep in mind the cast is a soft anvil and you may need to keep up with dressing it every so often. Not a big deal on a hardened face anvil, but we work with what we got right?

Some of it may also be from overheating. Be careful you don't burn your steel. I can do it in my single burner forge, so it will be even easier to do in such a small forge with two burners. Did you do any normalizing before you quenched? Keep an eye out at yardsales etc... for a little toaster oven. They make a decent temper oven and the Mrs. won't get fed up with you using her oven for knives. Needs some work on fit and finish, but as you said, you made some mistakes and learned. That's the important part. I make plenty of mistakes so don't think I'm downing on you for that.

For the stock removal knife. Annealing first will help you work easier on a high carbon steel. You can do some real grunt work on your 4x36. It's not the ideal grinder for making knives, but can certainly aid you in many aspects of shaping your blade. I've made a few off of a 4x36. It looks like you have some vise jaw marks in the spine. Some lead, brass, copper, or even wood can help keep those out of your blade.

Personally, the bevel looks really steep to me. Great for batoning through kindling, but not so good for cutting. What is the thickness of the material? If it is thin stock it may be just fine, but it looks fairly thick to me. A little cleanup and fixing the blade geometry (of course the particular geometry depends on the intended use) and it should be a fine knife.

Keep reading, keep taking notes, and keep going. Looks like you are off to a pretty good start.

[Lar45]

Thanks much for the pointers.  I just got in some padded vise jaws.  I did not do any normalizing before I quenched on the first one.

The second knife is .125" thick and hopefully will be used as a hunting knife.  I think I'm going to build a jig to hold a steady angle before I try to go farther with it.             

I also ordered a piece of 1x3" rectangle tube to put the blade into before heating to keep the direct flame off of it.                                                                                             

[sfeile]

I have to apologize to you, I meant thermo-cycling, not normalizing. Thermo-cycling will help realign the grain structure after you have been beating on it and pushing it around in all different directions.

1/8 inch isn't bad. That is going to be a better angle than I was thinking. Probably just optical illusion, but for some reason that looked like thicker stock.

Did you already grind that to a cutting edge? You should leave it thicker than the finished edge before you quench. I usually stay about a dime's thickness. The thinner it is, the higher the chance of warping. That short of a grind it may have enough meat behind it to be ok though.

If you did get it close to sharpened, at least you can do some cut testing with it. Not to test sharpness, as it won't be extremely sharp at this point, but to see how much resistance you have with your grind being the way it is. Best way to know what will suit your application is to try it out.

One of my first kitchen knives I had to take back to the grinder to thin the profile a little more as it was pushing away in a cut instead of sliding through. In hindsight, I wish I had tried it earlier in the process because it hurts a little to take something you spent hours polishing back to an 80 grit belt.....

[Jclonts82]

I would suggest that *MOST* of your ordered stock will come annealed from the mill. Any home brew heat you try to do in a forge will likely leave it harder than it came shipped. Of all the steels to try first, I would have saved the 52100 for last. Its more picky on the heat treat. Plus it has a reasonable amount of Chrome in it, that forms chrome carbides which are very hard, and likely what killed your saw blades. The 5160 and 1080 are much more forgiving in my humble opinion. 

 

I like seeing the meticulousness of your approach! Good work, and keep at it. Don't be afraid to ask specific questions if you cant find the answers yourself.

[Steve Sells]

not a good idea to jump all over with different steels, you wont learn anything that way. get ONE steel and stay with it until you learn it then try another.

[lyuv]

Both knives you"ve made are hunting/fighting. I DO  see the appeal of that type, but I think that after a while, these tend to collect dust in the drawer. So I suggest your next blade will be for the kitchen. Beside being an actualy usfull tool, it can be a little give back to the wife (if she's into cooking).

[Lar45]

I heat cycled the blade 3 times, them took it to just past orange and quenched.  After it got to about room temp I put it in the toaster oven at 350F.  I meant to only have it in for an hour, but got side tracked and it was 1.5 hours, oops.  The next day I tried a file on the spine and it cut fairly easy until it just got the black off, then skated.   While I was fileing and shaping the blade it had abit of flex to it, but now I can only get maybe 3/8" flex using my hands.

I sanded all the black off and took it to the belt sander with a 220 grit belt.  Last night I decided to glue the handles and mixed up some G-flex.  I got glue everywhere and lightly clamped it together.  After a couple of hours I trimmed most of the extra glue.  This afternoon the glue seemed to be setup, so I sanded all the glue off and finished shaping the handles.  I sanded the handles with a 600 grit belt, it took a long time to get a smooth surface.  After that I tried the handle on a buffer and it brought out a better black polished finish.

This is where I'm at so far.

I think I need to sand and polish the blade and handles much more, then It's time for a sheath.

[Lou L]

I can tell you are having some fun!  My advice, and some may disagree, is to make some blanks out of mild steel for hammering practice and then use them to practice grinding by hand.  There are so many things you can do once you get decent at hand grinding.  Jigs will make you better sort term but will limit you long term.  It didn't take me too long to be able to hit my target lines working by hand at the grinder.