What's your latest blade look like? Post em and let us see.

[M.J.Lampert]

looks fine, very fine indeed

[Randy Griffin]

I found this blank I cut out a couple years ago, before my surgery, and decided to harden it. Started to draw file the bevels first and the file wouldn’t cut. I cut this from a piece of bandsaw blade and heated it to straighten it but never quenched it. Wonder what kinda steel it is. I can tell you this much, it’s sharp steel. I can rub it across the top of my arm hair and it will grab and clip hair. It takes a scary sharp knife to do that. I got some more coming. A friend that owns a sawmill contacted me yesterday and said he had several I can have if I want them. 

 

blade is 6”.

[Randy Griffin]

Small paring knife for my cousin. 3 1/2” blade, black walnut handle and poplar saya.

[seb leney]

the last 2 knives i have made

 

the one on the left is a 1084 bushcraft knife

with an olive handle

 

one on the right is an o1 tool steel tanto style knife

with box wood handle an sheath
 

 

 

[Buzzkill]

Here's the last one I completed.  It's 120+ layers of 15N20 and 80CrV2.   Guard and pins are stainless. Handle is stabilized and dyed burl (don't remember which species of tree). This is my first ladder pattern blade. I'm really liking not using any flux so I don't have to worry about inclusions.  After cleaning and stacking all the pieces and a dip into oil it went into the forge and welded up nicely.

As always I'm open to constructive criticism, so let me know if/how you think I could improve anything.

Thanks for looking.

[George N. M.]

VERY nice work!  Do the notches on the spine serve any practical purpose or are the just for the look of the thing?  

It's probably just my own taste but the traditional knife and the modern plastic sheath clang a bit for me.  I'd have preferred a leather sheath for some reason.

How many hours do you have in it?

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Buzzkill]

Welllll, the notches on the top are actually file work that creates a pattern if viewed from the spine.  I wasn't going to do any file work originally, but I apparently ground deeper at the edges of the billet than in the middle when creating the channels for the ladder pattern.  I could have ground about a quarter inch off the spine or ground the blade thinner, but I opted to disguise the small indentations that remained on the spine edge with the file work.

I agree that a leather sheath would be preferable, but I don't have the leather working tools any more, and time is always at a premium as well.

I'm not sure exactly how many hours I have in it.  I think I have around 6 hours or so just getting the layer count, the rough profile forged,  and the ladder pattern cut in.  I have a tendency to work on more than one thing at a time when forging, so that makes it a bit difficult to accurately assign time.  Since it's a hobby that I would (will) do regardless of whether I can sell anything I don't stress too much over the profitability.  I would guess I have close to 30 hours total though.

[Chad J.]

The three that I've finished lately.  The first is a nice sturdy combo camper skinner, second a handy utiliy knife, and the third is a bearded ax with a hickory handle.   All of them are 5160.

[Purple Bullet]

I finally succeeded, although I can't say I've mastered the Cable Feather Damascus. This is a knife I made for my friend, Ophei Thibadoux. Some of you met him at last year's Quad State. 

The cables were consolidated without a canister and forge welded together, although the weld could have been better. In fact, I was originally going to make a straight clip point but had to make it more of a Bowie because the end of the weld wasn't solid enough.

My next is going to be Feather Cable as well, but I could use some advice. I'm making it for a nephew who is an electrician. I saw in someone's gallery a sheep's foot blade as an electrician's knife. When I was doing a lot of electrical wire stripping (when I was in the corrosion control industry) I found a hawkbill knife the most useful. I was thinking of a hawkbill with several different gauge stripping notches cut in the spine near the handle. I know there are some electricians out there. What do you think?  

[Purple Bullet]

This is what I have in mind as an electricians knife. I almost hate to label it that. When I worked offshore as a commercial diver, divers and riggers always had the sharpest knife. Electricians always had the dullest.

Anyway, the notches at the top would be the most common gauges of house wire (#10, #12, and #14?). The scales will be antler, the loop at the butt is something I first put on a knife for a guy who fooled with horses to clear hooves, but I have found very handy for prying, opening paint cans and such. It remains normalized as I only heat treat cutting edges. 

Any thoughts?

[JHCC]

I like the idea, but I think you'll have trouble fitting the guard over the handle loop. Do you need a guard? You could do an integral bolster, I suppose.

[Buzzkill]

47 minutes ago, Purple Bullet said:

Any thoughts?

A slotted guard that only protrudes on the cutting side might work as well.  Once soldered and/or pinned into place it would be plenty sturdy.   The knife I show a few posts up has such a guard.

John's question is a good one  though.  With that blade shape how likely is it that anyone would be stabbing or doing anything else that would lend itself to the hand slipping down onto the cutting edge?  To me it seems you'd be pulling more than pushing.

[Goods]

You could put a slitting point on the knife for slitting the sheathing on Rolex wire, like you occasionally see on kukurris:

The shape would need to be developed to cut the sheathing with out nicking the insulation on the conductors…

Keep it fun,

David

[Purple Bullet]

Good input. 

John, you are right. Putting a guard is just habit.  I have brazed guards in place before heat treating, but I can't think of a good rationale on it for this knife.

Buzzkill - that is a beautiful ladder pattern. I think that on past cable knifes I've been wasting time trying to get the grease out of new cable after hearing what you use for flux. 

Goods - Interesting! So the notches were intended to strip insulation to bare wire, but a wider groove with a tiny "gut hook" in the middle would enable you to strip romex by the yard. That was one of the things I used to use the hawksbill for. I have a little time to experiment. If that works I might go back to the sheep's foot design.

Thanks!

[Frazer]

5 hours ago, Goods said:

Rolex wire

When you go to buy 100' of the stuff it's hard to argue with that nickname!

[Buzzkill]

18 hours ago, Purple Bullet said:

I think that on past cable knifes I've been wasting time trying to get the grease out of new cable after hearing what you use for flux.

I haven't tried that method with cable yet.  To be clear I do grind all mating surfaces to shiny steel before stacking.  I'm not sure it works this way, but my reasoning is this:  The oil keeps oxygen off the steel surface initially.  When it burns off it consumes any remaining oxygen in the forge.  Whatever carbon is left behind can possibly be absorbed into the billet. 

Originally I used kerosene, but it's kinda stinky so I switched to oil and have the same result.  However, if the grease is very thick or there is much oxidation on the cable I'm not sure it will work well. 

Now you've got me wanting to try this on the piece of cable I have sooner than later.  Maybe this weekend if it's not too miserable to forge.

[JHCC]

We had a discussion some years back about using WD-40 between layers in pattern-welded billets, primarily to prevent oxidation. I don't know how effectively it would scavenge oxygen if there's a strong flow through the forge from burner to dragon's breath.

22 hours ago, Goods said:

like you occasionally see on kukurris:

I did not realize that electrical work was part of the Gurkha military tradition. Who knew?

21 hours ago, Purple Bullet said:

trying to get the grease out of new cable

The last time I prepped a section of cable for welding, I broke it into its component strands, cleaned off most of the grease, reassembled them around the core, and welded the ends shut and attached a rebar handle.

(I really should get around to welding it up; that was about five years ago.) 

[Purple Bullet]

Basic grease (which is what I would expect to find in a bulk application like cable) is just an oil that has a thickener material added to it. Some greases have additives that will leave a residue after the oil and thickener wears off, but I doubt that cable manufacturers would be concerned with that. My guess is that it will drive out of the steel as well as borax would when welding. That is, for new, unused cable. Old rusty cable would be a different thing.

Its an overcast day, I may have to go light the coal forge and try it.

[Frosty]

Oh come ON John, Gurkhas can do anything with a kukri. EVERYBODY knows that!

Frosty The Lucky.

[Purple Bullet]

Well, I gave it a shot. I was trying to weld the cable without using borax flux. Nope. Without the protection of the borax, the cable starts to look like a fuzzy caterpillar with all the broken wires sticking out. I'm pretty sure, though, that all the grease was gone by the time I made my first twist. Next one will be using borax, but not degreasing.

[Buzzkill]

Thanks for the update.  The cable I have is 1.5 inch diameter I think and has rather thick individual strands.   I'm pondering trying a 3 or 4 inch length without flux.  I might go back to kerosene for that and let it soak a while if I see anything thick in there when I cut it.  I have a "but first" situation though.  I really need to make some tooling for the power hammer to have a decent shot at getting good welds on round stock.  We'll see how my weekend goes.

[Purple Bullet]

I've done 1.25 inch but I've always used borax. I'm using a coal forge so I'm continually turning to get even heat. Allowing one side to heat too much creates some interesting warps.

I have two power hammers now, but I've never used a power hammer to set cable welds. The thing I've found important is to heat slowly so the outside doesn't burn before the inside comes to temperature. Keeping a good coating of flux helps. I heat to almost welding and super twist in the vise. Otherwise by the time you draw the billet the strands are going straight down the blade. Heat again with a good coat of borax. When ready, I never tried to keep it round, but using moderate blows forge it to rectangular. 

The problem with using just the grease or oil is that, at least the way I do it, it takes a few heats. After the first heat you need to re-flux. Once the outside is set, then I might take a power hammer to it after reheating.

[Frosty]

A good way to get borax flux all the way into intricate parts like cable, mix a saturated solution with fresh water and dunk the part while warm. Capillarity will draw it into every space as it cools. You don't really want it warm enough to boil. 

You can squirt a little oil on the billet as it cools too.

Frosty The Lucky.

[M.J.Lampert]

On 6/29/2022 at 1:18 PM, Buzzkill said:

A slotted guard that only protrudes on the cutting side might work as well.  Once soldered and/or pinned into place it would be plenty sturdy.   The knife I show a few posts up has such a guard.

how do you attach it my last one was steel and i used wire feed the one i am working on now is brass would silver solder work??

[Les L]

MJ, silver solder will work, don’t forget to neutralize the flux after you make the weld