|
been a while, I was moving and had to move my whole shop to a friends house while I look for a better place. But I made a whittling knife for a friend   
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2019 19:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 20:43 |
|
|
This is what I am working on right now the top three have not been heat treated yet but are ready for heat treat the bottom four are waiting for the G10/FR4 I ordered to get in so I can complete the handles (wood with FR4 liner material for the most part) the blade at the top I forged out on Sunday in about an hour and a half, my first attempt at a clip-point hunter style
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2019 22:42
|
|
|
 Those look fantastic! Were they all forged? I've done two blacksmithing sessions which frustrated the hell out of me, so I'm looking at that and going 
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2019 17:13
|
|
|
Trabant posted:
Yeah, all hand-forged by me. It gets way, way, way easier after you've made it through a few of them, because there are huge efficiency improvements you can make just by improving your hammer technique, and that just takes practice. Having a full size 2x72" belt grinder helps a hell of a lot with cleanup and profiling as well. I took two bladesmithing classes last year through a local bladesmith, https://www.firehorseforge.co and starting around January of this year one of my best friends and I built a forging shop in his garage. (I got that friend to take the first of the two classes later last year and he fell in love with smithing as well). Some of the first projects we worked on were making several pairs of tongs for us to use, and I think building non-knife things helped with my hammer skills quite a bit too. Kenshin fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Jun 26, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2019 17:25
|
|
|
I got a question tangentially related to knives and whatnot. It concerns honing/polishing compounds,,, -and possibly the home-brewing thereof. I am experimenting with making small marble sculptures. The majority of the stone I currently have is white, but there are some other colors too. At one point I got curious and tried using a Dremel polishing bob with some red rouge on it (this was after I had sanded it with a series of diamond-media pads that go up to 3000-grit). That worked fantastic in getting a shine on the white marble, but it also left faint red stains on the polished stone even after cleaning (with soap and water, and then alcohol). The rock has little cracks all through it, so anything with non-white color really isn't helpful here. So I went looking for white- or un-colored polishing compounds. I found some that were white or nearly-so and ordered two (Enkay 152-W White Diamond compound, and Drixet Jeweler's Rouge White polishing buffing compound). It will be a few days before those arrive. I see descriptions that say that the white compound is not as fine as the red rouge, but I haven't found any practical comparison of the two. In my case however,,,, what would be better than white polish, would be un-colored polish. Is there such a thing? I see that it is pretty easy to buy 1000000-grit diamond powder to make your own polishing compound. Diamonds would work best but really the red (corundrum?) rouge works well enough. I also found one mention online of white rouge, but so far I can't find anywhere to buy it... I have already figured out that standard polishes are color-coded 99.99% of the time. I also see that there is water-based polishing compounds available, though they are usually rather expensive. What are they using for a base? I would guess that people polishing metal would just use oil as the base, but I want something that is not liquid, and that is easy to wash off with either soap and water or an alcohol-type solvent. Is there anything out there like this, that doesn't cost a ton or money? I thought of just adding the diamond powder to some clear dishwashing liquid and seeing how that goes. Also I need to get (or build) a dremel-style tool that spins slower. The slowest speed on a Dremel is like 3000 RPMs, and I'd like it down around 200-300 or so, and probably not more than 500. 500 RPMs is about the lower limit of what the cheap Foredom-style roto-tools will do. :|
|
|
#
?
Jun 30, 2019 05:31
|
|
|
edmund745 posted:I got a question tangentially related to knives and whatnot. It concerns honing/polishing compounds,,, -and possibly the home-brewing thereof. Maybe you're already aware of this, but I think you're maybe trying to re-invent products that already exist: stone-polishing compound. I figured there absolutely had to already be people who wanted to polish stone without staining it. So a few seconds of googling: https://www.stonetooling.com/Polishing-Powders-s/288.htm
|
|
#
?
Jun 30, 2019 06:22
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Maybe you're already aware of this, but I think you're maybe trying to re-invent products that already exist: stone-polishing compound. I figured there absolutely had to already be people who wanted to polish stone without staining it. So a few seconds of googling: Yea but most of the time that stuff is basically wax that makes the stone shine by melting and sticking to the stone. It doesn't really smooth the stone by abrasive means. And the wax discolors over time; it is assumed that such floors need to be stripped and re-polished every year or so. Most of the waxes and polishes meant for stone tile and countertops is not acceptable for stone statues. [edit added] Stone statues are usually polished by hand-sanding them with wet/dry diamond pads that go up to 10K or 15K grit, but those pads are too big to use on the small 6-inch-tall stuff I want to do. ,,,,, Also I think I already bought the white corundum rouge stuff... I think. One is diamond and the other says "rouge", which other sources say means corundum. edmund745 fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Jun 30, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jun 30, 2019 07:20
|
|
|
Sup yall, I had to move which means I'm selling some of my gear  Just listed my pretty much new Hapstone v7 with Gritomatic AO stone set if anyone is interested: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3895457
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2019 21:12
|
|
|
Haven't gotten much done in the past month or so due to a vacation but I'm back to working on knives these past two weeks. This is not nearly all I've been working on but here's some shots from today: I'm making a paring knife for a chef friend to use and give me feedback on. This is the first blade I've forged out to a drawing and it came out awesome and fitting perfectly within those lines I drew. I did about 2/3 of the rough grinding (pre-heat treat) today which really cleaned it up beautifully, I'll finish the rough grind up next week and heat treat it, and I'll hopefully have gotten the stabilized wood scales in the mail that will make the handle.  These three knives are among those pictured above on this page, last week and today I got these handle scales cut out, drilled, and rough shaped to the tangs. Next step will be to finish the hand-sanding on the blades, epoxy the scales on (though a few of those will have G10/FR4 liners between the steel and wood), and then do final-forming and hand-sanding on the handles. From bottom to top those woods are padauk, zebrawood, and leopardwood. Padauk is a pain to work with, those were the third set of scales I had to make as I cracked/broke the other two before getting the hang of being extremely careful with it. I tried some decorative file-work on part of the spine of the knife with padauk and some of it looks good and other parts... not so much. I'll see if I can fix it next week.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2019 01:56
|
|
|
The fact that you were able to hammer that into a shape so close to your design is nothing short of amazing to me.  Also: Kenshin posted:Padauk is a pain to work with, those were the third set of scales I had to make as I cracked/broke the other two before getting the hang of being extremely careful with it. Thread title strikes again, in unexpected places!
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2019 03:07
|
|
|
Anyone want to talk different types of steel? I'm looking for some advice on what to pick for my first try. There are so many kinds, it's kinda overwhelming.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2019 21:49
|
|
|
Ghostnuke posted:Anyone want to talk different types of steel? I'm looking for some advice on what to pick for my first try. There are so many kinds, it's kinda overwhelming. Are you going to be doing you own heat treating?
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2019 22:04
|
|
|
Ghostnuke posted:Anyone want to talk different types of steel? I'm looking for some advice on what to pick for my first try. There are so many kinds, it's kinda overwhelming. 1075/1080/1084 One of those three. They're nearly the same. Very simple to heat treat, easy to forge, very forgiving. To heat treat one of these just get it nice and evenly hot so it's a nice yellow-orange color and it is no longer magnetic (I keep a magnet attached to the legs of my forge with a piece of mild steel stuck to it so the heat doesn't ruin the magnet when I touch hot steel to it), dunk it in oil (veggie oil works just fine for this), and as soon as you can just barely handle it by hand put it in a toaster oven heated to about 350F (300-400 really, the hotter you got the softer it will temper your steel to) and leave it in there for an hour, take it out for 30 minutes to an hour so you can hold it, and then back into the toaster oven for another hour. Bam, you've got a hardened blade. Kenshin fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Aug 23, 2019 |
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2019 22:10
|
|
|
Google Butt posted:Are you going to be doing you own heat treating? That's the plan, still working out the details on that.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2019 00:35
|
|
|
Ghostnuke posted:That's the plan, still working out the details on that. yep 1080, heat evenly till non magnetic, put it back in for a minute or so, quench in canola oil in a paint can on a hot plate heated to 120 degrees. After quenching clamp the blade between two 2x6s or aluminum stock and to minimize warping. Once cool, preheat the oven to 420 (heh) and temper for an hour or two, take it out, quench with water and temper again the same way. Fyi warping is a bitch and it'll happen, plenty of posts on BF on how to deal with it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2019 01:00
|
|
|
Kenshin posted:1075/1080/1084 Seconding this. but also if you want to use scrap, look for an automotive leaf or coil spring. A leaf spring is super convenient since it's in a bar shape already, you can cut off a short segment and have a knife blank with just a little flattening. It'll very probably be either a straight iron/carbon mix at ~.95 to 1.0% carbon (e.g. 1095), or else 5160, and will likely cost you less than buying bar stock from a retailer. 5160 needs a higher temp for tempering than 1095, and should be annealed before you try to forge it; but it's highly forgiving, easy to harden and treat, and holds an edge very well. I had no trouble forging my second blade ever from leaf spring stock.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2019 01:06
|
|
|
I'd highly recommend not using scrap while you're learning how to heat treat, it's just one extra variable to save like $15
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2019 01:36
|
|
|
Is 1080 the recommendation because it's cheap and/or easy to work with for a first timer? I'm just curious what makes that one good over others, trying to learn how to pick.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2019 01:47
|
|
|
Ghostnuke posted:Is 1080 the recommendation because it's cheap and/or easy to work with for a first timer? I'm just curious what makes that one good over others, trying to learn how to pick. Both. It doesn't require soaking at certain temp, only that you get to the point that it's no longer (evenly) magnetic plus a minute or so and it's pretty much the cheapest stock. Beyond 1080 you should honestly just send them out for HT unless you have your own heat treating oven, it's very hard to soak a knife evenly for 10 minutes at a specific temperature by hand.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2019 02:23
|
|
|
Used chainsaw guide bars are also a good source for scrap, again it's mystery metal but my buddy and I are fairly sure they are 1084 or 1095 or something very very similar. Ask a chainsaw rental place if they will give or sell you old guide bars Cut or angle grind the edges off and forge from there.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2019 04:13
|
|
|
Here's what I ended up with forge-wise: I picked up a drill press, belt grinder, bunch of little poo poo, etc yesterday. Just gotta get a workstation all set up. I'm close! edit: might be a dumb question - what's a good source for a magnet I can use that won't melt when I touch it with hot steel? Like is there some sort of machine I can keep a look out for on the side of the road? Maybe a big speaker?
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2019 21:27
|
|
|
What I do is have a big magnet and a sacrificial piece of mild steel stuck to it (like 1/4" thick or so). You can touch hot steel to the mild steel chunk briefly and that should shield the magnet from the heat enough.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2019 21:32
|
|
|
I just use one of those little telescopic ones
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2019 21:58
|
|
|
basically anything better than a fridge magnet will be fine, you're only gonna tap it against the steel to see if it sticks, it won't have time to superheat to a point where it loses its magneticism or whatever harbor freight $1 telescoping magnet tool is fine and cheap, get a handful
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2019 22:29
|
|
|
Getting ready to order some 1084. What thickness should I be looking at? It looks like this store only has .126, is that good? Is there a better store that everyone uses?
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2019 20:17
|
|
|
Are you forging, or just stock removal? What are you making? How thick of a blade do you want? A rule of thumb is that you can always remove some thickness but adding is realllly hard. Also, definitely look for metal selling businesses in your area, because shipping steel by mail is expensive. Expect these companies to keep workman's hours (e.g., open 8-5 weekdays and maybe a half-day saturday if you're lucky), have little to no online presence, and not be interested in your dumbass questions about buying $25 worth of metal. On the other hand, you'll be able to dig through a scrap/cutoffs bin, or choose from many different kinds and shapes of stock, and pay a lower price for it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2019 20:41
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Are you forging, or just stock removal? What are you making? How thick of a blade do you want? Stock removal. I want to try to make this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkRjPEFXBpU .126 is basically 1/8 inch, right? That seems like it would be a bit small... Ghostnuke fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Sep 5, 2019 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2019 21:10
|
|
|
1/8" is just fine for stock removal, you just won't be removing a ton.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2019 21:17
|
|
|
Yup it's 1/8. You can work with that, lots of knives have a spine 1/8 or thinner, but you'll want to do nothing but polish along the spine and just cut in the faces of the knife from there. I would look for stock a little thicker than that maybe, but if that's what's affordable go for it. For the record I've never ordered steel online, I live in the SF bay area and there's a half dozen places to get stock within a reasonable drive of me. e. just watched the video and yeah, that guy is just using hand tools, his jig for setting his bevel avoids taking any metal off the spine at all. A lot of stock removal people use a big belt sander and eyeball the bevel angle and taking their stock to a tip etc they're likely to remove a bit of width. But for a full tang short knife like the one shown, 1/8" is fine and dandy. I personally if I was buying steel to make a bunch of knives would want to have some suitable for larger/thicker blades and might include some 3/16" blanks in the order. And I'd get like 20 blanks to avoid paying shipping repeatedly. But, this is your first one and maybe you will hate it and only ever make four knives so  use your best judgement.
Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Sep 5, 2019 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2019 21:18
|
|
|
I wanna repeat my advice that you find old chainsaw guide bars, just call up a rental place and ask if they'll give/sell them for cheap. They are right around 1/8" thick and would be great for stock removal projects.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2019 21:20
|
|
|
I did pick up a belt grinder so hopefully I won't have to work as hard as that guy. I'll look around locally and see what I can find, but yeah I just measured my pocket knife and the spine is pretty much exactly 1/8.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2019 21:42
|
|
|
I say just order some 1080 stock, you'll know for sure what you're getting and its cheap anyway
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2019 21:53
|
|
|
Google Butt posted:I say just order some 1080 stock, you'll know for sure what you're getting and its cheap anyway Ehh, they aren't lying about shipping. I put $30 worth in my cart and it's over $20 to ship it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2019 21:55
|
|
|
I'm about 95% done on these two knives. They both need some hand-sanding fixes and a better buffing job (we only just got the buffer set up today) and then once I get my logo template in the mail I'll electo-etch my logo in each of them. the top knife with leopardwood is something of a household utility knife, it has G10 liners between the steel and wood, and brass pins the knife with padauk is a cheese knife and is not sharp (but very nearly so) and also has brass pins   I hand-forged these back in February out of 1084 bar stock but have been busy working on a lot of other things so hadn't gotten around to actually finishing them. So these past few weeks I've been working on actually finishing knives. I really only get about 6 hours a week to work on these things, though.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2019 01:10
|
|
|
Ghostnuke posted:Getting ready to order some 1084. What is this? E: oh it's literally AISI. Didn't even know they went that high. 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Sep 8, 2019 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2019 19:10
|
|
|
man, y'all weren't kidding about local places not giving a poo poo about my babby order. I've called/emailed at least 3 places and none have responded.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2019 20:44
|
|
|
I recommend alpha knife supply, the shipping is reasonable imo and they gave me the flattest stock (still not perfect tho).
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2019 21:35
|
|
|
Those places, in my experience, also tend to be owned/staffed by grognards who have never used email and can barely stand the phone. Asking in person might be your best bet for getting in actual answer (which will probably still be a no, sadly).
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2019 22:18
|
|
|
I'll just eat the shipping and order from Jantz I guess. You guys recommended I get 1084 for its cheapness and ease of use, but it looks like I could get 1095 for cheaper. It seems like the target temperature for quenching is pretty much the same. Is there some reason I shouldn't use 1095 as a beginner? edit: 1095 vs 1084 Ghostnuke fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Sep 9, 2019 |
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2019 16:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 20:43 |
|
|
1095 needs to be soaked at temp for 10 mins, not noob friendly. AKS has flatter stock than Jantz.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2019 16:19
|
|