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I really enjoyed the first episode. I felt bad for the lady because I think she would have done better if she'd started with a better piece of steel, and I felt bad for the dude who got eliminated first because he also picked the wrong steel to start with. It's interesting how the show frequently presents the contestants with a challenge they had not anticipated or prepared for in their normal practice, like "what sorts of unidentified scrap metal are likely to be usable carbon steel?" On the other hand I really wish they'd show more of the actual fabrication, and the dude who is always trying to look like a badass as he waves around a knife going "It will keeel" is really annoying.
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Feb 18, 2016 07:57
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You could give carburization a shot? (I have no idea if you can carburize stainless)
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Feb 18, 2016 17:54
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That image seems to be broken mattwhoo Anyway you guys are watching Forged in Fire, right?
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Oct 1, 2016 18:16
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I've never been a big fan of weird crazy colored handles but you're making it look pretty good there. I like the rakish slope to the heel of the knife, and that's quite a drop point while still having a gentle curve to the blade. I imagine that will be a very good kitchen chopper. Very nice.
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Jan 6, 2017 19:50
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I'd recommend using the grinder just for very rough work and then switch to hand files for the final figuring and shaping. It will take a lot longer, but you will gain in two ways: you'll be able to avoid making any sudden gouges that ruin your work after a lot of time and effort, and, you'll gain a feel and affinity for filework which is invaluable going forward. In the knifemaking class I took, the teacher encouraged us to just work our post-forging rough blades on the belt sander a bit to clean up any serious issues, and then use files and handheld sandpaper blocks for the rest of the finishing work. Doing that let me pay more attention to fine detail, constantly check both sides of the blade for evenness, etc. As far as safety goes, I think even in videos online most people aren't being very safe. For example, we clamped our blades to chunks of 2x4 wood whenever it was in a vise, to eliminate the empalement hazard, but I never see blademakers online doing that.
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Jan 20, 2017 20:12
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You can also use some kind of set tool to peen/shape/curve over the top of a rivet while it's in a hole or depression. You'd have to take special care not to mar the wood, of course. http://www.ebay.com/itm/TUBULAR-RIVET-PEENING-TOOL-8099-00-Tandy-Leather-Setters-Setting-Hand-Tools-/232159660379  But odds are he's not peening a hot rivet, there's no charring at all on that wood. You can entirely dispense with rivets if you want to, the epoxies available today are basically magic, so my bet is that they're premade, fit together in the handle, and relying on epoxy for strength.
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Jan 26, 2017 20:05
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Stalizard posted:I know this thread is super slow moving but damnit after like three tries I have finally made a knife that I'm sorta proud of: Soemthing's up with your tinypic URL. I think it's because Tinypic doesn't support HTTPS, while SA enforces HTTPS for links. I've rehosted on Imgur, I hope that's OK with you:  and that is a nice looking knife with lots of nice details. I like the little ricasso, the wood is really pretty (I'm a big fan of natural wood colors) and the stacked brass and... bone? Antler? bolster is a nice touch as well. Is that a full tang, or do you have an insert around a hidden tang made of something light colored? Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Jun 20, 2018 |
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Jun 20, 2018 20:12
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I would say the only "mistake" is that the pictures are all pretty small... probably look fine on a phone but if you have big higher-res photos they'd be welcome! That is a really nice set of knives though, I'm impressed by your skill and the quality of what you're producing.
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Jun 23, 2018 21:11
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dang, that's pretty sweet. And the large pics are better! Thanks! I think I like that little skinner in the first three pics the best, it's a nice shape and the wood is amazing.
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Jun 24, 2018 00:04
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That is really clean and tidy, you have a good attention to detail. I've never seen a knife with a cut into the pin like that. Are you at all worried that the pin could come loose? I guess it's probably epoxied rather than just peened at the ends, yeah?
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Jul 24, 2018 21:38
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That looks pretty good. Nice little ricasso, nice patina. I'm not a huge fan of the up and down scoring from the sanding process left instead of polished out more, but it's a look and lots of people like that, so purely personal preference. I love the wood, the pins and lanyard hole are very tidy. I'd be super happy if that was my first knife.
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Aug 7, 2018 00:45
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10 Beers posted:Thanks! I've seen propane forges on Etsy and eBay for around $150. Are forges like tattoos, you get what you pay for? Yeah, to some extent. Although also in the second-hand arena, you are always dealing with the wide disparity of how much people think their crap is worth. To begin with you should evaluate your workspace. If you are working indoors (like in a garage), your forge will need really good forced-air ventilation, and you'll need to obviously clear lots of space of flammables. If you're working outside, you'll want rain/weather cover over your workspace/storage space, or you'll want portable equipment that is easy to move into place and put away. Then you'll have to decide if you're going for a gas or coal/charcoal forge. There's advantages and disadvantages with each. A portable propane forge is probably simplest and cleanest to deal with, but a charcoal/coal forge is probably substantially cheaper and easier to improvise. For pure knifemaking, a very small gas forge can be adequate. The depth of the forge limits how much of your blade you can heat at once: you can work on just part of the metal when hammering out, but for the heat treat you need to be able to bring all of the knife (exclusive of the handle) to an even heat before quenching. But otherwise, constraining the volume, entrance, and (if it's open) back of the forge is good, because smaller = less fuel and time to heat up. Hence the common tiny paint-can gas forge used by a lot of small knife makers. If you think you might want to do some more general blacksmithing, though, a larger forge might be the way to go. I do think classes are highly valuable. You learn so much in a couple hours of instruction... just the very basics of managing the forge, heating steel, handling it, and the basic hammer work of drawing out a piece of metal. You can watch a bunch of videos and get a pretty good idea, but there's nothing quite like having an experienced instructor to instantly notice what you're doing wrong and correct it before you waste time (or worse, hurt yourself). I'd suggest checking the Blaksmithing/Metalworking thread for a lot more about general forgemaking and so forth, even if you're focused on just knifemaking.
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Oct 8, 2018 23:45
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McSpergin posted:I wanna get into knifemaking and am doing a day course in Japan with a samurai bladesmith who's fully certified by the Japanese government. Anyway, I'm a fan of metalworking so I have a feeling I will like doing this. Hand files, a peen hammer (ball peen for spreading the ends of pins will work). For handle materials work you'll want a small saw like a coping saw, various grades of sandpaper, 2-part epoxy. For heat-treating your steel you need a means to bring the metal to glowing red hot and no longer magnetic, and that pretty much requires a small forge; and you need a quench container of oil for quenching, and then you can temper using an oven and maybe a handheld torch. Sharpening tools like stones or ceramic sharpening pieces or you can do the ultrafine sandpaper on a flat tile or glass method. Clamps, I'd suggest at least one vicegrips plus at least two or three c-clamps and at least a couple woodworker's type clamps so you can hold handle scales in place while epoxy dries without damaging the scales. If you want to work with damascus you'll need an acid bath to etch with. If you are using a drill press you need a vise for it, and if you are drilling by hand, you should clamp your workpiece to an immovable surface while you drill (and also, good luck with that). If you are not going to heat treat then you will have to work with steel that has already been hardened and then be extremely careful during grinding and sanding work not to overheat the edge. I've not done stock removal techniques like that, so maybe someone who has can speak to the problems of working with pre-hardened steel.
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Oct 21, 2018 03:22
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I appreciate the knifeposts, please never don't post your knives
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Dec 9, 2018 06:25
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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
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Jun 30, 2019 06:22
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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.
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Aug 24, 2019 01:06
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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
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Sep 3, 2019 22:29
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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.
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Sep 5, 2019 20:41
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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 |
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Sep 5, 2019 21:18
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Ghostnuke posted: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. You don't put in an order for like $50 of steel at an industrial supply yard by email or really by phone either. What you do is find out their working hours, go show up, and look around for a cutoffs bin. If they don't have one you can ask. If you want you can also buy like 11' of whatever dimension you want and then cut it up out in the parking lot to small enough sizes to fit in your vehicle (if you have a battery-operated sawzall or something that's ideal, because gently caress using a hacksaw to cut up floppy long-rear end pieces of carbon steel you propped up against your trunk lid or whatever). You can of course try calling, but I suggest trying during the middle of a workday and if they don't answer, the guy at the desk is helping someone and don't bother leaving a message on their 1996 answering machine because they don't check it. Just call again in a while. When you do call, don't lead in with "i'm an amateur knife maker can I buy a few tiny pieces of metal plz" just ask if they carry 3" x 1/8" 1095 or whatever you're looking for. If they ask "how much" then you may have to admit you only need one short piece and they'll know at that point you're not a "real customer" but you might get lucky and get a helpful answer anyway. You may waste your time once or twice if some place or another doesn't have a scrap bin or doesn't carry tool steels (which a surprising number don't, it's quite common to find places that only do alloys used in construction, meaning, mostly mild steel bar stock, 8x4 sheets, and like 50 different species of rebar). Also this may go without saying but: they are gonna prefer you bring cash, don't wander around their lot getting in the way of forklifts or whatever, and whatever you bring up to the counter be ready to tell them exactly what it is/where you got it, they will weigh it, probably hand-write an invoice, and then you pay. Disclaimer: this is how it's done at the supply places I've been to, which are all in the SF bay area and mostly all in Oakland specifically, YMMV. Ghostnuke posted:I have materials! I would flatten the bar before doing anything else, it'll be easier while it's unheated and in it's largest possible dimensions. Trying to grind your knife from a bent piece of steel is gonna suck. I don't know how much spring that steel will have in it but go slow and use a vise or something to squeeze it and see if you can get it flat.
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Sep 14, 2019 02:00
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The very thin edge will dump heat between pulling from the oven/forge and getting into the quench. It also will probably overheat in the oven while the rest of the steel is still coming up to temp, although you can avoid this if your forge/oven temp is no higher than the steel temp you're aiming for (but then, it will take much longer to reach temp...). Basically, super high surface to volume ratio makes for terribly difficult heat treating. If you got a decent heat treat otherwise, you may be able to get away with just grinding back the edge a little, to get into the steel that didn't overheat/underheat/etc., but look closely for fine cracks or fractures forming along the edge.
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Oct 4, 2019 17:29
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I forget, how are you heating up to quenching temp? Forge?
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Oct 4, 2019 17:31
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Nah I've had a hatchet with a metal handle, you can do it. I'd much rather have an all-wood one, though, because of the weight.
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Nov 11, 2019 08:17
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BLARGHLE posted:Let me know if you can see the pics or not, because I can never see them in my own posts when I use imgur. Sometimes they show up, sometimes they don't! The images aren't loading because you are linking to an imgur page rather than to the actual image. After uploading an image, you have to click on it and click share links and then click bbcode link and then copy that link. or, right click the image and copy the URL of the image. For example, you posted code:code:Note that in addition to using the timg tag, imgur provides several scaled image sizes you can use instead. You get them by adding a letter to the end of the file name, before the extension. I know at least s=small, m=medium, l=large, and h=huge work, not sure if there's more. code:
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Jul 18, 2020 06:50
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Ziggy Smalls posted:I've been experimenting with some forging at work on my breaks. I have access to acetylene torches there which is pretty nice. The proportions look ok, or actually if anything I'd have made the blade a bit longer and wider. Currently the handle dominates visually. How's the balance?
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Aug 14, 2020 05:04
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Ah, a new knifemaking technique. Can't wait to give this a shot! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZchgU9KLOc&t=28s
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Dec 28, 2020 22:09
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Kenshin posted:A Martronics Etch-o-Matic: https://www.martronics-corporation.com/ This website is absolutely amazing
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Jan 6, 2021 23:39
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Yeah that's absolutely repairable but dishwashing knives constantly blunts them and attacks the handle material. Dishwashing detergent is extremely harsh, plus they typically heat the water up (beyond how hot it comes from your hot water line), dry with very hot heat, etc. which makes the metal expand and then contract, generally at a different rate than the handle material, which further attacks the join.
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Aug 1, 2022 05:16
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Cut the pins a bit too long, cut them a little proud of flush, and then you can peen around the edges of the pins to mushroom them a bit into the material; or, alternatively, drive a divot into the center of the pin to spread it. Lastly, file or sand flush. The other option is to cut them flush to start with and then rely on epoxy to hold them in place. They'll still give you a mechanical join, but if the epoxy fails there's nothing else holding them in place. So I was taught the above methods as the "right way" to do it.
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Aug 13, 2022 21:45
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