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Knife-making. Fellow goon Slung Blade demanded, that I started a thread about this a couple of years ago. Serious pressure like that is enough to do it ...within a couple of years. Q: What is knife-making? A: It's not blacksmithing, but it can be. It's not grinding, hack-sawing and dirty work, but skills like that will surely benefit you. It's not leather- and/or skin-work, but that can be involved. It's not wood-working as much as working with all other materials such as bone, stones, fossils, and metals. Q: Is it a difficult skill? A: No it's not, but it can be. Knife-making is probably one of the oldest skills known to mankind, only trumped by prostitution. If you're Homo Sapiens or at least Homo Erectus, you'll probably agree that a knife is your most important tool – if you're a Neandertal get out; we respect your spears and clubs. Q: Provide us examples, asstard! A: Will do. Fellow goon and son, SirPukesAlot needs a knife. He just turned 14 and will soon be able to get a hunters license. He needs a solid blade. Bonus points for making it unique. Let's start: Ordered a blade from http://www.thegoodstuffshop.dk/ . Not because I'm unable to smith or grind a blade myself, but mostly because I wanted it to be a last-a-lifetime-and-some-knife. I'm a mechanical engineer by education, but I have no means of making the superior steel I wanted for SirPukesAlots knife. By “superior steel” I obviously mean RWL 34 steel. Steel-spergers might disagree, but in my educated opinion RWL 34 provides the absolutely best steel for holding an edge. Well, VG10 is close, but let's not dwell in details. This opinion is very debatable. Highest edge strength depends on what you cut and in what environment you use it. For use in a hunting situation in my country, RWL 34 is superior in my opinion. If you're a salt-water diver get some cheap SAE 420 or 440A/B steel instead. Anyway. Ordered a blade from the Danish blacksmith Brian Sørensen. He's kind of known as the grinding wizard of RWL 34. Sadly he's dropped the trade, but there's a few blades left here: http://www.thegoodstuffshop.dk/group.asp?group=3079 Whatever, here's what I ordered:  A RWL 34 140mm. blade with a BS stamp - a very unique blade, some leather not shown, some wood (Elmburl AAA Special), a few slices of camel bone, some "nickel silver" I didn't use for this job and a few plates of colored resin glass-fiber. Planning and some bone-work:  Goon SirPukesAlots grinding and generally making GBS threads around?   More planning and loving around:  Here's some knife:    Goal for this thread: Let's discuss all aspects of knife-making, show us your stuff and ask/tell about it? Blacksmiths, grinders, wood-workers, leather-workers and murderers are all equally welcome in this thread. Also please link sources for materials. For working with leather in northern Europe/Scandinavia this shop is the tits: http://dansk-laederforsyning.dk/ Sir Cornelius fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Sep 15, 2013 |
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Sep 14, 2013 13:43
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Uncle Enzo posted:Thanks for the thread! Have you ever made a knife out of a railroad spike? How do they hold up? Of course they're not going to be as good as a modern special-purpose alloy, but can you make a passable knife out of one? I forged a couple of blanks and I'm trying to figure out where to go from here. I'm working on getting a large belt sander/grinder in business, which should help a lot with honing and such. Yes, I have made knives of everything from deformation hardened nails to forged railroad spikes. Railroad spikes are typically at 25 to 28 points of carbon, and that's enough carbon to harden the steel pretty good for a general purpose knife. Railroad spikes, even though some of them are marked HC, aren't really high carbon steel. They are meant to bend instead of breaking under stress and strain. They have serious limitations used as knife steel, but they'll do for practice. If you keep them clean and dry, don't use them as pry-bars and sharpen them a lot, railroad spike knifes are great. Also post pictures of your blanks, rear end in a top hat 
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Sep 14, 2013 15:28
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MRC48B posted:Cool thread. What's a good source for steel blanks in various grades here in the US? I'm not from the US but I've heard only good things about http://www.knifekits.com/ This is a pretty good site for finding suppliers: http://www.knifelinksportal.com/ If you're able to filter insanely stab-happy rednecks from really skilled knifemakers, you might want to investigate http://www.bladeforums.com There's no real acceptable reason for not making knives. Get started and post pictures 
Sir Cornelius fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Sep 15, 2013 |
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Sep 15, 2013 11:29
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Christ, that's cheap CPM 154CM blanks. Thanks a lot.
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Sep 15, 2013 16:46
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LeeJam posted:I made a knife recently, L6 and Curly Mulga. That's a really neat knife. I like the shape and the Curly Mulga really suits it. Do you use it as a skinner? L6 is a nice tool steel, but very difficult to heat treat correctly. How does it work for you? Do you plan making a sheath for it? Soylent Yellow posted:
Nice! You could try lightening it a bit by grinding a fuller, if you dare. However a cutlass should be slightly heavier than other swords, since you use it to swipe your opponents blades away as you board the scallywags swaggy and wave your flintlock around with the other hand while loadeded to the gunwales. Yo-ho-ho! Sir Cornelius fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Sep 21, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 07:57
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Cakefool posted:My brothers a woodsmith (he hates that term If you're looking for cheap starter blanks of reasonable quality, I can't recommend Mora blades enough. They heat treat 12C27 really well. Shop around for them. Found this site to start with http://www.thebushcraftstore.co.uk/knife-blades-163-c.asp Besides Mora blanks I usually recommend Brusletto. If you don't like the rather limited selection of Mora designs and steels, I'd look at Brusletto. They have a broader range of designs and steel types and like Mora makes quality blanks for a very reasonable price. Sir Cornelius fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Sep 21, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 09:28
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) so I was thinking of recommending he fit up some cheap knives as practice, any recommendations in the UK for finished blades that just need handles?
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LeeJam posted:I haven't made a sheath yet, but my grandfather made a wooden case for it. I haven't used it yet but it is designed as a skinner. Hoping to get out and try it soon. The heat treat was easy, heat to non magnetic in a forge then quench in warm canola oil. Then 2x tempering @200degrees C for 2 hours. Recommended heat treatment for T6 is quite a bit more complicated, that's why I asked. T6 is a steel that's really easy to trap unwanted Martensite in and make it brittle. Competent blade-smiths can use that to their advantage though. Did you Rockwell test the blade? Blade-smiths usually recommends this procedure: Normalize - 1600F for 15 minutes, air cool. Anneal - 1400F for 1 hour, cool at 40F/hr to 1000F, air cool to room temp. Stress relieve - 1200F for 15min, air cool. Harden - place blade in cool oven and heat to 1200F, eqaulize for 10 min., raise to 1455F ,hold 10 min, oil quench.. Temper - 375-400F for 2 hours, two cycles. Here's a real good data-sheet for T6: http://www.hudson-metals.com/pages/technical/hmcL6/hmcL6.html Slung Blade posted:'bout loving time mister Thanks The knife posted was just to get discussion started. My son made most of it except the planning. Combined I think it took him about a days work, and I consider that pretty good for his first knife. Bone can be a bitch to work first time, and double so if you use it as a bolster. Well, it passed dad-testing anyway
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Sep 24, 2013 08:58
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Rotten Cookies posted:
That's really, really neat work! Congrats!
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Dec 22, 2013 20:51
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Sir Pukesalot posted:I did NOT poo poo! Yeah, you did. We can make some pretty good small skinner-knives from carbon-steel though. It's all in the touch.
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Dec 30, 2013 23:15
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I light fires posted:Is there any recommended online or book resources I should look at before attempting something like this. An idea of tools required , blade styles and techniques would be fantastic because at this point I would just jump in with my bench grinder and make a lot of metal shavings and noise, which while fun is not really the goal. Knife-building can involve a tremendous amount of skilled arts. No book will cover working with all materials, that could be involved in building a knife that suits you. Read all of this: http://www.amazon.com/Knifemaking-and-bladesmithing-books/lm/3N41ZCFGOU5D6 but return to this thread to ask for help. Set a goal, tell us what you want to accomplish, and we're here to help you. Knife-building is an art that can involve anything regarding working with materials. Well, almost anything, the golden rule is to never build a knife that can't outlive your grand-children. TheFargate posted:So after coming across his thread I finally motivated myself to do something with the 1084 stock i purchased a while back. I have gotten to the point where i am shaping the blade itself. My question is what tools are best suited for working the blade edge? I originally ground out the angles on a bench grinder but im unable to get any real symmetry. Would i be better filing the edges? Any advice would be great. Nothing can beat files, agony, despair and pain. Sir Pukesalot posted:well, if i DID poo poo, you would not be alive today! Barely. Probably should have stabbed you in the cradle. LeeJam posted:Knife Number 2 in the making, 5160 steel, 4mm thick (1/8" ) OAL is about 25cm (about 9"). Tell me more about knife #1 pictured above. I really like the shape of it. Also, this post was ages ago. Please recover, post, or preferable both. If that stupid surgeon needs a knife, we'll make him one. Sir Cornelius fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Jan 1, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2013 23:30
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