Knives

>>1121147
Got it really cheap and cut off the plastic handle.

This is only a test knife to get a little bit of experience before making a knife with more expensive material.

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>>1121147
Do a hidden tang with a fairly robust timber

>>1121154
Just to clearify:
Is a hidden tang just drilling a hole into the handle, filling it with epoxy, then hiding the gaps left behind with the knife hilt? Or is a hidden tang splitting the handle and making groves for the tang to fit perfectly (as in your pic)?

>>1121156
There's probably a dozen ways to do it
Probably the simplest way is to make a sandwich layer the width of the blade which fits in between two slabs either side. Then its a case of securing it, usually with epoxy + a pin of some form. Then trim it up with a sander.

>>1121159
I have an idea of how to do it and I've also watched a couple of videos on how to do it, but I just wanted to be sure.
Thanks.

Anyone have any experience with using antlers and bones?
All I know is the sanding, cutting and generally working with it smells like death.

I have a bandsaw, so cutting would be easy, but I don't have a belt sander.

>>1121163
Always tended to avoid using it as I mostly make kitchen knives and its not used in that kind of environment. Anywhere else its a fairly robust material. Stuff like horn can be softened to make it a bit more malleable by either boiling or steaming it, don't know about bone though.

Couple of Kiridashi utility knives fresh out of the tempering oven.
Kind of hard to get hyped up about sitting down and sanding for hours on end.

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>>1121316
Kind of helps to attach the picture

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I'm making a handle for this hook knife.

All I did was take an osage orange turning blank, and rip it twice. The middle piece is cut a little thicker than the blade stock I cut out a profile of the tang in this piece, then glued the laminations back together.

I still have to carve a nice handle out of it. I'll cut off most of the waste on the bandsaw, then refine the shape with a spokeshave. I'm trying to think of what I'll do for the ferrule, but I'm leaning towards epoxy-saturated string will do.

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>>1121448
Here's the wood block after cutting away the waste with a bandsaw, and holding it up against a belt sander.

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>>1121498
Dry fitting the tang to the handle.

Even though the glue up wasn't perfect, you have to look for the glue lines to see them. It looks like a single piece of wood. But the three piece lamination I did has a strength advantage in that you can cut away the tang profile more accurately than with other methods. I'm pretty much ready to pot the blade in with epoxy then wrap a ferrule around the end.

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So I want to get into knife making, but I wanted to start with a ready-made blade (yes, weak, I know). Is there a way to introduce more carbon to the metal, or am I stuck with whatever they ship? Is there a decent place to get knife blanks other than fleabay?

>>1121550
You're stuck with what they ship, anon. There is case hardening, but it's a few thousandths thick at best and won't do what you want.

>>1121550
Amazon.com has a bunch. I bought basically the same one that's in your picture for $4. It's a great knife for the price, and is big

>>1121560
Can you reccomend me some decent bowie style knives? I know it's tacky but I always wanted one.

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>>1121507
Pretty neat, I need to bodge one up myself sometime to do a bit of wood carving for wooden spoons, spatulas and stuff

Polished up the kiridashi's this arvo, did some engine turning on the main bits which wont be covered up by the handle and bolsters.

This might be kind of a leatherworking question, but when making a leather sheath for your knife, some use a plastic insert.
What/where to get that plastic? Making it yourself?
I have no clue about working with plastic.

>>1122172
No experience myself, but I'd imagine a heat gun, a wooden mold, and whatever tool you want to use to cut the plastic with is a good starting point. You could probably source the plastic from anything--my guess would be a used laundry soap bottle, or something that's thin enough to bend, but strong enough to take constant cutting.

>>1122182
>laundry soap bottle
That's perfect!
If I can wet form the leather into a tight for for the knife, maybe I'll skip the plastic, but my brother my man, thanks for the idea.

>>1122172
Sheets of FR4, G10 and Micarta can make good liners for knife sheaths. Often I have a bit of it around for doing liners on handles

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>>1121507
Finished.

Ferrule is epoxy soaked thread wrapped tight. It is very strong and should prevent the wood from prying itself apart. This is it after I dipped it in a jar of tung oil.

>>1121595
They are fun but deceptively dangerous knives to use. The mechanics of using it encourage the user to brace the workpiece against the thumb holding the knife. If the knife breaks the material it goes straight into the thumb.

>>1122383
Such a beauty. Good job mate.

>>1122383
Yeah I've got a couple of nicks and scratches over the years but I'm a walking lump of scar tissue anyway, few more wouldn't make too much difference
Guess if you where uncomfortable with your own blood you could make a thumb sock out of leather or something

Got the scales and bolsters done on the kiridashi's gluing up now, so I'll probably fit them up later tonight and peen them in. Using some spare eucalypt burl I had from another knife project that's got some really nice patterns where the burl joins the pale live bark and I'll leave it raw. Whole project is sort of scraps of metal and timber I had left over that needed somewhere to go

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>>1122445
Got the bolsters and scales on, 5 coats of a clearcoat overnight on the timber.
So, about 80% done- still needs to be sharpened and the scales given a light polish when they fully harden about 3-4 days from now.

Final edge and sharpening will be a shit, they're 62HRC O1 tool steel and hard as hell. There's a black G10 0.5mm liner between the bolsters, scales and the tang, epoxy then pinned to it to kind of help avoid any moisture getting to it, they're 304SS so you know I've suffered enough to get them tidy. Otherwise kind of happy with the appearance

>>1121550
There are plenty of specialist shops on the Internet.

Some bladesmiths sell blanks through knife/smithing forums too.

Just Google carbon steel knife blanks. Some are cheap, others aren't. With the cheaper ones bear in mind that high carbon steel will need oiling or rust sets in, but it takes and keeps a finer edge longer. Stainless is usually tougher, easier to sharpen but dulls more quickly.

You can also buy sintered steel blanks which are the best of both worlds but more expensive and harder to machine.

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Currently saving for my 3rd car ac system vacuum pump.

Have a bigass pressure cooker pot.

Gonna make wood epoxy resin handles for my knives and maybe even gun stock blanks soon.


You anons think there is any money to be made selling to others?

>>1124926
Probably some, but it mostly comes down to price and doing stuff that other people aren't so that it stands out. Being able to stabilise burls and other fragile timbers should be pretty useful to people that need that kind of service

>>1124955
I was considering doing epoxy burl automotive trim too... pretty much anything i can make a dime on. Not real sure wtf else can make.

>>1123349
>just scraps
>needed somewhere to go
>produces beautiful knives
>mfw

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>>1125090
>Not real sure wtf else can make.
Casting resin in moulds responds fairly well under a slight vacuum to get rid of the bubbles in it, thats sort of where all those spiders in the gearstick knob come from. So you could DIY your own 'amber', mix in metal flakes, colours and other weird stuff.

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>>1121550
Google knife making pdf
I've found 4 books on knife and sword making in pdf form.

So I have a question. I have some scrap steel which is angle bar from a steel bed frame. It says USA and I'm assuming it's general purpose steel. What alloy do you think that it is made out of? I haven't done a spark test yet but I figured someone will know just because of what it is. It is not stainless.

>>1125985
its scrap.
its most likely a basic mild steel.

You dont know the composition, you cant confirm the spec of it, if it is a higher carbon content (unlikely) you wont know if its oil-quenched, water, air hardening. you dont know a thing about it.

sell it to a scrap metal merchant, go to the New Jersey Steel Baron use what you got from scrap, buy yourself some 1084.

>>1126005
You're probably right. I'll just keep some to practice polishing.

>>1125985
Bed rails are very hard and similar to spring steel.
I use them for general purpose angle when making stuff.
My metal band saw takes a while to get through them and I quit trying to drill holes in them.
I just use a plasma torch to punch a hole if I want to use a bolt or screw through one.

I'm not saying they'd be good for a knife but they are much tougher than just mild steel.

>>1125985
>>1126147
Seconding this anon. The bedrails I've worked with are hardened and eat cutting wheels like popcorn. From sparks and welding behavior I'd guess hardened medium carbon steel. It doesn't seem prone to hot cracking, so I suspect that the alloy content (carbon and otherwise) isn't too high.

>>1125106
Thanks for the kind compliment,
Maybe I was unfair to call them scrap, just odd shapes that didn't fit anywhere else out of the bar stock I had and the remaining timber bits.

>>1125985
Probably a 1050 type of steel, one of the lower carbon alloys you can only really harden to about 40-50HRC. So not really a blade steel.
Get some 1075-85 and you'll be able to make some stuff with that, both are a fairly forgiving alloy and not hugely expensive

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Looking for some advice from somebody who heat treats their own blades.

So I forged out a piece of O-1 Tool steel into a knife blank, quenched it in vegetable oil, then tempered it for two two hour cycles at 400f. It held up through belt sanding and a majority of other work, but while I was trying to peen the end of the through tang it broke near the intersection of the tang and blade, though not right on it. After that I tested to see how weak it actually was by holding it in a vice and hitting it with a hammer, and you can kinda see the result in the image.

Anyways, any idea what went wrong, whether it was how I quenched or tempered it? I'm unfortunately not experienced enough (yet) to tell. Here's a picture of a broken end to show you the grain size, which I am 99% sure is too big.

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>>1126917

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>>1126917
>>1126920

Not the best images of the breaks (most of which I made) but the best i could do with a crappy clip on iPhone macro lense.

>>1126917
Couple of things to think about,
>It may have hardened up again while you where grinding it on the sander, then plunging into water to cool which created some brittle spots
>The other thing might be a lack of soak, on a thick blade it's generally about 5-10min to get the proper carbide mix.
>There may have also been something of an overheating and decarbonisation during the hardening- don't go over bright cherry (750C+) into the salmon-darker orange(850C+) spectrum. Also at the forging temperatures (900C+) it will grow some fairly huge grain structure, so if it wasn't normalised after being beat on for a while, they might not decrease during the hardening temps.

Hopefully that's helped

>>1126917
you burnt it in the forge.
probably left too long at heat too. the grain size is monstrous.

you should have normalised it with 2-3 cycles after forging, before HT.

>>1126942
>>1126965

So it looks like I had it at too high a heat for the quench then, because I did normalize before the quench, while at the same time I was very careful with the heat while I was grinding. Thank you, helps me in the future.

Any tips for next blade I forge? I have the rest of the O-1 Tool steel and a bar of 1084.

>>1126971
O1 is one of those steels that needs to be forged really hot under the hammer, soon as it begins to cool off past orange, stick it back in for more heat. Beating on it when its colder than 1000C runs a real risk of some structuralfuckery happening.

With the quench, if you're having problems with it getting too hot while soaking you can try a lower temp quench (@800C seems to be the happy spot for me at least), test it to see if its hard, if not, stick it back in for a second cycle and try again. Its actually fairly forgiving in that regard... one of the few fucking things it is actually forgiving about! But as >>1126965 mentioned as well seems to back up my hunch she was a bit too hot in the quench and/or not normalised enough.

Don't worry, we all bust shit once in a while and O1 takes a bit to master :)

>>1126974

Thanks. Do you think I should use 1084 for my next knife before trying another O-1 blade? I've heard multiple times that 1084 is extremely forgiving.

>>1127011
Yeah give it a go, the heat treat is similar temperatures and single temper
It generally likes to have a slightly higher forging temp around 1100C though and do your normalising, it makes a very fine, tough knife.

>>1121561
I know nothing about knives, I bought the condor knife blank with the shaped handle. It doesn't look nice, dulls easily, and it is way too big. But hey, for $4 It is an amazing knife. I wrapped the handle in rope and it works fine

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Hey I'm working on a my first chefs knife. It's okay we all start from somewhere .

>>1128321
Really pretty billet that one

I actually get a lot of joy out of making kitchen knives, I see a challenge to make a functional but artistic object that will see heavy use in a fairly tough environment as something pretty worthy.
>Camp and hunting knives generally see the light of day a couple of days a year
>Tacticool folders and other shit might bust open a cardboard box every now and then
>Repro and art weapons, hang on a wall 99% of the time

But a kitchen knife, that bastard will be used 5-7 days a week, it'll get covered in food, washed with nasty solvents, probably dropped and kicked around a couple of times and take a fucking beating

>>1128491
Yeah I'm just starting out so I'm just using hand tools. It's a bitch. I ordered some kitchen knives from random places and I've got my own design I'm working on . I should get the prototype back next week. I had some blanks made one pattern welded and one in high carbon. One I get those back I'm gonna try to go stock reduction. But I'm gonna forge my own pattern welded billets.

what does knife making entail if your getting blanks? just sharpening and making a handle?

>>1128703
You have to start some where. Plus I'm still learning about the process of making billets.

>>1128712
for sure man! didn't mean to sound condescending, just don't know shit shit about it and am interested

>>1128724
Its cool I took it the wrong way. So pretty much my story is, I wanna make cool knives. I'm a poor fuck saVing money for forge and anvil. Starting learning how to sharpen and attach handles to knives. Learn to do that. Use template from previous knife use stock reducton on billets. Learn to grind bevels etc. Then when I get the money for the forge and anvil make my own billets, then move to trying to hand forge a whole knife start to finish.

>>1128731
Word! Good luck man! Thanks for giving me a better feel for the steps to take

>>1128754
I'm just taking a shot in the dark. Your welcome though. Best of luck

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this is more of a sword, but itll do the job, I like to grind a bevel in with a handheld grinder and then finish the bevel with a file, whenever I add a handle I usually just drill holes in the tang with 2 pieces of wood clamped on either side and hammer oak or hickory pins through it

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unfortunately the grip is wrapped in electrical tape so you cant see the pins but you can kinda see them raised up underneath the electrical tape

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>>1128687
>But I'm gonna forge my own pattern welded billets.

I've done it in the past, its fucking horrible when you don't have a power hammer, just two of us taking turns on a very big hammer. But it can be done.

Started work on mocking up a couple of outdoorsy knives I had an idea for, but its 5pm here and just hit 44Celcius and I'm calling it a day for now

>>1128789
>>1128790
that's a big ol knife you got there, but its not quite a sword. at least a properly made one, it looks cool though

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Of all the forged blades, these two are the better of the bunch. Top is an attempt at Damascus-style steel (1085, 15N20 not enough folds), bottom is Mystery Spring Steel that I used clay to test for visual differential hardening ability.

>>1129137
They're really good man, some quick dips in hot vinegar will bring out the patterns a little clearer

Made a hammer with my senpai on Wednesday night, gonna start making a sidesword next wednesday. Will post progress pics!

>>1129266
re: the second one - I tried some dilute (and strong) ferric chloride. It wasn't etching very cooperatively, so I actually used a scotch-brite pad soaked in it to coax an even etch. I even cleaned the damn thing acetone first to ensure surface purity.

>>1129266
Actually, I'll try that hot vinegar thing next time, thanks!

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My third knife I made, while working on a farm. Only used a file and a hacksaw. I screwed up at the edge near the recasso.

>>1129564
I tend to use vinegar as its comparatively safe, cheap and non-toxic, already got enough toxic shit around the house and any kind of food-prep blade you don't want too much of the really nasty chemicals on it.

You can also try a 1-1 mix of ferric chloride and white vinegar for a deeper, darker etch, then neutralise it in soda clean water solution. That actually gives a really nice darker blue-grey colour, whereas vinegar by itself is usually a mid-charcoal tone.

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>>1121147
I'm starting to see things

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>>1128810
...some days later, got the hollow grinds profiles done, did the heat treating last night and put a mirror polish on them this morning
Might fit up the bolsters and finally figure out what kind of timber is going in there.

>slowest fucking cutler ever

someone buy me 5 ft of 1080 pls so i can start making knives even though im a poorfag

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>>1129794
You too, huh?

>>1129794
Was about to do the same. Glad I'm not the only one to see the metal teeth guy.