Making of a Heavenly Knife - Page 2

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Making of a Heavenly Knife (Page 2 of 3)

Posted: 2/11/2016 12:31:11 AM EDT

[#1]

Not tedious at all. You're showing some excellent tricks I never thought of doing as a hobbyist.

Posted: 2/11/2016 3:03:54 AM EDT

[#2]

Quote History

Quoted:

I still need to finish grind these. This will refine the bevels and make sure they are even on the blade. I will take pics when I do that.

I hope this is not getting to boring. There is a lot of tedium making knives. This is one reason I try to have more than one project going. It allows me to do different processes when I get tired of one. That's it for today.

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HELL no! I recently got a bench grinder and handheld grinder and am anxious to get started making my own! Thanks for these tutorials!
I didn't know it took these many steps, I'm glad to follow you in this project!

Posted: 2/11/2016 1:56:39 PM EDT

[#3]

Not boring at all. I love threads like this.

Posted: 2/11/2016 2:12:17 PM EDT

[#4]

Posted: 2/11/2016 5:56:16 PM EDT

[#5]

In.

Posted: 2/11/2016 8:29:29 PM EDT

[#6]

Most excellent!!

Posted: 2/11/2016 11:51:54 PM EDT

[#7]

Another day in the shop. Made a bit of progress and a lot of dust. I need to finish grind all the blades I rough ground yesterday. In order to get the bevel shoulders equal I use another jig. These are also precision ground but have carbide faces. I can hit them on the grinder and not destroy them. Top is a blade in the jig. Next a rough ground blade. Bottom is the blade prior to grinding.

A finished ground knife before heat treat.

Here is a shot that I tried to show the bevels and shoulders. They should be as square and even and centered as possible.

I now it is a bit hard to see the difference in the rough and finished grinds. If I leave to much material it will take a lot of time after the blade is hardened. There is some minor adjustments that can be made after heat treat but this is pretty much ground as it will be on the finished knife.

PS I will get a better shot of the last picture tomorrow. It was hard trying to do it all one handed.

I finish ground 14 blades today. My hands were cramping up from grinding so much. That was a pretty productive day. I will think about heat treating tomorrow. I would like to have more to do since I have to set up my new HT system. I will see how it goes and will update more later.

Posted: 2/12/2016 8:10:57 PM EDT

[#8]

I am IN

Posted: 2/13/2016 11:36:23 PM EDT

[#9]

Have not forgotten about this thread. I spent the day trying to get more knives ready for Heat Treat. It will probably be Wednesday before I get it done. Thanks for keeping up with the thread.

Posted: 2/14/2016 6:15:17 AM EDT

[#10]

thank you

Posted: 2/14/2016 10:05:55 AM EDT

[#11]

Quote History

Quoted:
Have not forgotten about this thread. I spent the day trying to get more knives ready for Heat Treat. It will probably be Wednesday before I get it done. Thanks for keeping up with the thread.

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This is an awesome thread- I've been a knife guy since my dad gave me a jack knife when I was 5...my tastes have changed a bit so this thread is right on point

Posted: 2/18/2016 12:25:31 AM EDT

[#12]

Well it is Wednesday. Had a pretty busy day in the shop. I had made a new High Temperature salt pot but never got around to run it. I had 18 knives ready to heat treat so I figured it would be good to get the salt pot running today.

Basically it is just a forge with a stainless tube in the middle. Got it going and it took a couple of hours to get it up to temperature and stabilized.

First I need to do what is called thermal cycling. I run the salt pot at 1600f or above for the first cycle.

The blades are soaked for approx 10 minutes. Then taken out and air cooled.

Hanging up cooling

Posted: 2/18/2016 12:50:45 AM EDT

[#13]

In this picture you can see a little bit of the pattern coming through.

And a rack full of knives.

I need to do 2 more cycles, one at 1500f and then 1450f. This takes quite some time. Each time I soak the blades 10 minutes. I do more than one blade so It goes a little faster but still took a few hours. The importance of doing this thermal cycling is to improve the grain structure of the steel. It also stabilizes the steel after the heat from forging and grinding.

Next I turn the salt pot back up to 1500f and start the soak again. Need to soak another 10-15 minutes after the salt temp stabilizes. I only put 3 blades in this time. It is hard to capture the quench by myself. So I did not even try. I pull the blade out of the salt after the soak and it has to go straight into the quench tank. Edge down and as straight in as possible. I use a commercial quench oil for my heat treating. Here is a shot of one of my quench tanks.

So what could possibly go wrong? This is arguably the most important step in the knife making process. I tell people you can take a mediocre steel and nail the heat treat to make a great knife, or some high end steel and screw up the HT and have a crappy knife. This is why I like to use known materials in my blades as much as possible. Most steels like a slightly different process. Whether it be the quench temperature or in the tempering. The steels I used like the same temp for the quench but a slightly different tempering process. If you do not get the temperature right before the quench ie too low, you could have a soft blade, Too high it might be brittle or even crack. You also need to know the quench medium. I have some steel that is water quench steel, though I use a very fast oil. Water is not forgiving at all. Heat treating is very important in the knife making process. I cannot stress this enough.

A little oil smoke in the shop.

Here is an oven full of quenched blades going through their first temper.

Posted: 2/18/2016 12:56:08 AM EDT

[#14]

Close up of a few blades.

The tempering process actually takes a very brittle blade and softens it to a usable hardness. Here again too hard and it will be chippy or could break. Too soft and it won't hold an edge. You need to find the happy medium. Tonight I put them all in at 400F for 2 hours. Tomorrow I will separate them out as some of them are O-1 which requires a higher tempering temperature. So they will get another 450F 2 hour soak.

That's it for today. Next we will get into finishing.

Posted: 2/18/2016 7:49:22 AM EDT

[#15]

I hope this thread never ends..

Posted: 2/18/2016 11:00:38 AM EDT

[#16]

Very cool stuff.

Posted: 2/18/2016 11:01:26 AM EDT

[#17]

I love this thread

Posted: 2/18/2016 8:39:32 PM EDT

[#18]

Thanks for walking us through the process. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is fascinated by it.

Posted: 2/19/2016 6:26:53 PM EDT

[#19]

Very cool thread, thanks for posting this!

Do you have a website or somewhere you sell your knives?

Posted: 2/20/2016 1:15:24 AM EDT

[#20]

Lots of pictures today. Did some finishing today. Started off after the final tempering laying out what I had.

Before I do any finish grinding I need to make sure they are all straight. The meteorite chunks seemed to cause some problems. The long strands are a different material than the matrix so it caused uneven stresses. This in turn caused warping in a couple of the blades. I needed to straighten them out. It all went pretty well. What was the worst that could happen??

This is the blade that warped the most.

Can't really see it in this shot. But it warped significantly. I will not send out a warped blade. SO I tried to straighten it.

The worst happened.

I let it cool a little too much out of the tempering oven and I lost the tip of the blade. Luckily I was able to regrind it to a shorter blade. I will post it later.

Here are the 3 blades I want to get done first.

They are ground to 220 grit on the 9" disc. The rest is done by hand. I am sure some are asking, Why?? Can't you finish faster with a machine?? Well yes and no. I lose a lot of control on the machine. I can adjust the grind slightly by hand and make lines come together easier than on a machine. I also get a much finer finish. I can always tell a machine finished blade due to tell tale marks. They can make a very nice knife look amateurish. I did the machine finishing and did not like the result. SO I went back to hand finishing. So let's get going.

Posted: 2/20/2016 1:24:21 AM EDT

[#21]

I start with the 400 grit and take out all the 220 scratches.

Then move to 500 grit. Each time I change the grit I also change the direction of sanding. This way I can easily see the previous grits scratches. Then to 600 and finally 800 grit. On the last grit I sand the length of the knife. Here is a comparison. Finished side compared to a 220 grit sanded knife.

Lighting is very important I have a bunch of lights both portable and fixed.

Posted: 2/20/2016 1:30:09 AM EDT

[#22]

Onto the next side. I tape off the finished side with 2 layers of tape.

Once both sides are done the magic is about to happen. Here is a little reminder what it looks like. Can't tell what is really happening on the blade yet.

It is now time to etch the blade to bring out the pattern. I use a Ferric Chloride etchant. The same stuff they use to etch printed circuit boards. Mixed 3-1 water to FCL.

Posted: 2/20/2016 1:31:39 AM EDT

[#23]

Well that's all for today. I will get back to you later.

Posted: 2/20/2016 1:39:05 AM EDT

[#24]

PSYCH

I etch the blade for 10 minutes then take it out and rub it down with 1500 grit sandpaper. I do this 3-4 times wanting a really deep etch. I have one more finishing step after this and the deep etch works best for this. So here is the blade.

Forgive the poor photography. It turned out pretty much exactly like I visioned. The black background is 1095 high carbon spring steel with star flecks and streaking of the meteorite. Here is the other blade. Not quite deep enough etch but I can finish it tomorrow.

That is all for today. More finishing tomorrow.

Posted: 2/20/2016 1:44:48 PM EDT

[#25]

Awesome.

I have a birthday coming up, just saying......

Posted: 2/20/2016 8:35:30 PM EDT

[#26]

Posted: 2/20/2016 9:16:12 PM EDT

[#27]

I love these type threads! Thanks for posting it.

Posted: 2/20/2016 9:56:18 PM EDT

[#28]

Awesome thread op.

Thanks for taking the time to share.

Txl

Posted: 2/20/2016 10:46:08 PM EDT

[#29]

So today I am going to finish the blades fully ready to put handles on. First take a look at the last blade I finished ready to etch. I will post at the end the finished product.

I use a parkerizing process to help protect the simple carbon steel and create a very black matrix with bright silver of the nickel bearing steel, Here is the Park Tank.

And 2 blades in the hot tub.

This makes the blade black and it now needs to be sanded with 2500grit.

And the second blade.

Posted: 2/20/2016 11:03:25 PM EDT

[#30]

I sand and re soak the blades 2 or 3 times sanding in between. This deposits the parkerizing in the valleys and makes a nice contrast.
First blade.

and second blade

These are now ready to start making the handle. That will be first of the week. I did however finish the other blade and put the handle on it. I just took pics of the end product. I know this thread was originally about the meteorite material. This blade is Cruforge V and 15n20. This one needed to be a ladder pattern. Here is the blade after etching and parkerizing.

The customer wanted this pattern. It was a copy of a knife he had and really liked using. He provided the handle material. It is Bos De Arc or Osage Orange. Used commonly for fence post in the mid-west. I normally do not do full tang knives. 3 brass pins hold it all together Here is a quick cell shot.

Next week putting handle on the meteorite blades.

Thanks for looking.

Posted: 2/20/2016 11:25:06 PM EDT

[#31]

Love your work! Do you have a website?

Posted: 2/20/2016 11:48:21 PM EDT

[#32]

Unfortunately I cannot afford to pay for a commercial account. I will PM my website info if you desire.

Thank you for all the kind words and the continued interest.

Posted: 2/21/2016 12:05:15 AM EDT

[#33]

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Quoted:
Unfortunately I cannot afford to pay for a commercial account. I will PM my website info if you desire.

Thank you for all the kind words and the continued interest.

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I would like to have a IM with regards to your website..........please.

Posted: 2/21/2016 9:24:01 AM EDT

[#34]

Quote History

Quoted:

I would like to have a IM with regards to your website..........please.

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Quoted:

Quoted:
Unfortunately I cannot afford to pay for a commercial account. I will PM my website info if you desire.

Thank you for all the kind words and the continued interest.

I would like to have a IM with regards to your website..........please.

Me too, please.

Posted: 2/21/2016 9:56:00 AM EDT

[#35]

Quote History

Quoted:

Me too, please.

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Quote History

Quoted:

Quoted:
Unfortunately I cannot afford to pay for a commercial account. I will PM my website info if you desire.

Thank you for all the kind words and the continued interest.

I would like to have a IM with regards to your website..........please.

Me too, please.

Same here. Your blades look beautiful!

Posted: 2/21/2016 11:26:39 AM EDT

[#36]

Quote History

Quoted:

Same here. Your blades look beautiful!

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Quote History

Quoted:

Quoted:
Unfortunately I cannot afford to pay for a commercial account. I will PM my website info if you desire.

Thank you for all the kind words and the continued interest.

I would like to have a IM with regards to your website..........please.

Me too, please.

Same here. Your blades look beautiful!

and me

Posted: 2/21/2016 1:29:54 PM EDT

[#37]

http://acrichardscustomknives.com

Nice stuff, not THAT expensive.

Posted: 2/21/2016 4:21:46 PM EDT

[#38]

Awesome work...you are an artist, sir.

That Osage Orange wood is about as hard as the steel

Posted: 2/22/2016 2:13:39 PM EDT

[#39]

Those are awesome, do you have a website or ordering information you could pm me?

Posted: 2/22/2016 2:23:05 PM EDT

[#40]

Posted: 2/23/2016 2:43:30 AM EDT

[#41]

Did not make any progress today. Spent the day re-organizing making room for a Panto-graph. Been wanting one for years and a student just purchased one for me. WOOO HOOO. Will get more done on Wednesday. Have to help build a house Tuesday.

Posted: 2/23/2016 2:00:43 PM EDT

[#42]

Very nice work !

Posted: 2/28/2016 5:33:12 PM EDT

[#43]

Well one of the drawbacks of being the sole operator is when stuff comes up I have to take care of it. I had some unexpected situations arise that prevented me from getting too much accomplished this week. I did however get the rest of the blades I heat treated finished to the etch. I still need to parkerize them but they are ready. Here are the blades ready for parkerizing including the 2 I have already done. I have a ton of work ahead of me.

To make up for the lack of posting I will show you how one way I test my heat treat. Here is a blade before the test. Pay particular attention to the tip.

Next hold it point down by the tang.

Now drop it onto the concrete floor point first.

Now inspect the point. If all is well there will be no effect on the blade. If it is to soft it will bend or deform, too hard it will either chip or even break the blade. This one turned out well.

Hopefully I get more into the assembly and final finish this week. I have a show this coming weekend. Plus I have promised 2 knives for the church youth group fundraiser on Saturday. I will be spending some serious extra time in the shop this week.

Posted: 2/28/2016 9:05:26 PM EDT

[#44]

Quote History

Quoted:
Well one of the drawbacks of being the sole operator is when stuff comes up I have to take care of it. I had some unexpected situations arise that prevented me from getting too much accomplished this week. I did however get the rest of the blades I heat treated finished to the etch. I still need to parkerize them but they are ready. Here are the blades ready for parkerizing including the 2 I have already done. I have a ton of work ahead of me.

http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j351/Chuck_Richards/Knife%20Projects/0227161449_zpstdxkixf4.jpg

To make up for the lack of posting I will show you how one way I test my heat treat. Here is a blade before the test. Pay particular attention to the tip.

http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j351/Chuck_Richards/Knife%20Projects/0227161303a_zpswn06e8ni.jpg

Next hold it point down by the tang.

http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j351/Chuck_Richards/Knife%20Projects/0227161303b_zpsiiyo3gw0.jpg

Now drop it onto the concrete floor point first.

http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j351/Chuck_Richards/Knife%20Projects/0227161303c_zpsvlumwhn1.jpg

Now inspect the point. If all is well there will be no effect on the blade. If it is to soft it will bend or deform, too hard it will either chip or even break the blade. This one turned out well.

http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j351/Chuck_Richards/Knife%20Projects/0227161304_zpsecxu3pw5.jpg

Hopefully I get more into the assembly and final finish this week. I have a show this coming weekend. Plus I have promised 2 knives for the church youth group fundraiser on Saturday. I will be spending some serious extra time in the shop this week.

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That top pic is orgasmic.

Posted: 2/29/2016 11:46:48 PM EDT

[#45]

Made a bit of progress today. First I parkerized the remaining blades so they are all to the same stage. Now I will be less likely to get distracted by unfinished projects. So I picked out 2 knives to begin fitting handles on.

First I prep the tangs for a piece of all-thread. I have done some pretty extensive testing and found when done right the stick tang is jsut as strong as a full tang without the weight. I have made hundreds of stick tang knives and not a single one has failed. Even my heavy duty choppers have all performed well. Even taking the American Bladesmith Society cut and bend test, where the knife is essentially destroyed. SO here is how I prep the tangs. Cut them to length and notch them to fit the All-Thread.

Then I Silver Braze the all thread onto the tang. This is a very High strength solder I used to braze carbide crushing hammer onto their holders. Looks like I forgat to take a pic of this one. Moving on, I have to grind the all thread to the same thickness as the Ricasso or less so the guard can slide on.

Here are all the parts that will go into making the handle.

The guards will be 303 Stainless with Phosphor Bronze and stainless spacers. The handles will be stabilized wood, black dyed sycamore and Black Walnut. I will also use 1/16th inch dia dowel pins and a 5/16th inch dia piece of stainless to make the nut to hold it all together.

Posted: 2/29/2016 11:55:25 PM EDT

[#46]

The barstock is too thick and has a mill finish so I need to mill down.

I cut the pieces to size that will fit the blade. Then I sand them to 400 grit getting them ready to put on the blade.

Need to paint them with Dykem so I can scribe the center line.

And scribing the center line.

Posted: 3/1/2016 12:02:23 AM EDT

[#47]

Marking the top and bottom of the slot.

Determining the width of the slot.

Milling the slot. First I drill a series of holes at least .020" smaller than the actual slot. Most drills will cut a slightly over sized hole so I make sure it will be small enough to actually mill the slot and remove all the drilled holes.