Blacksmithing: Knife on page 4!! (Page 2 of 3)
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Sorry for the delays here folks. I have had bad weather/wind/work keeping me from trying to burn myself but I went after that RR spike Tomahawk today. I am drifting my own eye on this one but my drift is hinky...at best so I will probably finish the eye out with my milling machine..
We want to start with a RR spike with a HC stamped on the top. That stands for high carbon and you can harden it to be useful. 
I am gonna drift the eye first right here(In retrospect it should have been about an inch more forward.) 
We have it starting to spread(I stopped in the middle to shape another spike into a more....driftish shape.) 
We have a semblance of a hole, so now we will hammer down the front. Get it to a nice high heat and just beat the hell out of it to thin this part out. 
Now that we have the front somewhat shaped here we will draw out the spike to balance it out a bit more. 
On to the grinding wheel/ flap wheel. My helper who likes to drink out of/knock over my quench tank. 
And here it is next to a G19 for size comparison. The blade before the bevel is about 3/16 thick so it is plenty sturdy. 
That whole thing took about 9 heats and most of those were drifting the eye out and evening out the head. Questions? Notice all those hammer marks? That is because I suck at hammer control and I am using store bought hammers with sharp edges. Some more belt sander time will make those non existent. |
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^^^^^
knuckle duster type skriker steel, for flint and steel fire making?.. K. |
My GF broke the " C " button on our laptop and now it doesn't work half the time...
My conservative commonwealth's 230ish year old state seal is a direct COC violation. Our founding fathers approved of images of bared breasts...
My conservative commonwealth's 230ish year old state seal is a direct COC violation. Our founding fathers approved of images of bared breasts...
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Originally Posted By Kar15:
^^^^^ knuckle duster type skriker steel, for flint and steel fire making?.. K. You got any flint? I will make 2 and trade you one of them for a quantity of flint since I have none in my region. |
Life is a one shot deal, don't live with regret.
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i had two peices at one point, where they are now?.. your guess = mine...
they were either low grade or something anyway as they didn't throw much of a spark, heck they may not have even been real flint for all i know i never managed to get a fire of of them. but then again it was some trinket type set that was given to me when i was in cub scouts back in elementary school iirc... K. |
My GF broke the " C " button on our laptop and now it doesn't work half the time...
My conservative commonwealth's 230ish year old state seal is a direct COC violation. Our founding fathers approved of images of bared breasts...
My conservative commonwealth's 230ish year old state seal is a direct COC violation. Our founding fathers approved of images of bared breasts...
| Thanks for posting the link to this thread over in my Bridge spike knife thread. A lot of useful information here for both beginners and more advanced iron smashers. |
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Originally Posted By km:
Thanks for posting the link to this thread over in my Bridge spike knife thread. A lot of useful information here for both beginners and more advanced iron smashers. +1 awesome thread i've got a thread going in the blade forums about by basic blacksmithing/knife making class. knife making class thread i'm starting off slow, but i'm learning a lot! now i just need to start accumulating the equipment to start forging at home. |
For making knives I think a gas forge offers more control than coal or charcoal. So much of the coal that is available now is very dirty and high in sulfur. That doesn't work good for forge welding. I have been using good hardwood charcoal for welding. Charcoal briquettes won't work for welding or any good forging. They have impurities and filler in them. I have been buying red oak all wood charcoal and it works well. The chunks are too large and must be broken up into smaller pieces before use. Good coal is now very expensive. Costs about $20/50 lb bag now. If you can't get it locally shipping makes it even more expensive. The only coal we can get local here is stoker coal. It costs about $12/100 lbs and is dirty with a lot of sulfur. It takes a while to get it to coke up good and makes a lot of clinkers. (see posts above for the OP's opinion of clinkers  )
I now have 4 forges, one and 2 burner gas, antique coal forge and a break drum coal forge. |
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Sarcasm (n.) - the ability to insult idiots without them realizing it.
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Originally Posted By km:
For making knives I think a gas forge offers more control than coal or charcoal. So much of the coal that is available now is very dirty and high in sulfur. That doesn't work good for forge welding. I have been using good hardwood charcoal for welding. Charcoal briquettes won't work for welding or any good forging. They have impurities and filler in them. I have been buying red oak all wood charcoal and it works well. The chunks are too large and must be broken up into smaller pieces before use. Good coal is now very expensive. Costs about $20/50 lb bag now. If you can't get it locally shipping makes it even more expensive. The only coal we can get local here is stoker coal. It costs about $12/100 lbs and is dirty with a lot of sulfur. It takes a while to get it to coke up good and makes a lot of clinkers. (see posts above for the OP's opinion of clinkers )
I now have 4 forges, one and 2 burner gas, antique coal forge and a break drum coal forge. I totally agree on the gas forge for a number of reasons, forge welding being one of them. I think the only reason I would suggest a coal forge for most people is the low cost of getting into one if you have basic metal fab skills. For moving metal around on a 6 inch blade knife there is not much wrong with them if you can find coal. I only have Anthracite at the moment for coal but with a spray bottle of water you can make it work. I'm to the point where a RR spike knife takes me about 4 heats to get the basic shape and any twisting I want done. After that it is sander/shaping work and a final heat for hardening/tempering. I honestly don't do that much forge welding in the forge. I will use a torch since I don't have my own gas furnace and it is damn near impossible to get a good cavity with anthracite. When I get my gas forge finished and this power hammer done I will probably start making damascus. |
Life is a one shot deal, don't live with regret.
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Originally Posted By Berzerker77:
Originally Posted By km:
For making knives I think a gas forge offers more control than coal or charcoal. So much of the coal that is available now is very dirty and high in sulfur. That doesn't work good for forge welding. I have been using good hardwood charcoal for welding. Charcoal briquettes won't work for welding or any good forging. They have impurities and filler in them. I have been buying red oak all wood charcoal and it works well. The chunks are too large and must be broken up into smaller pieces before use. Good coal is now very expensive. Costs about $20/50 lb bag now. If you can't get it locally shipping makes it even more expensive. The only coal we can get local here is stoker coal. It costs about $12/100 lbs and is dirty with a lot of sulfur. It takes a while to get it to coke up good and makes a lot of clinkers. (see posts above for the OP's opinion of clinkers )
I now have 4 forges, one and 2 burner gas, antique coal forge and a break drum coal forge. I totally agree on the gas forge for a number of reasons, forge welding being one of them. I think the only reason I would suggest a coal forge for most people is the low cost of getting into one if you have basic metal fab skills. For moving metal around on a 6 inch blade knife there is not much wrong with them if you can find coal. I only have Anthracite at the moment for coal but with a spray bottle of water you can make it work. I'm to the point where a RR spike knife takes me about 4 heats to get the basic shape and any twisting I want done. After that it is sander/shaping work and a final heat for hardening/tempering. I honestly don't do that much forge welding in the forge. I will use a torch since I don't have my own gas furnace and it is damn near impossible to get a good cavity with anthracite. When I get my gas forge finished and this power hammer done I will probably start making damascus. Gas forges can be hard to weld in for 2 reasons. The chemistry of the fire is different and the big one is that with many gas forges it is hard to get them hot enough. With good coal I usually use plain borax for flux. Last Sunday using charcoal I was welding without any flux. With gas it takes different flux to allow welding at lower temps. If you aren't going to weld gas works excellent. In fact if you are buying a new forge a gas fired one will be cheaper to purchase than a solid fuel. I have a homemade single burner and a NC Forge Whisper Momma 2 burner. The most valuable part of the single burner is the gas regulator. NC Whisper Momma |
.Sarcasm is one of the services I offer.
Sarcasm (n.) - the ability to insult idiots without them realizing it.
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Originally Posted By km:
USPS brought me 60 of these today. What should I make? http://keithmillerphotography.com/show/knives/DSC_0390web.jpg Well, if you have not made a spike knife yet I would say one of those. I like to make a 1.5 turn twist in mine toward the head first and then draw the blade out a bit. Start with hammering on the edges to form the blade if you want more body/less grinding. It will pretty much form your bevel for you and then you just squeeze the middle down and out. I use the belt sander to shape the spine of the blade and finish the radius on the point before packing the bevel all the way. If those have a HC stamp on top then a warm salt water quench will get you about the max hardness you are going to get with what equates to roughly 1050 steel. I don't even temper mine and they hold an edge pretty well without being brittle. |
Life is a one shot deal, don't live with regret.
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Originally Posted By Berzerker77:
Originally Posted By km:
USPS brought me 60 of these today. What should I make? http://keithmillerphotography.com/show/knives/DSC_0390web.jpg Well, if you have not made a spike knife yet I would say one of those. I like to make a 1.5 turn twist in mine toward the head first and then draw the blade out a bit. Start with hammering on the edges to form the blade if you want more body/less grinding. It will pretty much form your bevel for you and then you just squeeze the middle down and out. I use the belt sander to shape the spine of the blade and finish the radius on the point before packing the bevel all the way. If those have a HC stamp on top then a warm salt water quench will get you about the max hardness you are going to get with what equates to roughly 1050 steel. I don't even temper mine and they hold an edge pretty well without being brittle. They are all HC. I was glad to see that. I bought them to make a bunch of them into knives. may try some other things too. That hawk you made looks like it would be fun to try. |
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One of my pitfalls on that one was the blade drop. I left the long flange in place before forming it and it made a sharp angle which could be a fracture point. I would suggest pushing the long flange into the head a little before drawing out the blade. Once you start to fan the blade portion, judicious use of a 3/8 fuller should get you a more extreme spread and be more hatchet like. Also hot rasping will smooth it down quite a bit and help make the bevel shape longer and easier to split wigs/skulls/wood with. Good luck and keep us updated!
I gotta go play Army for the weekend so I will check back in Monday. |
Life is a one shot deal, don't live with regret.
So I have been doing my acquiring thing of late to get more tools(This is worse than BRD) and I came across another blacksmith who has just upgraded his belt sander. Picked this up for 75 bucks. We are gonna call her Sandy. It is a 2x72 belt sander with a 9 inch contact wheel. I will be putting a flat grind platen on it in the near future.
Now a word on material. Go to antique stores. Lots of them. You will find a plethora of old worn out tools for cheap prices. These files cost me about 2 dollars a piece and are American made. Cood high carbon steel for hardening/tempering. Get the big ones and you will have material for about 2 medium knives per file. Incredibly low cost in the long run. Next, go to woodworking stores and find you some good stabilized wood for scales or find some antler at a flea market. These 2 racks cost me 20 bucks total. 
Another good source if you want a big hacking blade will be a farrier's rasp. They have large serrations which give a really nice spine decoration. We will follow the production of this 9 inch bladed bowie as I go along with it. 
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Life is a one shot deal, don't live with regret.
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A question for OP.
I have a farriers forge similar to what you have, my question is what type /kind of fire resistant mortar would be advised to fill the cast iron bowl? And possible source of said mortar. Thanks in advance, I appreciate you posting about this subject. 
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Originally Posted By KorinaBrother:
A question for OP. I have a farriers forge similar to what you have, my question is what type /kind of fire resistant mortar would be advised to fill the cast iron bowl? And possible source of said mortar. Thanks in advance, I appreciate you posting about this subject. What you are looking for is "refractory cement". I found it at a local builders supply place. There is a 2600 and a 3000 degree variety. I would suggest the 3k degree for long life. |
Life is a one shot deal, don't live with regret.
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Originally Posted By Berzerker77:
Originally Posted By KorinaBrother:
A question for OP. I have a farriers forge similar to what you have, my question is what type /kind of fire resistant mortar would be advised to fill the cast iron bowl? And possible source of said mortar. Thanks in advance, I appreciate you posting about this subject. What you are looking for is "refractory cement". I found it at a local builders supply place. There is a 2600 and a 3000 degree variety. I would suggest the 3k degree for long life. if you know any one that works at a steel mill....they have the best refractory ever.....4k+ rated.....they use it in the ladles and such. |
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Here might be a couple forge links of interest. http://ronreil.abana.org/design1.shtml http://ronreil.abana.org/burner.gif http://www.hybridburners.com/index.html A great place to start http://ronreil.abana.org/sitemap.html |
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Well it has been a grip hasn't it friends? Work, inclement weather and general bullshit have conspired to keep me out of the forge so here we go with the latest.
I've been trying to build a knife for a fellow and it has not been working right. I can't find the soul of what he wants so I took a break from it 3 hours after starting and looked around the shop. These things caught my eye. A half round double sided rasp, some overly curved antler and a steerl ball bearing. bout 1.25 inches. I think it was out of a semi wheel bearing. 
So I'm looking at this antler curve and drinking a delicious ice water when it hits me. Lets make a cool ass knife that will scare hadji shitless when I deploy again. Time for prep work! I don't like using tongs on knife blade work. Too unwieldy. So being the lazy bitch that I am, I welded it to this 3/4x3/8 scrap. Suck it tongs! 
Now this rasp has those awesome punch scrape thingies(technical term) that make snake scales. Lets get mideval and serpentine...y First we gotta flatten down the points back into their homes, follow the grain and just put them back where they came from., also make the pointy thingy on the end. 
Now I need to march my blade curve to the opposite direction of the handle. Lets get some sinewey symmetry going on here 
Ok, basic blade shape is good to go. I'm happy with it so it is time to drag out my tang for the antler. 
Draw and taper 
Ima need to get that thing through this antler, Drill holes in the antler from both ends till they intersect. Then lock the blade in a vise and heat up the tang with a torch. Hammer antler down on it and you have a nicely fitted handle.....that smells like burnt hair. 
Now we need a crossguard. I'm just gonna use that scrap that I had this blade welded to. Punch a slot for the blade., insert blade and hammer shut. Maddening how easy it isn't. 
This is what it looks like after a little sander work 
And this is what it looks like with the crossguard. I like to think it looks pretty badass. Still about 4 hours of finishing work to make it prettified. Also. If you are gonna tell me how worthless the design is and that a hidden tang is not strong enough for serious work, suck my balls. Whip out your knifeology degree and the knife fighting trophies you have that say it has to be full tang to be worth a shit. 
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| Oh, do keep this going. That looks awesome! |
THe ARFCOM commando regiment is waiting for the word to pop the covers off their P-mags, don their airsoft assault vests, and charge! They'll make it about three feet befor the heart attack kills them, but they'll die screaming MOLON LABAAAAGAHAGAHA!!!
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"Also. If you are gonna tell me how worthless the design is and that a hidden tang is not strong enough for serious work, suck my balls. Whip out your knifeology degree and the knife fighting trophies you have that say it has to be full tang to be worth a shit."
Stick/Hidden tangs blow 
Just kidding! I actually prefer them. They seem to hold up just fine if you use your knife like a knife....and even if you don't sometimes. I like the light weight benefits too. |
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Lookin good. The only part I have issues with is the unknown steels. For the HC spikes you know roughly what they are and as long as you don't expect great performance you can get a decent heat treat out of them for a knife. They'll be a bit soft but no worse than many commercial blades and certainly not so soft they aren't great knives for regular use if you don't mind sharpening a bit more often than something harder. They'll be very tough and hold up well to abuse. Once you start using files/rasps and hammer heads you're into guesswork unless you know who's it is, what generation, and what that company used for that product at that time.
By the time it's all said and done, high carbon steel really isn't that expensive to buy new. I get 28' of mixed 3/16" and 1/8" thick by 1 to 1 1/2" 1080 plus a big chunk of 1075 for about $100 including shipping. Most of it is 1 1/2 wide, split between the two thicknesses. You can also order smaller chunks a variety of places, or get round stock, which is handier for forging things other than flat knives.
I do stock removal, but use standard 1080 for the less difficult heat treat. Without accurate temp control most fancier steels cannot be given a proper heat treat and wind up not as good for blades as 1080 and similar steels such as the 15n20 and 1050-1084. Once you hit 1095 or any of the more complex steels you need fairly precise temps for a significant soak time to get a good heat treat. |
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Originally Posted By Remyrw:
Lookin good. The only part I have issues with is the unknown steels. For the HC spikes you know roughly what they are and as long as you don't expect great performance you can get a decent heat treat out of them for a knife. They'll be a bit soft but no worse than many commercial blades and certainly not so soft they aren't great knives for regular use if you don't mind sharpening a bit more often than something harder. They'll be very tough and hold up well to abuse. Once you start using files/rasps and hammer heads you're into guesswork unless you know who's it is, what generation, and what that company used for that product at that time. By the time it's all said and done, high carbon steel really isn't that expensive to buy new. I get 28' of mixed 3/16" and 1/8" thick by 1 to 1 1/2" 1080 plus a big chunk of 1075 for about $100 including shipping. Most of it is 1 1/2 wide, split between the two thicknesses. You can also order smaller chunks a variety of places, or get round stock, which is handier for forging things other than flat knives.
I do stock removal, but use standard 1080 for the less difficult heat treat. Without accurate temp control most fancier steels cannot be given a proper heat treat and wind up not as good for blades as 1080 and similar steels such as the 15n20 and 1050-1084. Once you hit 1095 or any of the more complex steels you need fairly precise temps for a significant soak time to get a good heat treat. I'm tracking on the unknown steels and I have something that I do to make sure I get closer. I will take an unused portion of the steel that I use and make three rods. One is left annealed as a control group. The second one is heated to critical and oil quenched in approx 150 degree oil to see how hardenable it is. The third is heated, quenched and then tempered to see what kind of draw down I will get with what temp and time. When I have it where I want it I will treat the knife that way. I use antique rasps for the most part so being mass produced and for efficiency/cheapness they were normally made with common carbon steel from what I've found. It is not the most specific test to be sure but the point of this knife is art as much as utility. I love the scale look and I am going to coat the spine with premix refractory grout and do a differential quench on it. I'm a blacksmith, not a custom knifemaker so as long as it will hold an edge and I can get a tough spine I'm happy. This is for putting holes/slashes in flesh and I think it will work. |
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Nice system. I can see where that'd give you enough info to work with, even if occasionally the info it gives is "oops, not this steel". I Definitely agree with it being as much art as anything else, even with known steels, I like to think of my results as functional art rather than just knives. This can only be more true of forged work.
You might consider a fourth test, or maybe a slight variation of the second or third. Let it sit a little longer. Even just a couple minutes a little past critical but without going too much over on the temp will make a huge difference in the results on a lot of steels. Quite a few of the standard high carbon steels want anywhere from a minute or two to ten or fifteen minutes at a shade or two brighter than critical. Even if you don't let them soak the full time, and the temp isn't perfectly steady, the result will be better than no soak. |
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| I'll give a longer soak a try. My coal forge does not have a large enough pit to heat the entire blade at once over about 5 inches so I do most of my heating for heat treat with a rosebud on an oxy/acet setup. I will try a two minute soak time on it and see how she fares. Thanks for the tip. |
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Hmmm. I'm trying to think of ideas to help use the forge for longer pieces like a large knife. The problem is that with a small forge you can't really put in a pipe baffle because you'd lose too much heat. Either you run the forge so hot you're damaging it or your baffle doesn't get hot enough to do the job. Bah, nothing comes to mind other than just using a bigger forge, which increases your costs all around and from a survival perspective it uses a lot more fuel which is an obvious problem if supplies aren't a phone call away.
The solution if you planned to regularly HT longer stuff might be to just make another forge specifically for that kind of work. It would be suitable for things like picks, larger knives, scythes, anything long and relatively narrow. If you set it up with maybe two blower entries and kept it narrow so you weren't wasting fuel where it wasn't needed it might be practical. |
http://blog.wolftactical.us/
http://blades.wolf-tac.com/
http://blades.wolf-tac.com/
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Lots of links on the subject of steels and working them.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/716812-Rosetta-Stone-of-Metallurgy-Lots-of-HT-info-here Excellent run down on steel as applied to knife making. This is one of the links at the above link, but Mr. Cashen's stuff deserves it's own link. He and Stacy Apelt are the gurus on the subject for Bladeforums, and probably forget more every day about steel and working with it than I have ever known. Most of what I know I learned from them, and pretty much everything I learned elsewhere was checked with them to make sure it wasn't BS. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/threads/673173-Working-the-three-steel-types |
http://blog.wolftactical.us/
http://blades.wolf-tac.com/
http://blades.wolf-tac.com/
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This thread is too good to let go to the archive like my blacksmithing at the maze thread did. Gotta give it a little  bump. I have the blacksmith shop set up at the maze again this year.http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_4/352949_Blacksmithing_again_at_the_maze_.html There is a lot of good information in this thread for anyone who wants to try some blacksmithing. |
.Sarcasm is one of the services I offer.
Sarcasm (n.) - the ability to insult idiots without them realizing it.
Sarcasm (n.) - the ability to insult idiots without them realizing it.
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Originally Posted By Berzerker77:
Well it has been a grip hasn't it friends? Work, inclement weather and general bullshit have conspired to keep me out of the forge so here we go with the latest. I've been trying to build a knife for a fellow and it has not been working right. I can't find the soul of what he wants so I took a break from it 3 hours after starting and looked around the shop. These things caught my eye. A half round double sided rasp, some overly curved antler and a steerl ball bearing. bout 1.25 inches. I think it was out of a semi wheel bearing. [snip] Also. If you are gonna tell me how worthless the design is and that a hidden tang is not strong enough for serious work, suck my balls. Whip out your knifeology degree and the knife fighting trophies you have that say it has to be full tang to be worth a shit. 
I like your style!!!!! |
