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The Newbies Arena Are you new to knife making? Here is all the help you will need.

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  #1  
Old 08-24-2014, 09:36 AM
AllanBeasley AllanBeasley is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Roswell, Georgia
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A legitimate oddball. A little pic heavy.


There's the file I started with. Old 8 inch reel mower file.


After the first bit of working on the belt sander/angle grinder


And there we have it a little deeper into the process.


And that's my second try at making a guard out of antler. The first one just looked terrible but it DID confirm I had the process worked out.


And the almost finished piece. Leopardwood scales.

This turned out WAY different than I thought it would going into it. The handle is kinda all the original piece of steel would allow. I thought about shortening the handle but if I grind past the hole in it from the original file it'll be TOO short. I also learned why I don't want to use an angle grinder to shave the brass pins down (Thought I was still as good as I used to be with a grinder, scorched the wood a little)

I did all of the work until polish on the blade by using the grinder to cut as much as possible off, then went to the belt sander to smooth it back down. I used bare hands and stopped as soon as the blade got hot to the touch, meaning the temperature stayed below 130 degrees or so. When it got too warm I dropped it in water to cool, dried it off and resumed work. I used a drum sander to do polish and ran into headaches like tool marks that disappeared then reappeared repeatedly even on the last grit. I will probably look at changing the direction of that final sanding on the high grit just to make the last few tool marks go away. I also keep running into scales not perfectly butting up to the guard which I assume is an issue with my lack of experience. I destroyed 4 drill bits getting the handle drilled for the pins and could use some advice on what to get to solve that. It was low speed drilling with oil to lubricate on a drill press using the minimum amount of pressure needed to see shavings come up. Still killed a bunch of bits. I know the whole package looks pretty weird, mostly because I insisted on the guard and the original piece of steel didn't have enough meat to make room for one. I made a compromise and the results show it.

On the up side, I DID learn that I can be WAY more patient working with steel than I can with wood. No clue why but I managed to get about 12 hours or so into this project without giving up or walking away and only lost a little sleep over it. This is the first time I did stock removal like this and first full size blade I've done from scratch like this so far. I have more files, found 10 inch mill files at HF for $3 a piece and cleaned the shelves out. The next one will have more room to make a better handle and guard.

In spite of its looks, the knife does feel REALLY easy to control in the hand and it's really different from what I'm used to.


Thanks for looking, the post was long because this was legitimately an experience in seeing where I have weak points and what I can do with the resources I have on hand.
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  #2  
Old 08-24-2014, 10:18 AM
Cthulhu Cthulhu is offline
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That is a goofy looking knife, and I mean that in the best way possible.

But it's by experimenting that we expand our horizons as artists. (Yes, I consider this an art form)

Anything you do that you learn something from is well worth the time spent.
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  #3  
Old 08-24-2014, 10:53 AM
AllanBeasley AllanBeasley is offline
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I agree, it IS an art. No doubt about that.
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  #4  
Old 08-24-2014, 04:53 PM
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NorCal Nate NorCal Nate is offline
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Very interesting knife..
I think you said you were going to make more knives out of HF files..I would strongly suggest you don't as they are most likely case hardened.. Everyone wants to use old files and what have ya as blade steel but if I were you I'd pick up some 1084/1080 which is actual blade steel.
The only files I would suggest to use as blade steel would be Nicholson files.. But for a newbie I'd still say use a known blade steel till you get a little more advanced though..
~Nate
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  #5  
Old 08-24-2014, 08:58 PM
AllanBeasley AllanBeasley is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NorCal Nate View Post
Very interesting knife..
I think you said you were going to make more knives out of HF files..I would strongly suggest you don't as they are most likely case hardened.. Everyone wants to use old files and what have ya as blade steel but if I were you I'd pick up some 1084/1080 which is actual blade steel.
The only files I would suggest to use as blade steel would be Nicholson files.. But for a newbie I'd still say use a known blade steel till you get a little more advanced though..
~Nate
That's definitely food for thought. Fortunately I only bought 3. I'm not out much except some shop time if they turn out poorly. I will definitely be on the lookout for better steel. I haven't found the blade steel anywhere I'd want to buy from yet and long story short none of my credit cards work online because of the wording of my street address. If Amazon has it, good news. I not it may be a bit of a wait.
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  #6  
Old 08-25-2014, 06:26 AM
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Crex Crex is offline
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Allan, I hate to be the one to point out the obvious. You are doing a lot of work the hard way and getting dubious results. Nothing wrong with the desire and effort, but working too hard at something when there are much easier more efficient ways. It is a shame to work that hard teaching yourself as you go.

I know you live reasonably close and if I had the time right now, I would be more than glad to round off some of the corners in the learning process. Once I get past the Trackrock Hammer-in the end of next month I should have a little "extra" time. Just until then my hours are packed full.

Not trying to dissuade you from proceeding in this adventure....don't stop. Just kind of pains me ta bit to see you struggling with some of the easier stuff. Nor-C is right about the HF files. Use them to remove metal until they are dull then chunk them in the recycle bin. They are case hardened and will not make a serviceable knife. Rebar will out perform then in the end results (not saying rebar is knife blade material, just better than HF files).
I am guessing here, but it sounds like you have no appreciable way to thermal cycle your blade steels and therefore are using files and other pre hardened steels. Tough way to go. There are many ways to procure suitable blade steels, but thermal cycling is a very big part of the process whether you buy or recycle.

If you can make it up to Trackrock for the Hammer-in, you can learn a whole lot in a short time that will make the whole process easier and make more sense. I'll even bait you with the offer of some known quality 1084 bar stock, but you have to show up to claim it.

By the way, fill out your profile in a little more detail and you may be surprised at the number of knifemakers living within a short drive of you.


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  #7  
Old 08-25-2014, 06:41 AM
AllanBeasley AllanBeasley is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crex View Post
Allan, I hate to be the one to point out the obvious. You are doing a lot of work the hard way and getting dubious results. Nothing wrong with the desire and effort, but working too hard at something when there are much easier more efficient ways. It is a shame to work that hard teaching yourself as you go.

I know you live reasonably close and if I had the time right now, I would be more than glad to round off some of the corners in the learning process. Once I get past the Trackrock Hammer-in the end of next month I should have a little "extra" time. Just until then my hours are packed full.

Not trying to dissuade you from proceeding in this adventure....don't stop. Just kind of pains me ta bit to see you struggling with some of the easier stuff. Nor-C is right about the HF files. Use them to remove metal until they are dull then chunk them in the recycle bin. They are case hardened and will not make a serviceable knife. Rebar will out perform then in the end results (not saying rebar is knife blade material, just better than HF files).
I am guessing here, but it sounds like you have no appreciable way to thermal cycle your blade steels and therefore are using files and other pre hardened steels. Tough way to go. There are many ways to procure suitable blade steels, but thermal cycling is a very big part of the process whether you buy or recycle.

If you can make it up to Trackrock for the Hammer-in, you can learn a whole lot in a short time that will make the whole process easier and make more sense. I'll even bait you with the offer of some known quality 1084 bar stock, but you have to show up to claim it.

By the way, fill out your profile in a little more detail and you may be surprised at the number of knifemakers living within a short drive of you.

You are right in about a million different ways. That was about 15 hours of work that I KNOW was probably about 10 hours too many for what I ended up making. I've got the time to wait it out and more blanks being shipped that just need scales. I will skip the files as that is definitely a bad route to take. I plan on getting something set up for thermal cycling as soon as I figure out what I need for a small rig that will do the job. And I will finish filling out the profile as soon as I get home from work today.
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  #8  
Old 08-25-2014, 08:24 AM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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QUOTE: I plan on getting something set up for thermal cycling as soon as I figure out what I need for a small rig that will do the job.

Try this:

http://www.knifenetwork.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=63917


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