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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 06-11-2012, 07:12 PM
TopShot1990 TopShot1990 is offline
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Newbie help.

Hello everyone, I am new to this site, and to knife making, with a few questions. My first project will be making a new blade foran Old Timer pocket knife with a broken tip. My questions are: which type of steel should I use?(i will be using the stock removal method), and what thickness I should buy. My next project will be making a skinning knife(or two), and again, I am not sure which type of steel(if I should use a different type or not), and again what thickness. These are probably stupid questions, but I have not been able to find where anyone mentions this. I have a very limited budget, so I don't want to buy the wrong steel blanks. Thank-you in advance for your info!
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  #2  
Old 06-11-2012, 08:28 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Welcome TopShot! Your questions aren't stupid, they're just out of sequence. I wouldn't try to tackle that Old Timer project until you're sure you know how to make a functional knife and that's down the road a ways. Almost no chance you can do the Old Timer now and not destroy it.

So, as to type of steel for the Old Timer you need to be able to decide what type it has if you want to match it. If you don't care about matching it then any good blade steel will work. What good blade steel should you get (that will be your next question) and the answer is : do you intend to heat treat the blade yourself or send it out? You see what I'm getting at? Leave that knife alone for now.

We can't advise you very well until we know something about you. What tools do you have or plan to get? Do you already have any skills that might help you with knife making? How do you plan to get your heat treating accomplished (forge?, torch?, send it out?, buy a furnace?).

Also, there are lots of knife makers in Florida so check the sticky thread at the top of the forum to see if anyone signed in to it that is near you. A visit to another maker's shop can significantly speed up the start-up process.

Another thing that will help is to get your hands on some catalogs from knife supply houses. I think catalogs are more useful and more complete than the few websites that cover our tools and materials. You can learn a lot very quickly if you have the catalogs: every tool, supply, and process we use is right there. Get a copy of Blade magazine or Knives Illustrated from a news stand, cutlery store, major book store, or gun shop. Use the magazine to find the advertisers and get the catalogs.

In short, make the hunting knife first. Buy carbon steel like 1080 if you plan to do the heat treat yourself, and stainless like 440C if you plan to send it out. As far as thickness is concerned, it's your knife so make it any way you want but I'd suggest 1/8" steel and no more than a 4" blade to start ....


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Last edited by Ray Rogers; 06-11-2012 at 08:33 PM.
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Old 06-11-2012, 08:42 PM
TopShot1990 TopShot1990 is offline
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Thank-you for the advice!, and it makes a lot of sense. As for tools I am saving now, I haven't bought anything yet, I just like to plan in advance, haha. I plan to purchase a belt Sander, table top style drill press, grinder/buffer, and whatever else would be suggested. I have been planning on using the stock removal method, because from the reading I have been doing, this sounds like a good starting point for a newbie such as myself. Me and my father have been looking at plans to build our own small forge, that we can use for heat treating. As for my experience, nothing along these lines, but I am in construction, and have been working with tools most of my life, so I know my way around tools, just not heat treatment, blade profiling, fine polishing etc. I am looking for a knife maker in the north west Florida area, because unfortunately, I learn more by doing, than reading. Thank-you again for the help!. Nate
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Old 06-11-2012, 09:35 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Nate,

That sounds like a fair plan. Many knife makers (such as myself) prefer to make our knives by stock removal - have for 17 years now, probably always will. Even if you decide to forge your blades later everything you learned doing stock removal will be very important because even forged blades have to be ground. A lot of guys don't think about that at first but you can't really pound a hot piece of steel into a nice, flat, shiny blade with crisp grind lines on it. So, you'll end up doing some grinding no matter what.

Small forges are easy - I have a really small forge on my website (it runs on D cell batteries!). That one is almost a toy but the principles are the same, just make it slightly larger.

You could consider making your first blade out of stainless by files and sandpaper. Then send it off for heat treatment (about $5). That way, you can get started right away with minimal investment ....

You don't need a lot of power tools to make knives - files and sandpaper will get it done and it's not a bad idea to make your first blade or two that way. Nothing teaches you better about exactly what you want a power tool to do than first trying to do it by hand. Power tools make it faster, that's all. They also make mistakes faster so consider the files and sandpaper. Also, the files will always be useful - they get used no matter how much machinery you may end up with.


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Old 06-11-2012, 09:42 PM
TopShot1990 TopShot1990 is offline
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Ray, if only you lived in Florida(well, maby thank god for you, because I would probably annoy the crap outta you!). Sounds to me like my first investment will be a good set of files, then I will upgrade later on. I will start off by making a hunter to cut my teeth on. Do you have instructions on how to build a forge, or know of a design I should start with?, something that will not take up too much space since I only have a 14'x14' shop to work in
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Old 06-12-2012, 08:56 AM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Florida is too hot for me, I live in 'winter world', otherwise known as Alaska South. We get wintery weather at least 7 months of the year. Even now, we have 30 F in the mornings.

I have lots of forge building info on my site but no step by step directions to build a specific forge. That doesn't matter much though because forges are pretty simple. Forges consist of two major assemblies: the forge body and the burner.

Forge bodies are nothing more than some kind of steel tube (tube, not box) with some insulating wool inside. The ends of the tube are closed somehow and at least one end has a small hole in it to allow your work piece to enter the forge. Closing the end of the forge can be as complicated as welding a plate over the end and covering it with insulation or as simple as standing a few fire bricks at the end of the tube. Literally, a forge body can be assembled in 15 minutes once you have the materials. For small forges, one of my favorite tubes is a section of cheap stove pipe. You can also use a sheet of thin steel and roll it into a tube. Thin and light weight is fine. All the tube is for is to provide a form to support the ceramic wool insulation.

The burner can be as simple as my Dirt Simple burner design - which isn't a flexible, fancy design but it is very simple and very cheap to build. Good enough to get your feet wet. Or, there are pre-made burners you can buy if you're feeling wealthy. For heat treating, even my Dirt Simple burner would do but if you want to forge blades or eventually even make damascus I much prefer to use a forced air burner. These can be assembled from hardware store parts very easily.

Anyway, look at these for some ideas:

http://www.rayrogers.com/miniforge.htm

http://www.rayrogers.com/forge2.htm

Remember, these are just for ideas. Play mix and match and read the other links at the end of the forge2 page. By the time you're done, you should have a fair idea of the many different ways a forge can be assembled. Hopefully, some other guys will chime in here soon and point you at their forge building pages, seems like everybody has one. Then you can come back here and ask questions ...


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Last edited by Ray Rogers; 06-12-2012 at 08:59 AM.
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Old 06-12-2012, 11:11 AM
TopShot1990 TopShot1990 is offline
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Well I'm a true Florida boy, I have never lived outside of the state, and don't much care for the cold, I don't see how you do it. I would like to eventually try forging blades, and even give damascus steel making a go, but I think that is a while off!. I have seen a lot of people using old saw blades for blade stock, would you suggest going this rout, or buying some steel off the internet for my first go at it?
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Old 06-12-2012, 12:25 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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No, I definitely would not suggest trying to use any type of salvaged steel for your blades at this point. That can easily cause a lot more trouble than it's worth. Good blade steel is actually fairly cheap and if we know exactly what steel you are using then we can give you accurate advice about how to heat treat it. Mystery steel is best left for later when you understand more about how to tell if an unknown steel has blade potential.

Go to alphaknifesupply.com and see if you can get some 1080 or 1084 .....


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Old 06-12-2012, 02:09 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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If you are going to be running a forge in that 14'X14' shop of you're I would definitely get some good ventilation installed before using any forge. Gas forges really push out the carbon monoxide and there have been a couple of makers on these boards who have posted close calls with it. If all you will be doing is heat treating simple steels then I would make a long bodied forge with a single burner with a pass-through port on the back side. I have one, posted below, that is 17" deep and can heat treat a blade up to at least 24".
IMG_0146.JPG
As you can tell, the body if from a large mailbox. It's lined with 3 one inch thin layers of ceramic insulating matting and coated with Mizzou. The top part of the the opening is restricted with a sheet in Insboard cut to size. It has a single blown burner and what you see is all there is to it. There are no internal parts or any set screws.

The gas line comes up from the tank against the back wall and feeds into the air tube through a plug in a T-connector via a ball valve, needle valve and a brass nipple. The ball valve serves as an emergency shut off and to assist in lighting the forge. There is usually an air hose attached to the pipe just below the gate valve but it's attached to the other forge at this time. The gate valve adjusts the air flow which is definitely necessary being that I'm using a bounce house blower as an air supply. The wire on the side is to the thermocouple to my pyrometer.

Doug


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Old 06-12-2012, 02:36 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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Here's my other forge to show a different construction method. It has a 3" diameter by 7" fire chamber.
IMG_0148.JPG
This was cast from a castable refractory. In this case I used Cast-O-Lite. I had to use a box form with a piece of 3" PCV pipe to from the fire chamber. I had to use a carbide masonry bit to make the hole for the burner tube, which was originally a 1" but was replaced by a 3/4" tube when it was rebuilt. It also originally was surrounded by insulating brick that was cut to fit inside the frame that was made with aluminum angle iron. The "doors", front and back, are Insboard that fit inside the frame.

When I rebuilt the forge, a process accelerated by knocking it off the stand. I took out the cut insulating brick on the side the burner pipe enters from, pop riveted another piece of aluminum angle iron to the frame of the forge and secured the new 3/4" burner tube to it with a U-bolt. I then temporarily attached wood to the frame on that side to make a form and filled the space with Mizzou, sealing the sides of the burner pipe. The rest of the plumbing is like the larger forge.

I use this forge for forging only but it could be used to heat treat a blade probably up to a foot long. It might have been more expensive to build due to the aluminum angle iron. If I were to build one again like this I would forget the insulating brick and just cast the forge body with thicker walls. All that I would use a metal frame for would be to hold the Insboard doors in place.

Doug


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Old 06-12-2012, 03:27 PM
TopShot1990 TopShot1990 is offline
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Awesome, thank you guys for all the advice, and for answering all of my newbie questions!
I am actually thinking of building something small enough that I can use it outside, and then move it inside for storage after I have finished, and it has cooled, just because I don't want to die from carbon monoxide, and I'm not sure I can convince my dad into letting me cut ventilation holes in his shed. That is the only work space I have at the moment, since I currently live in an apartment. It sounds like it won't be too hard to make, from all of the step by step guidance. I think my first attempt will be a medium sized skinning knife, with a good amount of belly too it. Nothing too fancy, just something to get my feet wet with, and something I can use(hopefully) this hunting season. Thanks again guys. Nate
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Old 06-13-2012, 03:33 PM
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smithy smithy is offline
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Yes, thank you guys very much. You answered a lot of mine also.
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