Thread: Knife making!

One of my friends decided to start his own blacksmithing shop. On Saturdays for a small fee he gives us access to the shop and tools, along with instruction. Last Saturday I got an idea and started working on a little something.



If I remember right that was taken right after It was quenched for hardening. Still fairly rough, but it's starting to look like a knife!

It's made from a single billet of twisted Damascus. Should look pretty good when it's polished and acid etched to bring out the contrast between the O1 tool steel and San Mai layers.

I would love a chance to do somthing like that! For now I have to stave off my knife and razor disease by making new scales/covers and lots of sanding since I don't have a real shop in which to work. Make sure to keep us posted

He's going to temper it during the week, and I'll get to mess with it more next weekend. I'll probably do the final shaping of the knife, then all the cleaning, polishing, and sharpening. I'm kind of excited to see what the final product will look like.

Originally Posted by Marshal

He's going to temper it during the week, and I'll get to mess with it more next weekend. I'll probably do the final shaping of the knife, then all the cleaning, polishing, and sharpening. I'm kind of excited to see what the final product will look like.

So are we!

Late updates, and a small correction on the materials. It's made from an 11 layer billet of 1095 and 15N20 carbon steels. We beat it into a square rod, then twisted it about 4 rotations and hammered it into the final billet that this was made from.

Last week I spent a few hours with a hand file cleaning off the corrosion and making the handle blend seemlessly into the blade. I also cleaned up some places and hit it with acid to bring out the pattern and get an idea what the final product will look like. This is where it was when I decided to pack it in for the night.

This weekend I actually started work on another billet, and in between hammering sessions I put work in on this knife to clean the rest of the scale off the handle and make the twists flow a little better. All that's left is to clean off the monkey tail and polish away the hand file scratches. As nice as this looks, I'm not sure I would do this a second time, because cleaning up those twists has eaten up a lot of time. Then again, it gave me something to do (aside from sipping whisky) while waiting on the metal of another billet to heat up so it wasn't a total loss.

And for kicks and grins, this is the other billet I started working on. Same materials and layer count (initially). What we did with this was stretch the billet out into a rectangle, then flipped it onto it's side to upset the grain pattern. Then we cut it into 8 pieces and forge welded it together. So if you're counting at this point it should be 88 layers, but it doesn't look it. Once that was squared up, we drove an axe down the center in an attempt to make a feather pattern. We kinda missed the mark, and there are some places where that last split is trying to come unwelded, but we did end up with a pretty interesting pattern. I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing with this yet, but this is what it looks like cleaned up and acid etched to bring out the pattern:



We'll make sure those cracks are straightened out before continuing, but honestly that isn't that bad considering neither of us had ever even attempted a feather pattern before. I can also see why very few people try this type of nonsense by hand. That was 5 hours of forge work just to get it to this point, and it will be several more before anything resembling a blade can come out of it.

Just out of curiousity gents. What is required to make, for instance a simple little sheath knife?

Regards

Geek

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Assuming you want to do it yourself and it is a basic knife, very little.
Some tool steel such as O1, L6 or O2, or failing that an old file you might buy at a garage sale. It has to be an old steel one, not a modern one.
A charcoal fire to anneal the steel in case of an old file.

Soemthing to shape the knife: files, belt sander, angle grinder, benchtop grinder, etc.
Sandpaper.
Some handle material. Can be anything really.

charcoal fire for bring the knife to critical temperature, and then a vegetable oil quench.
more sandpaper.

That's about it.

Thanks Bruno.

Was just a curiosity. Maybe something i would be interested in trying. How long would a small knife take to manufacture?

Geek

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