Teaching myself another skill, knife making

[funk]

I was looking to get a good survival knife but didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars on one. Found a company that sells heat and cryogenically treated blanks. Bought a couple and here are the results.



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[newmisty]

Sweet handles....any pics of the process?

[Sampson]

Very nice, any chance you can provide some more info? I am a rock guy and have wanted to do some stone scales on knives but most of the blaks i see for sale are cheap chinese made which i wont buy. When you say they sell the blanks, i assume they come ground and beveled but unsharpened and without handles? Does the place you buy them have a website so i could check it out? Any other details you want to share would be appreciated.

[j-son]

I like knives.

what type of steel?

I like the last photo best.
a leather lanyard with bone bead would look great.

[newmisty]

Gotta admit the grain on the first one is sexy!

[Argentium]

The art of knife making is a great tool to have. I helped out a guy who was a serious knife and sword maker. This guy was really hardcore; he custom made his own steel blooms using a table-top induction furnace! He selected what type of alloy to start with (% carbon and alloy amounts), melted the steel, cast the blooms and then hand-forged his blanks using the Damascus-type forging method. He did his own heat and cryogenic treatments.

I helped him out by providing small quantities of raw materials; steels, carburizers and alloys (manganese, chromium, nickel and moly). He made some beautiful Damascus style knife and sword blades, very pricy!

[Book]

Sweet handles....any pics of the process?

From Google search: http://www.survive-gear.com/survive-news

[funk]

I bought all my blades from knifekits.com. My self education consisted of watching youtube videos. Should probably add that I am the owner of a one-man furniture/cabinet shop, so I have a few stationary sanders that take alot of the drudgery out of the process. That being said, even a few basic tools would provide the same end result, just not as quick.

This is the only progress pic I took. In order to make the handles as solid and weather resistant as possible, I stabilized them in a vacuum chamber. I used the vacuum pump from my veneer press, two cans of wood hardener and a 1/2 gallon pickle jar. All the air in the wood pores is replaced with hardener. The end result is a 100% stable piece if "plastic" wood.

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[Savage]

Nice job! I'd become a violin maker but I can't drive a nail. :y:

[Brio]

Those're beautifull!! I cherish handmade tools as anybody who appreciates quality. Sharpening is a skill too. I've taken a couple courses in sharpening everything from a scythe to a planer blade and there's nothing like a well honed knife. Good thread.

[newmisty]

Funny how gratifying sharpening a chisel or block plane can be. :biggrin:

[Brio]

Funny how gratifying sharpening a chisel or block plane can be. :biggrin:

LOL yes, getting it to that perfection where wood just melts away from the tip. I get all my chisels from Lee Valley Tools, incredible quality and selection.

[goldie40]

here's one of several different knives that I made out of lawn mower blades, these are heavy duty and can be hammered down thru firewood or even a piece of tin old saw blades make great knives also.
http://i672.photobucket.com/albums/vv89/cornhusker09/002-25.jpg
http://i672.photobucket.com/albums/vv89/cornhusker09/006-5.jpg

[funk]

Nice work goldie, in the future I plan to turn some old mill files into knives. Kind of an addictive past time. Just need to get the proper belts for my machinery, metal pretty much destroys everything I have setup for wood.

[WhyKnow]

I put a few handles on blades when I was in school. It is very satisfying. There are a number of suppliers of fun blades to work with. I ordered from Sheffield a few times. One can also buy a nice knife and replace the handle.
Using the wood hardener in a vacuum/pressure chamber is very important to keep the nice finish seems/margins over time. I made handles out of wood, ivory, bone and antler. Most of my ivory and bone has shrunk quite a bit. Silver was $4/oz at the time and I had access to casting equipment, but never did the nice guards and pommels I planned.
I lived IN the knife shop under a tarp in the main production area. It was producing >50k inexpensive knives/year. It ran round the clock some weeks. The 10ton press would make one blade a second. That was kind of hard to sleep through when it ran. The dust from making handles and polishing blades was incredible. Sometimes I napped with a respirator on.
One way to do cheap silver inlay is to inlet your design in the material, then fill it with dental amalgam (ebay) and buff it. We had surplus buffers from an auto manufacturer. They were used to polish bumpers and could take an arm out of joint if you weren't careful, but darn they were fast.
Great job, funk.