If you're into scientific process, you could probably find some things that aren't published or well described. But you'd have to put the time in. I have an ulterior motive (it's not money, it's not ego, or anything like that) and it's kind of I guess semi-scientific. Except it's *not* to publish or describe things - it's sort of complicated. I'm trying to unwind why some things made historically are better than we'd expect and why things made now with more process control aren't. but, that's only part of it.
If I wanted just to make knives, especially if I wanted to do anything (including making tools for profit) I would find out what is hot and I would do it. That would inevitably be - for someone honest - spec and ad sheet chasing combined with performance. As in, if you made knives and you advertised bits about your repeatable process and advertised (if bos would allow) that Bos did the heat treatment, you have a whole bunch of credible little data points.
It ignores the whole menu of other things - for the OP here, I just don't see room for error with something that's super quick in a furnace, but that's just me. As much as getting the cowboy result is fun and you can just throw away a bad result if you're in my position, I don't see the chance of finding any bronze when the top of the market makes gold.
Here's the "cowboy" XHP knife that I made. I have bar XHP left over because I thought it would make a better plane iron than it does. I freehand ground the blade profile flat and I store it in my office desk at home and use it regularly until I get a furnace down the road and can drive the hardness up. No odd edge behavior on meat, bread, vegetables - but sometimes it's nice to see if it will fail - if it does, I can toss it.
linky - knife
this is fresh bread (relatively, it's a day old, but not stiff yet) - soft. I know how to modify the apex with a buffer and adjust geometry behind it to cover its sins, and it's awfully nice to use, doesn't roll, fold, and it will catch a hair.
I kind of thought there may be curious hobbyists on here -I see that there really aren't. I've been on here for a while but didn't necessarily ever see the maker's part of the forum because I was going up and down through the top forum lists and finding significant *use* of knives was tough.
Devin has spent most of his time throwing a fit about my posts because I didn't take his initial advice *yet*. I'm not that fragile- not interested in building consensus. I've snagged a whole bunch of useful stuff all the while - maybe not much from Devin.
And no slight to anyone else, one thing that hasn't changed is if someone asked me if they should buy a trick stainless knife from someone who does old timey work and heats in a forge, I'd say no.
And, yes, there are a whole lot of older folks who are sharp mentally. Reality would keep them from learning like they could when they were young, but absorbing something new and being open to anything isn't always necessary to add value. And a bright and relatively open older person is a lot easier to communicate with than an average younger person.
. I’ve come to the conclusion this steel is not available to me, and so for now I will sticking to my carbon steels, until I save up the funds for a heat treating oven. Appreciate the replies!
heat treatment?
