1st post,1st knife,1st failure

Stan Wilson · May 22, 2000

Greetings to all,since this is my first posting here I just want say thanks to everyone who has asked a question and to all those who answered them.The archives here have been an immense help.

I am in the process of making my first knife(three actually)I'm making them from chainsaw bars.Everything was going fine until I went to heat treat one of them.Blades 2 and 3 came out fine,even got a nice temper line on #3.But # 1 (the one that was going to be mine)cracked.

I guess thats all part of the learning curve.I just needed to vent.

Jonesy · May 22, 2000

Welcome to the forums. I am fairly new to them myself. Everyone here is willing to help some way or another.
Hang in there if you don't make a mistake once in a while then your probably not learning anything. When I get frustrated in the shop or need a break I click on the forums and learn something new or get my daily dose of humor.
All the best

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Scott Jones
Heck yea I invented it ...What is it???
I only do what the voices in my wifes head tell me to do.
It's kinda like hangin, you never get used to it.

Matt Shade · May 22, 2000

Welcome to the forums. Thats great that knives 2 and 3 turned out good. Heat treating is a pretty touchy process with a lot of variables that have to be just right.Grinding/shaping of the knife is a big factor along with the heat treat process itself. Having 2/3 of your work come out right when it was your first try at shaping and heat treating a blade is a pretty good start.

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We got a five dollar fine for whining
We tell you before you come in
So if it ain't on your mind to have a good time
Y'all come back and see us again.- Chris LeDoux

mikeS · May 22, 2000

What quenchant are you using?

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If God did not intend for us to eat animals. Why did he make them out of meat?

Stan Wilson · May 22, 2000

I initially quenched it olive oil but it did not seem to come out as good as the others,so I went to water.#2 was quenched in water and came out fine.# 3 was olive oil and came out the best of them all.

Marcel J.B. Morin · May 23, 2000

There are no failures in knifemaking, only slight setbacks and minor dissapointments. Our creative spirit is what makes us want to be knifemakers in the first place and as we go on we learn. That's what life and knifemaking are all about. And you're right the Bladeforums is a great learning tool.

Marcel

mikeS · May 23, 2000

If I understand right the cracked one was quenched in olive oil. Do you know what kind of steel the bar was? Things to look for are, overheating, uneven heat, uneven grind, original crack, or crack from profiling with torch. I cut profiled some saw blades recenly after normalizing. I had two crack at the back of the spine above the shoulder. I had been grinding way to heavy and overheating, I believe my normalizing heat was not even.

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If God did not intend for us to eat animals. Why did he make them out of meat?

Stan Wilson · May 23, 2000

I think what I did was overheat the blade,I should have waited till it got dark out so I could see the color better.I figured it was ruined so I might as well see what it might have been able to do.I tempered it and put an edge on it.It cut pretty well and held the edge well too.I then started chopping off small branches off my grapefruit tree,went through 3/4" branches easily.Then I went at a Piece of yellow pine.The blade chipped when I chopped into a knot,so I guess the tempering was off.It was a good sized knife so I annealed it and profiled it back well past the crack.It still might amount to something.

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Failures are only Failures if we Fail to learn from them.

mikeS · May 23, 2000

Use a magnet to judge quench temp. or non magnetic, you will have better and more consistant results. I use a pocket magnet hanging on a piece of wire just back of the quench tank. When the mag. doesn't stick give it just a little more heat and quench.

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If God did not intend for us to eat animals. Why did he make them out of meat?

magnum .44 · May 23, 2000

this sounds like the old story of the plan to make a bowie, which ended up as a paring knife. don't worry about it, it happens to all of us at one time or another.