2 Questions.

J

J S Machine

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Oct 15, 2007
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72
My first knife that is going to be a folder is coming along nicely. I ordered some .050" stainless to use as liners and some eucalyptus to use as handle inserts from AKS. I finished the basic shape of the liners today and the stainless definitely feels better than 01..lol

I bought a book on knife making called "The Wonders of Knife Making"..I can't remember the author but it is very informative. In my quest to understand "forging steel" I have a question.

Isn't steel basically forged when it comes in bar stock? For instance D2, or A2?
I mean I may be taking this in the wrong way, but I am thinking that forging means to add alloying metals to a basic metal like Iron to make it stronger in the presence of heat?

Or could It be that you basically take the bar stock version of some alloyed metals and beat the mess out of it and compact all the elements together so they are more closely knitted??? <--(in a nutshell):D

Also what does "Hollow ground" mean? What type of grinding operation is this referreing to? I see most of the better made knives and more expensive ones seem to be "hollow ground". Anybody have examples? Pics?

Thanks
 
Politely,
You need to read that book and several more. Your understanding of knifemaking and steel is severely limited.

As a tool and die maker you surely know that the alloy ingredients are what makes the different steels, D-2 ,O-1,440C,etc.

Forgoing is just a way of changing the shape, not the alloy. You don't "move the elements around", or compact them in any way.

Hollow grinding is grinding the bevel on a contact wheel (convex surface) ,flat grinding is grinding on a platen (flat surface).

Please read up on this before you do any more work and ruin the knife completely, or injure yourself.
Stacy
 
Forging is a whole 'nuther can of worms. I don't see so many forged folders.

Forging does nothing magical to the steel, and if improperly done, uncontrolled heats can make a real mess of the steel. My opinion is, your best bet for your folder is stock removal, rather than forging.

Yes, the hot rolled and cold rolled steels you'll be buying are kinda "forged" to bar shape, meaning they are not in the cast condition.

Beating on steel is a dying art worth persevering for it's own merit, not because the process imparts special traits to the blade.

A hollow grind is where the sides of the blade are concave. Straight razors are hollow ground, kitchen knives are flat ground. I find it easier to get really sharp on a thin hollow grind. I find that flat grinds and convex grinds slice better in cuts where the sides of the blade are dragging, such as breaking down cardboard.

I'm sure you are less likely to injure yourself in a metal project than the typical knife maker hobbyist due to your profession as a metal worker. Stacy is usually a pretty nice guy, I don't think he meant that to sound like it did.
 
Yeah I didn't take offense to it, I just kind of thought that maybe like you said, considering my metal work background he could have given me a little more credit lol...

I am not as uneducated as he put it, I just don't understand the whole grinders/forgers argument that I have seen a whole lot of in the past month in my research here, and in various other places. For some reason I get the air that forgers think they are superior to grinders----not to offend anyone by any means, I may be taking that subject entirely the wrong way..just thoughts.

I simply don't understand why someone would want to hammer a piece of cherry red steel in to the shape of a knife, when (in my opinion) you could start with some ground stock such as D2, draw a shape of a blade, cut it out and go from there. It just seems like to me that it would be a lot less headache to go about it that way.

-Now, if all you have is a piece of square stock, any of the good knife candidate steels, and you needed to make it into the shape of a blade, and your only means were to do it by forging it, okay.

-Maybe there is a certain amount of satisfaction one gets out of forging as oppossed to the not so difficult "grinding or stock removal".

-for instance in the book he talks about hammering out bearing races, truck leaf springs, coil springs, and files...

-maybe i'm just thinking this way in that I am a little spoiled when it comes to metal availability...I have pretty much everything I need to work with in a tool room except a couple of things and of course the "know how"...

I didn't plan on forging my blade for my folder, I was more just asking the question, because I don't quite understand the pros and cons of each, if any at all..lol

I want to post some pictures of the progress on my knife, but I don't know how. Everytime I try to post pics on a message board like this, something messes up and someone ends up doing it for me lol.
 
You can get a photobucket account for free, and from your pb album, there is a line of text to copy into a message, and presto.
 
It is more of an almost "religious" issue - forging vs SR.

First of all, any forged blade, does require grinding to bring it to final shape,
so it is not a question of having different equipment sets.

I suspect that all of us, pros and hobbyists alike, would like to be able to do both
in their shops. Unfortunately, forging is simply outta question for quite a few of
us: open fire, noise, heat . One has to have a shop with a respectable distance
between him and neighbors. Occasional reports of "understanding" and "curious"
neighbors are to be taken with a grant of salt. All it takes is for some to complain,
dig into local regs etc and make enough stink, to force such forge out of biz.

For me and many others, damascus is the #1 reason we'd love to be able to forge :)
And then, of course, there is the human's fascination with fire .

Financially, a forge and an anvil is good for starters, then there're power hammers of
various sorts - rather affordable stuff.
 
Forging is just ione of the ways to shape metal. Forging doesn't exclude stock removal. Many folders are, in fact, forged. It's just that, after forging, you may and usually do) grind the blade to polish.
Car springs can be straightened and forged in rough blades that can be then ground to shape. Just leave yourself enough metal to grind away.
Combining forging and stock removal you'll have a much wider selection of materials available.
Moreover, you can get shapes that, if made by sole grinding, would require a godawful big chunk of metal... ;)
 
I forge. A lot of the reason is I find grinding tedious (but am willing to do some to clean up a project). That being said with today's steel quality and selection the 2 biggest reasons to forge are pattern welding (damascus) and conservation of material (i.e. any curve in the blade can be forged instead of requiring wider stock).

ron
 
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