3 tools

Doc,
With one piece of wood and a piece of carbon steel you could make a complete, first class knife with NO other tools, not even simple hand tools .

1) The grinder can be used to cut the steel, profile the blade, and grind it to shape. After HT it can be used to finish and sharpen the blade.Once done with the blade it could be used to shape the handle.Even polishing of the blade and handle can be done on the grinder. (All this supposes that the belts are considered part of the grinder, and not separate tools)

2) The forge can be used to anneal the steel, normalize and stress relieve the blade, and do the HT. Then it could be used to burn in the tang of the blade.

3) Tongs would be necessary to hold and handle the blade in the forge and while working on the handle burning.

No other tools at all would be needed to make a perfectly usable knife. The handle could also be wrapped leather or cord, and would not require any tools either. It could be stag crown, also.
Stacy
 
how bout a foredom rotary tool a forge and sandpaper. you could cut a blade out of damascus stock you've already made or tool steel, with patience you could drill the handle,shape the handle,grind blade,polish handle and blade if you wear a heavy glove(not a tool) you could handle the blade for heat treating without tongs.you can get all attachments for those, cutting disc,buffing wheels, drill bits ect.

it would have to be stock removal but i think this would work as well. but i think stacey is on to something to.


www.takachforge.com
 
For me a belt grinder, drill press and a heat treating oven. That's all I need.
-John
 
Nope, tongs one tool, forge one tool, hammer one tool. Everyone gets to pick the three tools that they want to use. glue, handle pins etc don't count but you have to choose a drill as a tool to use pins. Let's see how creative/inventive some of you guys are. Oh and let's keep it real and use only tools that you have in your shop No cnc machines. Maybee we should start a new thread insted of hijacking this one.
 
if you use a foredom/dremel tool then all bits are included as one tool right??? just like if you choose a drill press then you have your choice of bits. or even a hand drill would be good you can cut ,sand, drill, and polish with that and still have two more choices

www.takachforge.com
 
burke531 said:
Nope tongs one tool, forge one tool hammer one tool. Everyone gets to pick the three tools that they want to use. glue handle pins etc don't count but you have to choose a drill as a tool to use pins. Let's see how creative/inventive some of you guys are.
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Alright - we've got to get this straight. Bill, you are NOT using an anvil or any hand-held hammers or tongs?
You said power hammer, forge, grinder.
How are you going to hold the steel to beat it with the power hammer? With your fingers?
I don't think three tools is enough.
If you are going to use an anvil - ANYWHERE - that requires hammers and tongs as well. So, we're already up to three tools with that.
If we want this "game" to be inviting to all, we should sort of re-do the tool limit and categorize it as well.
Lots of guys don't have power hammers or presses, some do stock removal only and don't have forges, many don't have grinders, etc.
My vote, and of course it's just MY vote, is that the "forging process" is all one tool.
I don't want to get away from the point of all this either, and that's to make a finished knife with the least amount of tools.
Maybe we should make a list of acceptable tools, and then pick a specified number only from that list.??
I'd be up for it, but probably won't have time until after Blade.
 
I am going to start with a bar of steel long enough to heat one end and hold the other with my hands. do all the forging and punch the holes for the guard etc on the power hammer. And do all the cleanup grinding sharpening etc on the grinder.
 
I think you're forgetting then burke that you're going to need other tools just to do what you've mentioned. Punches, hot cuts / chisle or something to remove the blade from the end of the bar, etc.

Now if we assume you start with just any 3 tools, but your'e allowed to use those 3 tools to MAKE other tools, then the choice is easy for me...

I'll just start with my hand hammer (2.5lb cross pein) my anvil, and my forge. First I'll forge a round punch, then I'll forge pair of tongs, using the round punch for the bolt hole. Next I'd forge myself a chisel,to make cutting stock easier than forging thin and snapping off as I'd have to do for the tongs / punch / chisel.

Now with a round punch, a chisel, and a pair of tongs, I'd forge out my blade as close to final shape as possible (and you can get VERY close, if you've never seen one of Christof Deringer's forged blades for example you may not understand JUST how close to the final edge you can get on the forge without hurting the steel), hot punch a few holes in the tang, set the blade off to aneal somewhere.

In the mean time then use the chisel to cut a file from the rest of whatever bar of tool steel was used for the knife. Even a rough cut file will cut steel when it's hardened and it's used on anealed steel, let alone wood, so once a good 2 inches of single cut file is chisled out, water quench the file to get it fully hard.

Now if any final shaping that wasnt completed via forging needs to be done, the file can be used to finish refining the profile, ideally there really wouldnt need to be much filing done on the blade,and the bevels shouldnt need any. The file is more for shaping the wood for a handle anyways.

Now take the blade, normalize it, then quench to harden it, then temper it over the forge, using the file to remove scale/ get bright steel to see the colors for tempering it.

Now that you've got a file and a chisel, you can rough out some handle slabs, and use the forge and the punch to burn out the holes for pins with the hole size matching. Use the file to shape the handles, put it all together, and viola, you've not only got a knife, but a set of other tools to make doing the next one easier =P Yet you only started with a hammer, an anvil, and a forge, and whatever suply of steel you have,

You need to think about this problem as a blacksmith not a bladesmith !
 
burke531 said:
I am going to start with a bar of steel long enough to heat one end and hold the other with my hands. do all the forging and punch the holes for the guard etc on the power hammer. And do all the cleanup grinding sharpening etc on the grinder.
Click to expand...

Justin does have a point - you'll need a cut-off hardie or a punch, etc., and those are tools as well.
I just don't think 3 tools is enough - if we include everything as an individual tool.
If you are changing dies in your hammer, then those are seperate tools as well!
 
You have a point about the punches and chisels for the hammer. I can forge the blade without changing dies and simply grind the blade off the bar but without a punch I'll have to make an integral guard or no gaurd. I had considered the possibility of making tools with the original three but thought that then the game could get wat too complicated. Maybe allow three more tools to be made with the original three.
 
Keith_H said:
mill, tongs, heat treat oven. :D

(I don't own a mill, but I am the only one in my high school to use the one there and I love it!)
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The forge is not gonna get you far without a quench tank, unless you are using air hardening steel:D.
 
ok since i started this BS i'll try and be more specifis about my initial question. if anyone cares : -forge,anvil,hammer,ect. all seperate tools.
- your preferance stock removal or forged.
-if you start with only three tools and can make more from that then by all means go ahead
-must have a handle of some sort with atleast one pin holding blade and handle together(full or stick tang).
-must be hardened and tempered

this was just my ideas i had in mind with the initial question. or ya can come up with your own terms.but i like the idea that justin had about "thinking like a blacksmith" i think thats how this whole trade got started right??(for the most part).in any case ya'll got some really creative ideas.

www.takachforge.com
 
ok since i started this BS i'll try and be more specifis about my initial question. if anyone cares : -forge,anvil,hammer,ect. all seperate tools.
- your preferance stock removal or forged.
-if you start with only three tools and can make more from that then by all means go ahead
-must have a handle of some sort with atleast one pin holding blade and handle together(full or stick tang).
-must be hardened and tempered
Click to expand...

So what is your feelings about quenching. I feel that a dedicated quench tank and chosen medium to be a tool but a creek, mud puddle, pond or the like to be a natural container and therefore not count as a tool just something that can be taken advantage offor a specific purpose. The same would go for unprocessed clay ie. dug out of a hill side etc not purchased anywhere if a person wanted to do a clay coated quench. We could use picture documentation for everyones entertainment/benifit.
 
With a coal forge and 10xx steel you would not have to use tongs. One advantage of the coal forge is you can make as small or large of a fire as you need. As long as water is not considerd a tool than I think it could be done with only three hammer anvil and forge. In my mind the trick here is to think outside the box.

The piece of steel you are forging could be used as a punch to put the whole in the gaurd and then the stick tang could be used to burn and cut a whole in the handle material. You would not have to drill the whole in the tang insted you could notch it at the place that would recieve the pin. Or you could forgo the pin all together and have the stick tang go all the way through the handle and curl it over on the other side. Of course depending on the handle material you may not need any sort of pin at all. If you use wet antler when it dries it would hold on to the stick tang well on its own.

Not to say any of these ideas are ideal ways of constructing a knife but it could work.
 
Hack-saw, Bastard-file, C-clamp.

Many, many years ago, I was getting ready for a deployment over seas. I cut a piece of annealed leaf spring in to a rough knife blank. I packed that, a Nicholson file, and a C-clamp in my sea bag. Upon arriving in Okinawa I started filing on my knife. Didn't really take as long as you mite think to finish the profile and file the bevels. When the knife was where I wanted it I collected wood. Dug a pit and made air pipe of bamboo covered with mud in my ground forge. I made a bag bellows out of a pair of pants, a plastic soda bottle and a ping Pong ball for the valve. I burnt a big pile of wood in to a pile of coals and heated my blade to a nice bright red and quenched it in sea water mixed with detergent. I color tempered it by piling ash over the coals. The C-clamp was clamped to the tang and a long stick was used to fish it out of the fire. I did a rough polish on a stone I found on the beach, and the handle was just wrapped in 550 Cord.
Total store bought tools. Hacksaw, C-clamp, and a file.
Additional, One par of pants, sewing kit, ping pong ball.
This wasn't my first knife, in fact I had a few years of knife making behind me, and that was 30 years ago. Last week I just bought my first belt grinder, so it doesn't take a lot of tools, it takes ingenuity.
 
If you make a knife out of Flint, Cert, or Obsidian you only need; A hammer stone, an antler thine, and a abrader stone.
 
got any pictures of the knife?? that is if you still have it.

as for the quench burke i dont feel that is a tool i mean really all you need at bear min. is a bucket of h20 or like ya said a puddle if nothing else. crude but would work.
 
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