a lil slicer (4th knife and counting)

[conncool99]

First post here (been lurking for a while some great info around). I wanted to see if I could get two knifes out of a one foot piece of 1084 and got a bit of inspiration from knifes like the BK 14 and esee izula and drew up a design. I feel like I need to work on my bevels and secondary bevels more also not sure if my heat treat was any good yet but other than that im happy on how it turned out. It was my first time trying to do a lanyard hole with an exposed tang also scales are roasted birds eye maple.

 

[jfk1110]

I like the lines.

 

[nmbarta]

I'll give it my best go, given I'm not very experienced myself.
It looks like a nice skinner blade, but you just stopped before you were done. I've done this a dozen times, and I still do. There is a lot of hand work that can into that blade to make it look a lot better. That part takes more patients than anyting, but it's not "easy" to sand a knife properly. That said, based on the pictures, she just needed a good 400 grit finish to make it look a lot better. ( probably about an hour or two of hand sanding) I've stopped before I was done too many times and left a lot on the table on knives that were never going to be "perfect" but there's a lot to learn on knife like that.

I hate to see a first post with no encouragement. You got a functional knife, and many can't do that.

You do need to watch your bevels, this is actually the hardest part for me. I chase them all over and often end up with something I didn't intend to, but I'll chase it until it's right for something or it's dust. That's not a joke.....I've got a bird and trout that was supposed to be a hunter, but rather than a hunter I didn't like......I ended up with a bird and trout that I do like. I learned a lot in that process.

I do like where you where going, but it does look like in order to get two knives you made your handle too short. Never sacrifice on your design to get more out of your material.....you'll get more of less.

It does look like you left your edge little thick, but that's not always a bad thing depending on what you want to do with it.

As far as not knowing if your heat treat is good, you have to test that. I knife with bad heat treating is always a bad knife, no matter how good it looks.

Test your process, there's a ton of info on this site on how to do that.

Keep at it, I still have a lot to learn as well.

Your off to a good start, as long as your enjoying your time doing it.....it's worth doing it.

 

[conncool99]

Hey, thanks for the kind words and advice moving forward! I'm almost the only one I'm my family/friend group that tinkers around with tools much so it's hard to get anything more than a curt "cool" so something constructive is greatly appreciated .

In terms of hand sanding I definitely rushed it as I wanted to get it done by the end of the weekend. I guess at the back of my head I felt if I was going to use it a lot, some grind marks wouldn't matter over time but that's no excuse for rushed sloppy work %100.

I do agree that I need to work on my bevels, I haven't been happy with how they're turning out but I'll make sure to take it slow and not rush though.

I did cut it a bit short on the handle. I guess I was upset when I made my first bushcraft and was left with a 3 inch piece of good steel I couldn't do much with. I've gone though all my one foot bars though and ordered some longer stock so I wont feel as bad if I have some left over now.

My edge is also a lot thicker than I first envisioned (especially after grinding em down on the diamond stones for so long) I still somehow managed to get it shaving sharp but it did take a while.

Heat treating is the main thing I'm struggling with right now as I don't have a good heat treated knife to compare to so It's hard for me to make a good call on that. I have a 2 brick forge with soft fire brick and a benzomatic ts8000 I use. It gets smaller blades past non magnetic no problem so if anything I'm getting it too hot, but again it's hard to judge just based just on forum posts and youtube vids so I'm sure I'll get it with trail and error. I've been thinking of heat treating a blank and try to break it to test it as well.

I'm still new to tools and knife making with no mentor other than forum post and videos so I can thank any good parts of the build to the useful people willing to take their time to share what they have learned, cause I would be making a lot more mistakes and bad decisions without them. I'm having fun though so I'll stick with it and try to learn along the way