Advice on a CNC knife

[Macchina]

I work at a shop as the CAD and CNC guy (we have a total of 6 employees). I would like to start making knives. I want to use carbon steel to make 4-8" outdoor fixed blades. What kind of steel should I use that would be easy for me to heat treat in the shop. I plan on cutting out the knives on the CNC, then grinding the bevels. Thank you for your replies.

 

[fitzo]

Check what I said in post #8 on this thread. Good steel to start and learn on. May need annealing unless you use carbide tooling. Depends on what state you get it in.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=458641

Next choice would be PG O1, but nice to have a furnace.

My .02.

 

[J.McDonald Knives]

i know for a fact that you can cut out the complete knife so taht you would only need to heat treat it and temper it after its cut out if you use the CNC machine. just program it all into the machine and let it do the work. then again it depends on the CNC machine itself but the majority of them will cut bevels and such. good luck with the knife and post pics of it when you start on it.

 

[Barkes Knife Shop]

Start out using 1095 carbon steel. Its easy to work with and makes a great knife. Here in my shop I use it all the time. But I use 1084 and 52100 as well. In my book its the best for knife making. Hope this was of help to you. Please visit the link below for more information. Have a great day.

Barkes
http://my.hsonline.net/wizard
:thumbup:

 

[flatgrinder]

I would recommend some O1 from flatground.com. Since you're using a CNC machine, it's nice to have some spherodised annealed precision ground stock. And after heat treat, the way O1 cuts will have you hooked on making more.