Are these any good???

Welcome to the Bladeforums.

That is a KSO made in India. It is too soft for much of any knife use.
 
Hey Ron, welcome to bladeforums.

The knife you linked appears to be annealed for ease of grinding your bevels in and therefore would need to be heat treated, not sure if you have access to a proper heat treating setup or if you would be looking at sending it out for heat treating.

Personally I think kit knives are excellent to introduce you to hobby knifemaking/kit building. However, I would recommend starting with something that is already hardened and is a full-tang knife. This is just my opinion. If you look at Jantz' catalog they have tons of hardened/tempered blades that you would just need to put scales on to have a functional knife. There's a lot of places that sell kit knives online, Jantz is just one I know a lot of people say to make your own but I really think that putting handles on a pre-made knife is a great place to start.

Keep asking questions, but more importantly learn how to effectively search old threads that, a lot of the time, will be answers to the same questions you have.
 
I do not think that is annealed, those are finished. They are krap! My brother used to buy all sorts of knives made by Windlass Steelcrafts through Atlanta Cutlery, you could practically scratch them with a fingernail. For what they are charging for that blank you could buy a whole bar of 1084 steel from Aldo

http://njsteelbaron.com/contact

that you could get 4-6 knives out of, and with simple tools make your own. You can get someone on these forums to heat treat it and have a knife you designed that will really cut.

Welcome to BF

-Page
 
Rockwells at 45-55 = no good

The shape is ok.
Buy some flat stock as sugested or a decent kit knife
This is a waste of money
 
Ok,

What alloys are typically used for knife making? I have both a coal forge and a propane forge so heating and beating is not a problem.

Thanks
Ron
 
If you are going to be starting out, use your propane forge and get 1084 (Aldo's 1084 fine grain is in my opinion the best)

-Page
 
Have you seen this ?

The Standard Reply to Newbies v8

The answer to a 13 year old student is different than to a 40 year old engineer, and you may have a helpful neighbour.
We can often recommend a local supplier, but that depends on where you are.
Fill out your profile with your location (Country and State at least), age, education, employment.

Look at the stickies at the top, many are expired, but not all.

The basic process in the simplest terms

Absolute Cheapskate Way to Start Making Knives-Printable PDF
Absolute Cheapskate Way to Start Making Knives-Website

This is a very detailed set of instructions by Stacy E.Apelt.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=694673


Books

A list of books and videos on the KnifeDogs Forum
http://www.knifedogs.com/showthread.php?t=5285

BladeForums - E-books or book previews Google books
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=603203

I like:
David Boye-Step by Step Knifemaking
Tim McCreight-Custom Knifemaking: 10 Projects from a Master Craftsman
These are clear, well organized, widely available and inexpensive too.

Knife Design:
On the Google books thread, you can find
Lloyd Harding drawings
and
the Loveless book with large variety of proven classic styles.

Forging Books:
Lorelei Sims-The Backyard Blacksmith
A modern book with great photos for forging in general - no knifemaking.

Jim Hrisoulas- has 3 books on forging knives. Check for the cheaper paperback editions.
The Complete Bladesmith: Forging Your Way To Perfection
The Pattern-Welded Blade: Artistry in Iron
The Master Bladesmith: Advanced Studies in Steel


The $50 knife shop
It is popular, but it confused me for a long time.
Forging is NOT necessary, you can just file and grind everything away to create a knife (stock removal)

The goop quench is total Bull, commercially made quench oils are cheap and easily available, even grocery store canola oil works much better.

Junkyard steels require the skills of an experienced smith to identify the steel and heat treat it properly.
You can buy proper steel like 1084 very cheaply.
(Mentioned in the new edition)

I like cable damascus, but that is an advanced project for an experienced smith and has no place in a beginners book.

The home built grinders are the best thing about the book, but there is now a huge amount of info on home built 2x72 belt grinders on the web.
The revised edition of this book should have included this.


Videos

Heat Treating Basics Video-downloadable
http://www.archive.org/download/gov.ntis.ava08799vnb1/ava08799vnb1_512kb.mp4

Many specific how to knifemaking videos are available.
Some are better than others, but all better than nothing.

The best overall Knifemaking video I have seen is
“Steve Johnson-Making a Sub-Hilt Fighter”

The best video on leather sheath making I have seen is
“Custom Knife Sheaths -Chuck Burrows - Wild Rose”

You can see a list of some older videos and their reviews at this rental company.
They are not the quickest on getting new titles, but some videos are worth buying, some are worth renting…
Rental wait times are measured in months, buying is MUCH faster, but more costly.
http://smartflix.com/store/category/9/Knifemaking

Green Pete's Free Video
Making a Mora bushcraft knife, -stock removal, hand tools, and neo tribal / unplugged heat treat.
"Green Pete" posted it free for those who can use torrent files.

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4995247/Greenpete_s__Knifemaking_Basics_-_Make_a_Mora_Bushcraft_Knife
You can also find it on YouTube broken into 4 parts.


Steel
The “welding steel” at Home Depot/Lowes… is useless for knives.
If you want to ship out for heat treating, you can use ATS34, 440C, plus many others.

If you want to heat treat yourself, find some 1070, 1080, 1084,
1084 FG sold by Aldo Bruno is formulated just for knifemaking.

You can find lists of suppliers here
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=699736

Aldo’s website inventory is unreliable, call instead.
http://njsteelbaron.com/


Heat Treating
You do not have to buy a lot of equipment to start with.
You can send out for heat treating, 10 or 15 $ per blade

This is a PDF brochure which gives good general info
http://www.buckknives.com/resources/pdf/Paul_Bos_Brochure.pdf

http://www.petersheattreat.com/
http://www.texasknife.com/vcom/about_us.php
http://www.knifemaker.ca/ (Canadian)
and others


Grinder / Tools

Hand Tools
You can do it all by hand with files and abrasive paper.
The Green Pete video does it this way.

Photo of a nice bevel filing jig .
http://www.flemingknives.com/imagesPrime/FileStation/KPicB007.jpg

Entry Level Grinders
Many makers start with the Sears Craftsman 2x42 belt grinder.


Commercial Production 2 x 72” Belt Grinders
http://www.prometheanknives.com/shop-techniques-3/grinders

Mapp arm
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=466024


DIY 2 x 72” Belt Grinders

KMG Clone
Free Plans
http://www.dfoggknives.com/PDF/GrinderPlans.pdf

NWG No Weld Grinder
http://www.usaknifemaker.com/plans-for-the-no-weld-grinder-sander-nearly-50-pages-p-723.html

EERF Grinder (EERF =“Free” backwards)
Free plans
http://wilmontgrinders.com/EERFGrinder.aspx
http://blindhogg.com/blueprints.html

Buy the kit
http://polarbearforge.com/grinder_kit.html
 
another less obvious issue is the 45-55 a 55 rc blade might be o.k as an axe, but with a 10 point range that is bad!
 
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