backyard knives

B

Backyard

Joined
Jul 19, 2019
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314
Since I am new here I thought I should show some of my creations

I'm going to show you my failures and success'

First one here is a stupid, because it is not comfortable, too thick and.. well you'll see. made of S110V. money down the drain on this one. well lesson learned
uc


this next one is closer to a sword then anything else. made from a leaf spring. left the heat treatment as is as I didn't have anything large enough yet to heat something this long. not surprising, it is supper tough but holds a decent edge and cuts branches quite well. Other then being a little heavy it is fun to swing
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Part 2

I built a kiln or heat treatment oven if you will so I could do my own heat treatment. max temp approximately 1700* F. little PID controller to hold accurate temp
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this next I did with the intention of thinning it up and making it a little shorter for more practical use. annealed the leaf spring so I could flatten it and take the memory out of the leaf. you can see the harbor freight belt sander I use for all of my blades. this is an upgrade to the 4x24" one I used for many years
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Unfortunately I spent too much time trying to straighten it after quench and it snapped. looks like a good grain structure.
uc


So, to salvage what I had left, I took the blade and cut out a smaller one. made a large camp knife with it
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Part 3

Another attempt at making a large machete. during use this one had a large chunk break out of it. the grain was huge. likely overheated it. ran a bunch of temperature controlled heat treat tests at different temps to see if maybe my temp probe was off or something else. went up from 1400* at 25* increments. quenched each sample piece until it hardened. snapped it and looked at the grain. all of the pieces that hardened showed large grain. all the pieces that didn't harden had fine grain. not sure what was going on but chalked it up to maybe bad steel. afterall it is leaf springs from a wrecking yard
uc


My mothers friend who works at a cattle ranch asked if I could make him something large to chop up the fallen branches around his fence line. this is what we came up with. I purchased known good 5160 for this and it turned out hard and tough so it does somewhat support my junk steel idea. He is a big guy and wanted something large and didn't mind a little heft to it
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Part 4

with the leftover piece of 5160, I decided to have another go at my machete. basically the same design as before. this one looks like it worked good. no chipping, hard, etc. Yah!
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With some of my S110V I had, I tried my hand at a little kitchen knife
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and a S110V skinner for my uncle. heat treated at Paul Bos heat treatment. same for the one above. Still having trouble with the plunge lines so I ended up grinding them out / blending them in
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Part 5

Almost forgot

Made me a vacuum press for forming my seaths. two silicone sheets on a hinged wooden frame connects to my vacuum pump. I can heat the kidex with it under a vacuum through the silicone and cause it to form right around the knife
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Part 6

this is my latest creation. work in progress. I may start a separate thread for these as I have a few questions and ideas I am debating on. anyways, Made of CPM3V and it is at Peters Heat Treatment right now.
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I was able to get one more knife out the the offcut at the handle. just before being sent out to get heat treated. medium knife has a tapered tang and distal tapered blade (mostly because the grind). smallest knife has a tapered tang. can't wait for them to come back so I can finish them up :D
uc


getting late so I will cut it off here. I'll throw up some of my other knifes later
 
cool thread, I like seeing progression:thumbsup:
wrt your last photo, I'd be a little concerned about the most forward hole in the tang on the big knife, as it looks like it could be a stress riser
 
I thought about that too but was a little too late to move it once the hole was there. Oh well, we will see. It is CPM3V which is supposed to be really tough so hopefully it isn't a problem
Lorien said:
cool thread, I like seeing progression:thumbsup:
wrt your last photo, I'd be a little concerned about the most forward hole in the tang on the big knife, as it looks like it could be a stress riser
Click to expand...
 
This one was one of my first successful large choppers. Made of truck leaf spring and maybe 3/8" thick. Heated in coals poured in a hole dug out in my backyard. Quenched in peanut oil. Tempered in home oven. Hollow ground with an angel grinder. Works really well at chopping. Need to redo the handles as the are coming loose but the fasteners seem to be keeping it together for now

uc

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Another one made of S110V that I attempted to heat treat myself. Was only able to get the austenitizing temp up to about 1700* f which is way to low for it but wanted to give it a try anyways. Also no protection from decarb. That is whare the black coating is from. Seemed to get really hard even after a 950* temper.

Well I ended up dropping it on the driveway with a handful of other tools and one landed just right on the edge and knocked a half moon out of it. I ended up profiling it to a smaller blade. I still routinely use it. I don't trust it much for toughness but seems to hold a decent edge

uc
 
Well after many years of hard use/abuse my main chopper lost a chunk of it blade yesterday. I was delimbing a fallen tree to prep it for removing and noticed a large chunk missing right at the point of percussion or the area that gets the most use and hardest hits.

I guess it's time to make another one as this was my go to chopper that I liked the most.

Should I continue to make it out of 5160 and deal with the rust as you see this one has or should I try out something like AEB-L or CPM-3v or 4v?

uc
 
I'm not a knife maker, but I've made plenty of knives over the years.
My problem is I just make them out of scrap I have laying around, like old rasps, coil/leaf springs, axels, etc.
So I have to guess at the hardness with quench and temper.
This is a machete that I recently made out of about 15 circular saw blades.
I got the Damascus affect I wanted, but the temper is off, and I think the saw blades were not the quality I was hoping for.
The handle is ripped up T shirts and resin. I guess folks call it micarta, lol
Tip already broke off!
6kzAfJ3.jpg
 
I had a similar problem with a knife I made a while back. Was too hard and the cutting edge chipped too easy. I placed the blade on an electric range element and slowly turned up the knob until the blade turned a dark straw color. It was fine after that. Maybe you can try something similar

You will have to sand off your Damascus so you can see the colors you want. Then re etch it
 
With regards to your broken chopper, the hardness may be too high but then again it might not be. I'd take a closer look at the geometry. 5160 properly heat treated is tough but you are asking a lot of that edge with that kind of grind. In a hunter sized blade or even a Bowie you aren't putting that much force into the cut. But a long blade like that multiplies the force delivered in the chop at the point of impact. I would suggest more of a convex edge so you have more meat behind the cutting edge to support it.
 
It probably was a bit too hard for what I put it through. I did the brass rod test when tempering it and had to run it again a bit hotter to pass.

Didn't have any chipping of the edge. Only denting if I hit a rock or something when chopping close to the ground.

Maybe it was fatigue as that area got the most use.

I know convex should be tougher but I liked the way the hollow grind bit into the wood but didn't get stuck

Maybe I'll just make another one with 5160 as it is hard to beat when you look at cost, toughness and ease of heat treatment. If I go with stainless I'll have to send it out to heat treat it. But I've always wanted to try one in AEB-L. Just thinking if 5160 failed then AEB-L would too if ran to similar hardness. How do you think CPM 3V would do? My only concern with CPM 3V is it cost several times that of AEB-L and even more so than 5160
 
so, as I've already showed in the other Magnacut threads I'm making a chef knife gift for a relative. he's by no means a professional but likes to cook. I'm trying to finish it in time for his birthday so I've kinda rushed the design and I think I angled the handle down too far so his hand or the rear most part of the handle might contact the cutting board when cutting. I'm thinking of modifying the handle to something slimmer at the back similar to other more "modern" kitchen knives. I'll also have to redrill the rearmost pin hole in the hardened steel but I think I can handle that.

the top photo is the current shape. the second photo is one I "Photoshopped" to be closer to the finish I'm thinking of doing with the steel it has left. Is this a good idea? should I keep the original shape, modify it?
uc
 
You’ve progressed nicely….:)

I feel the knuckles should be above the blade edge in usage, don’t get it too low.
 
Dawkind said:
You’ve progressed nicely….:)

I feel the knuckles should be above the blade edge in usage, don’t get it too low.
Click to expand...
so do you think I should modify it to match the second (lower) picture? that's the only way I can see to salvage it without starting all over
 
I like the bottom one. Looks to be more comfortable for the rocking motion while chopping.
 
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