Big knife made from a lawnmower blade

averageiowaguy

averageiowaguy

Joined
Mar 22, 2011
Messages
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I'm just a rank beginner at forging and I only have a homemade forge. Maybe some day I will be about 1/1000th as good as the guys on this subforum. I post this here, only because I have learned SO much by lurking and watching your vids. This is the third knife I've forged from a lawnmower blade. They've all served me well. I'm hoping this one will too. I owe a big thank you to all the subforum members and posters. I'm just beginning and I have a LONG way to go, but thank you anyway!

[video=youtube;0iyB7Lw7-p4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iyB7Lw7-p4[/video]
 
Just curious, did you make them to practice your forging and grinding techniques, or do you intend to use and sell them?
 
Ocelot85 said:
Just curious, did you make them to practice your forging and grinding techniques, or do you intend to use and sell them?
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I made these because I had lawnmower blades and I wanted knives with characteristics that were not commercially available. In order to get the blades I wanted, I had to make them myself. I'm not selling anything I make. It would be an insult to people who actually do beautiful work. I'm just cheap and I didn't want to commission a real blacksmith to make a blade after my own design. I haven't tested the latest one, but the first two have been marvelous performers.
 
I asked because normally lawnmower blades which are made of low carbon steel don't make ideal knives, if you're happy with them though that's all that really matters.
 
I've seen one of the lawnmower blade sold here marked at SK-5 steel.
Equivalent to ANSI 1094.
 
The better quality mowers use better mower blades. Its still cheaper to buy steel than mower blades, but I use old blades (I live on a 3.5 acre acreage, and my yard equipment is all industrial, not homeowner based) now for guards, fittings, and will try a scythe out of one, to see how it works. I should look for markings on the blades to see what they are made from. I was able to find out the chisel plow blades I have are 9260.
 
Be sure not to sell that 9260 short. It's often underhardened and needs a higher austenizing temperature to reach full hardness. Just non-magnetic won't get you there unless you multiple quench it.

Edited to add: for the OP, I don't think you'll get anyone telling you that unknown lawnmower blades will make the best knives, but there is an appeal to "recycling" those old pieces of steel into something that's still useful. I've done it a couple of times reshaping old beaten up blades into something new, and a buddy has a utility knife with a wrapped handle made from an old bed knife from a reel mower. Not the best, but it cuts.
 
Good stuff, Kyle. We need to teach you proper drawing and upsetting, so you can make those babies into swords!
 
Interesting. Why don't you bring it to the Hawkeye Knife Club meeting in Johnston on July 20? I'd love to see it and you can meet some fellow makers from Iowa.
 
zaph1 said:
Interesting. Why don't you bring it to the Hawkeye Knife Club meeting in Johnston on July 20? I'd love to see it and you can meet some fellow makers from Iowa.
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I didn't know the club existed! I'll come for sure. PM me some details. I'm not a knife maker though. I am a knife user but not much else. I've forged 3 from lawnmower blades and I've made one with stock removal. Here is a photo from an expedition I was on in the middle of the Amazon jungle with the first parang I made. These knives aren't pretty but they work very well.

jungle_gear.jpg


The main reason I make knives is to have something specifically designed for a specific task. I have to make my own sometimes because there isn't one commercially available with the design features I want. Does that make sense?
 
I'm with you on that. The club is mostly collectors, with 5-6 makers showing up each time. Howard Clark even showed up last time! Next show is at the Johnston Lions Club, 6401 Merle Hay Road in Johnston from 8am - Noon.
 
averageiowaguy said:
I didn't know the club existed! I'll come for sure. PM me some details. I'm not a knife maker though. I am a knife user but not much else. I've forged 3 from lawnmower blades and I've made one with stock removal. Here is a photo from an expedition I was on in the middle of the Amazon jungle with the first parang I made. These knives aren't pretty but they work very well.

The main reason I make knives is to have something specifically designed for a specific task. I have to make my own sometimes because there isn't one commercially available with the design features I want. Does that make sense?
Click to expand...

To me, perfect sense. Folks used to use what they had on hand, what they could afford, and didn't always run out to buy something they needed. I grew up around a lot of farmers, ranchers, and just plain blue collar folks, and the idea of buying something new when you could make it yourself was almost illegal to them.

On the other hand, what a great place for you to be here at Blade Forums. There are makers of all stripes here and they sure seem to support one another. Over the years of reading this forum I have seen a few new makers bring one another along to now be excellent craftsmen. That could be you!

Something really cool about making a useful tool with your own hands from material that was probably thrown away, though...

I like it!

Robert
 
Good stuff. My favorite part of the video is belt sanding while puffing on a cigar. Classic!
 
To me, perfect sense. Folks used to use what they had on hand, what they could afford, and didn't always run out to buy something they needed. I grew up around a lot of farmers, ranchers, and just plain blue collar folks, and the idea of buying something new when you could make it yourself was almost illegal to them.

On the other hand, what a great place for you to be here at Blade Forums. There are makers of all stripes here and they sure seem to support one another. Over the years of reading this forum I have seen a few new makers bring one another along to now be excellent craftsmen. That could be you!

Something really cool about making a useful tool with your own hands from material that was probably thrown away, though...

I like it!

Robert



Robert, I am also in the south central part of Texas and it sounds like you and I grew up in the same type of farm and ranch
enviroment.

Walt
 
Walt2 said:
Robert, I am also in the south central part of Texas and it sounds like you and I grew up in the same type of farm and ranch
enviroment.

Walt
Click to expand...

I'm in San Antonio, you?

When we moved here in '66, it was a quiet little town. The guys I went to school with often smelled of animal as they had to do their chores before school. The high school I went to had kept horses next to it!

When I went into the trades the folks there had a real ingenuity that I admired. They reground flat bladed screwdrivers on belt sanders, made their own pry bars out of thin car springs, made choppers for brush out of the same thing, and it seemed all of them could gas weld with bailing wire. To me these guys could make anything out of nothing. I saw more brush choppers made from car springs than I could count. Heated in the farrier's pit (it had a hand cranked bellows) and pounded out on a piece of railroad tie, those things never broke when notching or cutting a hard fence post, busting up mesquite, agarita and all the other woody stuff down here. They didn't hold their edge perfectly and no doubt some were better than others, but there were an awful lot of them under the seats of the ranch and farm trucks. The same tool was used often used cutting off the necessary parts of an animal when hunting that required a large knife.

And the file knives... there were a couple of makers in surrounding towns that made excellent hunting knives out of files. My friends couldn't get the heat treat right, but these guys from the surrounding towns made them and actually SOLD a few every year. They weren't the works of art we see on this forum, but the good ones were really great utility knives that held a heckuva edge. I remember those guys carefully grinding off every bit if evidence it was a file and then carefully fitting live oak, mesquite, or Bois d' Arc (bodark! or osage orange) handles on them. A few of my friends bought them from makers in New Branfels and Uvalde and used the daylights out of them hunting. They probably still have them.

Robert
 
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