Creating a knife without heat treatment?

I have both the Sterret and Bahco hacksaw blades.
I like the Bahco because they use M42.
M42 is the same as M2 but with the addition of cobalt which gives it even more strength from breaking.
 
JM
I am sure there are companies that heat treat close to where you live. You may have to develop a relationship with them, but I am sure you could try. Some time the do it yourself approach is a long term goal and you need a short term answer.

Good luck.
 
More expensive metals like David Boye Dendritic Cobalt do not need heat treat. They are not steel (I believe Talonite and Stellite are the same) as they do not use Carbon, so they are stainless as well. However they are softer than other knife making materials, so will not hold up well cutting hard objects, but are great to slice with- I've used my Boye for years and it has held out well under what I've used it for.
 
i have recently started to get into the knife hobby. like said before my comment, before you go spend time and money on learning to heat treat, try finding old saw blades. Key points to looking for saw blades is to make sure the blade is one solid piece, not a piece of steel with hardened blade tips. i recently used a few of these on a few knifes. works amazing!! the steel is so hard i had to buy carbide bits and they hold a great edge. any old farm tools are going to be hard steel. also flea markets often have the old long 2 person saws, those are hard steel as weel and can make a dozen r so blades. the only downfall to this is the thickness of the blade wont be very great, but excellent results with a good handle and a good grind. saw blades are much harder then lawnmower blades. plus this can help u see if knife making is something you really want to get into
 
Old saw blades may make a decent knife, but a couple cautions. They will not perform well without heat treat. (Too soft for edge retention). Recyling steel is lots of fun and environmentally friendly - but it isn't a beginner project.

Not saying it's impossible. Knives are still made some places out of bone and horn. Just have realistic expectations.

Rob!
 
I'll just pass along the advice i got that has worked well. 1080 steel and a small homebuilt propane powered heat treat setup. High temp bricks and even a weed burner torch will do the trick without much trouble.

You can use other steels but the heat treat becomes much more difficult with a simple heat treat setup. You could go lower carbon, like 1075 or 1065, but they're less suited for knives than things like axes and hammers. 1080 and 1084 both let you do an easy HT for a knife. 1095 starts getting more complicated to do right, past that you need more precise temp control to handle soaking the steel at a particular temp then the next temp....
 
Does someone within 10 miles of you have an oxy-acetylene torch? You can H.T. simple carbon steels pretty well with one of those. Get some cooking oil, the torch, and a pan and you have an edge-quench setup.
 
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