Finished my first knife today!!!

[brady.kevin07]

Today I finished my first knife!! It's a 1095 blade with wood handles and brass pins. I did the entire process myself including the heat treat. I made some mistakes in the process and learned a ton. Overall i'm very happy and I know that I can do better. Now I can't wait to start and finish the next ones.

 

[tlovesknives]

that looks awesome. nice job! :thumbup:

 

[brady.kevin07]

Thanks man

 

[Bigfattyt]

I have seen a lot of "first" attempts at knives (including my own out of 5160), and you did a great job.

 

[Marty Young]

You'll find that you learn something everyday making knives. Good work, keep it up!

 

[brady.kevin07]

Thanks guys that means alot coming from more experienced makers.

 

[crimsonfalcon07]

Congrats on your first knife! I'll repeat the advice that Darrin always tells me... stay with it, and try to make each knife better than the last. It's an immensely rewarding endeavour, but man, I can't believe how many more tools I feel like I need to buy... A small bit of advice--if you plan on keeping with it, it really pays to buy a really good grinder right off the bat. If you really like doing it, you'll buy one eventually, and you might as well save yourself the money on the other ones.

 

[razorsdescent]

Wow that is so full of win. Really an awesome job and a great and functional looking first knife.

 

[SurfingSalmon]

Cool! I like it! Want to shed a little bit more light on how you did the heat treat? Very interested in seeing what kind of setup you had.

 

[Choke]

Congrats!!

 

[RiderOnTheStorm]

Nice!

 

[Czechmate]

Awesome work; it looks like a mini bk2... :thumbup:

 

[Humppa]

Wow!

A nice looking piece. Looks nice and pretty traditional to me

Thank you for showing, Sir!

Kind regards

 

[brady.kevin07]

Cool! I like it! Want to shed a little bit more light on how you did the heat treat? Very interested in seeing what kind of setup you had.

So the steel is 1095 which is fairly easy to heat treat and can be done in your home with very few supplies. All you need is a magnet, some quench oil (i used canola oil), a container for the oil (I juat use the cheap foil trays you buy at the store), and something to grab the hot steel with. Last summer I built a fire pit for one of my buddies in his back yard so I used that to make my fire. So the first step is to get a fire going and what you're trying to do is get a fire with a lot coals at the bottom. Once you have that you just place the knife in teh coals and wait for it to get red hot. At that point you take your magnet and test if it sticks the blade or not. If it sticks place the steel back in the fire if it doesn't then your ready to quench. If possible try to have your quench oil warmed already and just drop the knife in. If you're doing multiple knives don't let the oil get 140 farenheit. Once you have quenched it preheat your oven to 425 and then bake the knife for one hour to temper it.

Disclaimer: Some people may not agree with this method but this is what worked for me and I had great results with it.

 

[BladeChick777]

Very nice. This is probably one of the best first knives I've seen.

 

[brady.kevin07]

Thanks for the nice comments everyone. I finshed up number 2 today. I learned after these two that I need to make the scales before I do the etch because the etched spines looked awesome but got ruined in the scale making process.