First knife in progress pic

ginshun

ginshun

Joined
Apr 6, 2004
Messages
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figured I'd share, since it would never have even gotten this far without help from this forum. Its basically ready for heat treat unless I end up cleaning up the handle a little bit, which I might do, even though it will be covered anyway. Its made of 1/8" 1095. for scale, the holes are 1/4" and 1/8". Blade is around 3 1/2 or 4", not sure, I didn't measure it. I am not sure when I will get to heat treat it, but so far so good!

I am a little sore from (and a little bit kind sick of) the filing, sanding and drilling, but aside from that no worse for wear!

Sorry for the not so great pic.

knife010small.jpg
 
It is great, really great for a first time project. May be you should try to HT it anyways, but if you have a knife maker around it would be wise to HT it with him (her? slim possibility). Just a suggestion....
 
I am in north central WI.

Thanks for all the compliments on the design. Hopefully the HT and handle go as well as the blade went.
 
Nice knife. See if you can find someone near you with a HT oven to do the HT. For a proper HT on a thin 1095 blade, you want it evenly austenitized, and quenched in fast oil. If no one is around you,check out places like Texas Knife Supply.

Some comments on design: (for the next one)
The blade shape is functional and pleasing.....good job.
The handle is a bit straight. Perhaps a slight downward curve from the finger groove, and a bit of drop to the butt would make it more comfortable to the hand, and it would continue the flow of the blade.
It is usually a bad idea to align a hole close to a necked area,as is the first hole and the finger grip on the ricasso end of the handle.This can lead to problems in HT sometimes.

Great start. Be sure to show the photos when it is done.

Stacy
 
I like it. Speaking as one neophyte to another, good work! And I know the feeling on waiting for HT. There are half a dozen profiled and beveled blade blanks sitting in my drawer as I gradually build an oven.
 
Thanks to everyone for all the kind words.

I did the heat treat last night and as far as I can tell everything went well.

I used the old wood stove that I have in my garage and some charcoal briquettes, along with a few small chucks of wood towards the end when my coals were getting low. The stove has a bout a 4 inch gap under the actual perforated burning surface where the ashes typically fall. I took a piece of copper pipe and capped (read squeezed in the vice) one end and then drilled some 1/4" holes in it. I then hooked this up to small electric air pump that I have and inserted that end of the pipe under the coals. Using intermittant blasts of air, I had no problems getting the blade hot enough. I did two normalizing cycles where I heated to non-magnetic and then let cool to the point where I could handle the blade without gloves. Then on the third time heating, once it got up to non-magnetic I quenched in automatic transmission fluid, which was pre-heated to 130*F.

Afterwards the blade didn't look real pretty, but the Nicholson files I used to profile the blade did not grab on it, so it seems hard enough to me. After a little clean up I did one temper cycle in the oven @ 375-400 for a little more than an hour. I'll probably do another cycle or two before I am done.

At that point it was midnight and I went to bed.

Next is clean up and handles!

Thanks again!!
 
Glad it worked for you. Your HT seems reasonable.
Since there is some room for error in your HT, it is not a certain thing as to what the exact mix of pearlite, austenite, and martensite is. It appears to be good enough, though. I would still do the temper at 400-450F to be on the safe side. If you nailed the HT perfect (maybe-maybe not?) that temper would give you a 60+ Rc. If you missed it a bit, the temper would still get a Rc of 58-60. Look at the blade profile and think, " Where is all the force and torque going to be in use?" It will be right at the ricasso and under the front of the handle in the thinnest area. Better have the steel a bit tougher than a bit harder,IMHO.
Stacy
 
Am am actually in the middle of another two hour temper right now. I don't ever plan on doing any major hard work with this blade anyway though. Probably it will be used to field dress a deer this year, but as I never break the hip bones in the field anyway, there should never be too much stress on it.

I see what you are saying though, thanks for the tip.
 
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