First one (in progress)

J

John-Boy

Joined
May 14, 2004
Messages
180
Here's the progress on my first attempt. I've been using "Absolute Cheapskate Way to Start Making Knives" as my guide. Using 1/8" O-1 steel. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to try and heat treat it myself or send it out. I just ordered "Wayne Goddard's $50 Knife Shop" from Amazon. So I guess I'll read what he has to say and then decide. Thanks for all the tips provided here on the forums.

knife-1.jpg
 
It looks very good for a first attempt. Keep it up!:D

One of the makers here(rlinger) does heat treating of small batches BTW, but I'm not sure if he does regular tool steels. You could ask though.:confused:
 
Nice of you to mention me Mike.

Sure, I do tool steels. It's more trouble and messy because of the powder coating I use to help prevent decarburation and scaling, the boiling water that gets my pan messy with quench oil from the blade, etc. and I threaten to charge a little extra because of that but so far I do not.

Very nice work on that first knife. You did it the hard way too. As I looked at the pics it hurt. I know a lot of elbow greese went into it.

RL
 
rlinger said:
As I looked at the pics it hurt. I know a lot of elbow greese went into it.
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I read a bunch before starting - and while waiting for my steel to show up. And I read a bunch of times people mention "it's hard", "takes a long time", etc... but it wasn't till I put the file to the steel that first time that I got it. "Oh... I see" :eek: was the first thing that came to mind.
 
Sweany said:
nice profile. Soooooo how long does it take to make a knife? :D
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Sweeny, you are priceless! You said a lot with those few words we often hear. Sorry I can't help you with your HT, I have a couple of tool steel blades that are partly ground and need finished and sent somewhere for HT. They are on the "to finish" pile. Most HTers are trying to get away from the tool steels, for some good reasons.
 
John-boy, that is a serious project! Looks like you're paying great attention to detail too.

Well done! Bet you can't wait to cut something.

Steve
 
Very nice! That took some dedication, you'll have a blast finishing it out. Is that #2 I see in the picture? :D
 
John, keep up the good work! I have been making knives for about 6-7 years using hand tools except for my Dremel tool, a POS bench grinder to do a bit of profiling after killing myself with a hacksaw, and a drill press to drill halfway decent holes. The rest is files, stones and sandpaper! :eek:

But, stick with it. You can make really nice knives (well, i think they're really nice) with very little other than elbow grease and solid technique. Here are a few recent ones I've done, but, yes, they take many times longer than it does for all of the pinheads with full machine shops that hang out here doing it the "easy" way! :D (Just kidding, fellas!)

nemo.jpg


cfttcloseup5.jpg


chin1.jpg


chin6.jpg


temperdetail.jpg


wharnandsheath3.jpg
 
John Boy - Sweat stings when it gets in your eyes huh? Good job. You may have what you need to HT it yourself. If not rlinger is a good guy. You can always save that scrap tool steel and se if you can get it to harden then decide. Do me a favor though....dont try to chop with it till its hardened. I did that on my first knife and had to grind the dented length off and you doing that by hand would be a bad thing to have to suffer through :D

I like how you rounded your 2nd handle over more...
 
Looks good. Great choice of material and design -- I can't wait to see the finished product. :)
 
blgoode said:
John Boy - Sweat stings when it gets in your eyes huh?
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HA! Yeah, sure does - especially with all that dust mixed in.

I also learned that my wife can't stand the sound of filing metal. So between the sweat, the sound of the filing, and smell of the tobacco buring in the pipe she wants no part of it. Besides these two blades I've profiled two more - After everyone she'll say, "And what's this one used for?" Which isn't really what I'm looking for so I go with, "Uhhh... cuttin' stuff... ah, never mind, I'm goin back to the garage."

blgoode said:
If not rlinger is a good guy.
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Yep - I decided to wait on trying to do the HT myself. I sent the blades to Roger. Thanks, Roger!

Burchtree said:
I can't wait to see the finished product. :)
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Ouch. :eek: ;)
 
Luckily my wife has never questioned my knife problem, especially when I say "yeah, honey, that one just sold for $185" or something, but she hasnoticed a recent flashlight fixation that I have. Interestingly, she dropped a bunch of crap out of her purse when we went to a friend's house the other night and I had a light ready to pick it all up. Finding stuff in pitch black under the car at night without some light is tough. It was my red AAA. Then she wanted to pick some of the friend's tomatoes and she said "We'll never find the ripe ones with a red light, dummy" so I said "So true" and busted out my new Arc LSL-P. LEt there be light! Since then she hasn't said anything bad about the flashlights, either!
 
That's awesome! I recently got a fisher space pen (after reading about them here) and she gave me a hard time - something fierce. Then we're at a church picnic deal and the ladies are all signing a card - but of course they're all trying to sign upside down, etc... with some cheap papermate that wouldn't write. "Here, honey, try this." :D :D :D SCORE!
 
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