First Tanto blade

K

knifemaniac

Joined
Jan 19, 2007
Messages
288
My first tanto blade from 420 stainless steel. I am knife enthusiast from 2 years ago and this year I began with making blades. it is not HT yet. :)
tanto2.jpg
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Thanks:D
I'm still collecting tools and mashines for knifemakinng. My childhood dream :D

Now I don't have enough money for proper belt grinder, so I use bench grinder, but with no stones, but rubber wheel with sandpaper belts with exact perimeter as the wheel. It is so slow to change grits, but it is quite cheap way to start. 75$ bench grinder costs. 25$ rubber wheel. I can do only hollow grind so far.
I intend to make myself electric oven for heat treatment, but......$$$$$$? the materials are expensive :grumpy:
I have the plans for the oven from my close friend who does pottery.
Exuse me for my bad english.
 
nice looking blade, and for your english other than you pointing it out the only thing that could give you away is the few missings "a" s. at least you are fluent in more than one language, us americans don't get the indepth foreign languages that you europeans do.

keep u the good work
-matt
 
http://picasaweb.google.com/knifemaniac0

Hello there, i made my third blade - a hunter drop point, hollow grind, 4X13 (420) steel. I had problems with heat HT. I read, that the 420 steel can be edge quenched in oil, but I made two mistakes. First - I was ground off the edge too thin, and second, i should not try the oil quench on 420. The edge of the blade made a curve near the ricasso, so I had to forge it back with the hammer. It didn't work, so I change the contour a little on a grinder. It is a true hell to HT with a coal forge. The blade heats up on spots, gets realy fat oxydation, smoke......
Next time I will leave the edge thicker, and I will finish bevels after HT.
And so, I began to make scrap from stainless steel.:D
Wish me luck on next blade. Unfortunately, I don't have a drill press yet, so I cannot complete whole knife. I will buy soon, because I can't wait to see my mistakes ot next steps.
 
Try getting a piece of plain steel pipe (NOT galvanized) for making a little chamber to heat treat in. Build a bed of coals, nest the pipe in them, and then build a little mound over the pipe. Toss in wood chips when the blade is in the pipe to use up the oxygen.

Knifemaking is a long lesson in error correction. The is a strong need for a good sense of irony. :)

The blades are coming along nicely. Well done so far. Good luck. :)
 
Thanks, guys. :)

Mike, this with the tube is realy helpful. I'll try it next time. And my english play me bad joke.

"Toss in wood chips when the blade is in the pipe to use up the oxygen."
??? I'm sorry, but I dont understand exactly how the wood helps to the proces. I use compressor to add air to the fire.
 
Good looking blades! Especially for the tools you are using. I love the craftmanship that appears when someone really wants to make a knife with just what they have.

You want to add wood chips into the pipe with the knife. Just a few should do. As I understand it, as the wood starts to burn, they will use up the oxygen in the pipe and help prevent too much decarbonization of the steel and decrease the amount of scale that builds up. It is ok to force air into the fire to heat it up, and the wood will help use up the oxygen in the pipe.

Basically, as I read it once, carbon is like a man that is really attracted to oxygen, and it will run off with the first oxygen hooker that heads its way. When your steel gets really hot, the carbon is in a free enough form that it can actually be burned out of the blade and ruin your steel. Oxygen speeds up this process so you want to limit oxygen around the blade when heating to keep as much carbon in the steel as possible.

Hope this helps!

--nathan
 
You can usually find brass rod at hardware stores as something like brazing rod. Your knives are looking very good.
 
only problem i found with brazing rod is that, at leat around here, its imposiable to find brazing rods with out flux on them and they are out of tolerance.
-matt
 
http://picasaweb.google.com/knifemaniac0/KNIVESNozhove/photo#5065565206717962498

Allready pinned and mirror polished. It is my hand holding the webcam reflecting on one of the pictures - I'm very proud to see my own reflection in the blade. I could not find stainless or brass, so I used copper for pins. I buffed the blade with sewn cotton wheel and white liquid paste. It is faster than felt wheel and runs smoother.

http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/buffman.htm

all I need to know abouth buffing I found here. Materials, tutors ect.
Everything i know abouth knifemaking I learned from internet. God bless internet.
 
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