first timer needing help

thanks for that advice. i dont see you as being a hard ass but as a fellow craftsman who wants nothing more than to see someone as interested as me to become a skilled craftsman in the art of bladesmithing and to learn properly without serious injury or any injury at all. to me i see all of yall as my senseis and i am just yalls dumb apprentice who has alot to learn and is eager to learn properly and safely. although in my life i have had many cuts from knives thru careless mistakes and even stabbed myself in the arm while in a hurry to cut something and have the knife blade penetrate 1/2" into my arm and just barely missing my vein, i have alot of respect for knives and have always had a passion for them and the art of making them. i will do my best to make yall proud of my work and of yalls teachings. i hope to someday be the one to help others just as yall help all the apprentices on here and in your local community. i will keep you informed of my progress and post pics along the way.

@Stacy - i do not have the funds for any books at the moment and will be trying to find the text online but i think it might be easier if i were to borrow the books from you. please pm me so we can get together and arrange everything. and again thanks.
 
For now go buy a good pig sticker like one of the Busses or whatever. Get familliar with the knives. Maybe get a few, and evaluate them in the bush, and on your upcoming hog hunts. In between hunts work on your knifemaking. Go slow and easy, knifemakers don't develop skills in one week. It takes years before many of us even begin to concider our knifemaking skills as 'good.

Buy or get some steel and start experimenting with it in your shop and on your new equipment. Develop a feel for your grinder, and forges etc. Your first efforts may dissapoint you, but these are the learning curves. Then from your pig hunts, and field experiences you will develop a feel for your knives and you will discover what is good and bad about those. From those knives you will then build better pig knives and the like.

Take your time, don't rush and as time goes on your knifemaking will be a burning passion, and the results even more impressive. Go for it!:thumbup:
 
A C Richards said:
There is no way to tell how the steel was Heat treated without further testing. If the blade bends it could be good steel heat treated badly or non knife steel. If it breaks look at the broken ends. If it looks like a bunch of little craters (large grain structure) it is probably not a good steel. If it looks like smoothe gray uniform (small grain) it might be a good steel. Not knowing the type of steel can be a real drawback and there are not any easy do it yourself tests to tell what you have accurately. This is why most makers use known steel/buy it from a dealer. A good steel to begin with is 1095. It is a high carbon steel available from admiral steel. Another option is 5160, Leaf springs are normaly made of 5160. It can be forged or if you can find a straight enough piece annealed, straightened and ground. Both of the above steels are good for beginners. As far as keeping an edge, that depends on too many factors to guarentee anything. Mostly in the way the steel is heat treated. Also the steps leading up to the HT have an impact. Tensil strength for a blade, well we usually talk more in Rockwell Hardness. Somewere in the RC 59-60 is the target. What you can do with your sword is do as Stacy describes above then take the end you are not using and do some heat treating to see what it will do. If you do not have any books on knifemaking yet you need to get some. The Wonder of Knifemaking by Wayne Goddard is a great choice. Keep on the forums and learn as much a possible. And above all Have Fun

Chuck
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Ill secound the leaf spring steel. The stuff is great and you can get it cheap. Head to your local junk yard and get some truck leaf springs. Can get them for less than 10 bucks each and the longer ones will make 2 peices of around 18 inches long (bolt hole in middle of spring) So you can make some long blades. If you dont mind the hole you could use the full 36 inches or you could split it down the middle and have to long 36 inch parts.

I tempered a small scrap peice from my bowie i made years ago after grinding it in to a folder blade on the open flame of a stove just for the heck of it. I cant even put marks on it with a file now heh.

so yeh leaf springs good cheap easy to work with etc. On my bowie i just used a 16th inch drill bit and perfed the outline of the blade then just snapped off the scrap at the perfs. Took a 00 bastard file and did a good old fasion draw fileing on the sping and soon to be edge of the blade.

Once i have my measly tax return i think ill pick up a couple springs and make a dagger and maybe a short sword or some such. Probabbly pick up some brass stock from the scrap yard to.
 
I agree with what bladsmith said, read all you can, ask all you can, and find a maker nearby. I am so lucky to have had a neighbor like Bruce Evans around to teach me, and I can't sing his praises enough in my opinion. I could have gotten started and done fine by reading, but being able to see everything first and having someone there to keep me on track saved so much in frustration and probably blood. Go into this as humbly as possible and you will come out not only with a better understanding of what you have learned but a better appreciation for it, and for the knives and skills of others before you. I have been doing this as a hobby for four years now and I have only made about ten knives. The rest of the time, I am trying to learn, not only from Bruce, but from the guys here. In my opinion, they are one of the biggest assets that you have when it comes to knifemaking. Just take your time and do it right. Remember accuracy is speed here. If it takes you a month and its done right, that's better than a week and it coming out a piece of crap.

Bradley
 
thanks for the tips guys. i do plan to really take my time and learn more before doing any projects.

@novaflare - how did you temper the steel of the bowie to where you couldnt scratch it with a file? im curious to know.
 
Books are on the way to him guys. He'll be a lot more knowledgeable in a couple of weeks.
Stacy
 
bladsmth said:
Books are on the way to him guys. He'll be a lot more knowledgeable in a couple of weeks.
Stacy
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Every time I come to BF I learn something. Today's lesson was probably one of the most important I have ever had the pleasure to witness. Thanks Stacy, Sincerely. Welcome to Blade Forums PimpinSquee
 
If I remember correctly "the $50.00 knife shop" tells how to do a spark test. If it doesn't hopefully another member can point out which book has this information. once you learn what to look for there's free steel all over the place. I make broadheads and patch knives out of circler saw blades. lawn mower blades make some tough knives.files, springs,etc. Even after I got to the point in life where I could afford new metal I still can't resist finding old rust and turning it in to a new treasure.
 
PimpinSquee said:
thanks for the tips guys. i do plan to really take my time and learn more before doing any projects.

@novaflare - how did you temper the steel of the bowie to where you couldnt scratch it with a file? im curious to know.
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It was the "scrap" bit from the clip point . I was screwing around one day and just hit it with a fire on my stove top (my stove is a little wacked I melted the bottom out of a copper ketle on it once already). Got that sucker glowing bright red and oil quenched it. A file will scratch it obviously but its so freaking hard as to be worthless. I had the bowie it self temptered by a friend of mine locally. If i recall it had a 57/58 rc when finished. Now that was a useable temper. I can only imagine what that scrap/folder blade is at. Im going to aneal it so i can finish it up and have it tempered by my friend. He just tossed the bowie in with some of his own stuff so didn't cost me any thing.

Mostly with the blade i tempered i was more or less showing how easy it is to temper the leaf spring steel.

Any how with the leaf springs sense you most probably will not want to atempt heat treating your self the first time id save the scrap to play around with heat treating and pratice some diffrent grinds on etc.
 
my grandpa used to always do lawnmower repair. im sure i can snag a few of his old mower blades and whatnot. that helps me out alot. i just need to get to them befor my uncle throws them out. hes incharge of cleaning out my grandpas shop and my mom is incharge of everything on the inside. since my uncle usually comes down on the weekends i can drive there and get them. hopefully bring back a few tools i will need later on for bladesmithing. what are some of the main tools i will need once i start working on a blade.
 
PimpinSquee said:
my grandpa used to always do lawnmower repair. im sure i can snag a few of his old mower blades and whatnot. .
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When I tried to make a knife out a lawnmower blade, I just could not get it to harden...
I even quenched in water....still would not get hard enough to be worth turning into a knife.
 
have yall ever heard of the method of quenching in oil? if so what does it do exactly. one of my neighbors did that when he did his leaf springs on his van.
 
I had various experience with mower blades. I test on a grinder first If they through a lot of white straight sparks it'll make a blade. If the spark is yellow, red. or not many sparks I don't waist much time on it. Mite still be good steel but not for me. Heat to bright yellow. till a magnet wont stick. point first and rock back in the quench. If using oil, PUT FIRE OUT. On a big knife I put about 1/2" of the blade in give it a second then the whole blade. If I do it right its a hardening tempering one shot deal. Usually I have to use a propane torch and color the spine. Most mower blades have some bends in them I like big knives so I always have to do some heat and hammer work and that packs the steel. There's also the possibility that maybe I don't like my knives as hard as you do. wears out my stones.
 
i really like my knives to be hard but not too hard cause then i run the risk of chipping the edge. i want to find the best hardness to use to get a solid edge that stays sharp and doesnt dull easily but isnt too hard that it will chip. also i need to find a good method to use to test the edge for durability. also what steel is good to use for hunting with that wont easily get dull from the fat of an animal.
 
Slow down and relax.
Doing a search on this forum will find that lawn mower blades are poor metal for knives. They are made to wear down and bend if struck,not be hard and rigid.Many won't harden at all.

When you read up on knife making you will learn that there is a big difference between HARD and TOUGH. Glass is hard plastic is tough, a knife needs to be somewhere in the middle.You select the metal and the HT to attain a specific functional use for the blade.A fillet knife and a camp knife will be very different.

Books will be there in a couple of days.
Stacy
 
A family friend gave me 3 old lawnmower blades to make a few knives from.
The guy really wanted to help me out, and had saved his old blades when he heard I was making knives.

At the time he gave them to me I had my doubts. I said ; "Thanks" but I had my inner doubts.

so I forged one of the lawnmower blades into a knife blade.
Due to it being made for a family friend I really took my tme and did about the best job grinding the lines on a knife I had ever done.

Then I Heat-Treated the blade, then Tempered, then etched it to see if there was a hardness area?

There was no sign of any hardness in the blade.
A file cut every place on the blade the same.

I hardened the blade two more times, I even tried to quench the blade in water.....It just would not ever get hard.

From the forum I learned that while some lawnmower blades will get hard, many now are made of steels that will not.
thus, it's a hit-and-miss steel to use....
 
ok. thanks for the info bladsmth. im trying to think of other metals i could use. but i dont plan on making anything just yet. right now the only means i have of making any coals is with a camp fire. i dont have anything else right now other than my mapp gas tourch i used when i was doing plumbing work. the only thing i have to shape a blade is an angle grinder, files and i also have a drill and some bits. i hope to bring back some of the tools i will need for making blades once i learn enough to do so. im also gonna hold off on the sword that i was turning into a pig sticker. i wanna wait for my uncle whos the ferrier cause on his truck he keeps a propane forge for when he has to make a horseshoe. im gonna have him help me find out the best way to HT the sword to make it have the right hardness.
 
Glad to see you taking this so seriously. Knifemaking is a great hobby to start and when done correctly can be a great career. Listen, hit me with an email, and I'll give you my contact info. I'm about to buy a little 5160 from a spring factory near where my dad preaches. It comes in about 1/2" thick round bars. I'll cut some up and send it to you when you are ready. Its a good starter steal since its easy to HT and temper. Also, when you are ready, this site has some useful info, www.homestead.com/beknives1/beknives5.html, this guys name is Bruce Evans, he's not located anywhere around you, but you'll not find a bigger heart anywhere and he loves to chat about knives, but wait till you're a little more knowledgable about what you're asking before you contact him. His site has a bunch of tutorials and a lot of great looking knives to give you some ideas about what you might want for a good hunter/pig sticker to be. Good luck learning, I'll help you all I can, maybe not as much as these guys but I was where you are not so long ago and someone helped me out so I'll return the favor.

Bradley
 
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