Forged my first Knife

[powells85]

Well yesterday I finished up my first forged blade. It took me a total of 2 days working on it. The first day I basically finished everything on it but the edge/spine wasn't straight so I finished it by reheating it and straightening it. Today I made it real sharp with a Norton stone and polished the edge.

I'm not sure what kind of steel it is but it is very sharp, just ask Ken The front edge is given a slightly false edge to give the tip more penetrating ability so it can be used as a skinner. I left the forge marks in it to give it some character and chord wrapped the handle "Strider" style, but beforehand tied 2 small pieces of chord around the handle behind the blade portion to give it a swell to help prevent slipping onto the blade. Tell me what you guys think

 

[krept]

you know what man I think it looks cool as fkn hell (love the banged up backdrop too). Very primitive, awesome first blade IMO. I still have yet to finish one.

congrats on completing one!

cheers,
erik

edited:What kind of steel is it? How did you heat treat it?

 

[Esav Benyamin]

Nice work.

How about some rusty old railroad spikes to work on? They're tearing up old tracks in Pompton Plains and leaving the spikes and bolts and metal plates lying around.

 

[samo]

Awesome! Love the cord-wrap!

Sam

 

[powells85]

krept, not sure what kind of steel it is, but it came from a car tool. I had it laying in the garage with no use since its partly broken and decided to use it for a knife. I hardened it with 2 torches.

Ed, I was talking to Ken and he said that round bars of steel are hard to work with because it's difficult to hammer down flat all the way. I'd be willing to take a try at it though if you guys think I have a chance with it. Maybe one of you guys could grab a spike or two for me or direct me to the tracks so I can grab some myself What kind of steel is ths stuff anyway? How hard is it to forge? Thanks for the kind words guys ... it's a bad picture but for the most part, the main bevel is polished with some hammer marks in it while the flat part is left unfinished right from the forge. I think it helps define the shape of the knife more that way.

When I get some money after I take care of some things that are coming up in the near future, I plan to buy some steel to mess around with forging and probably some blade blanks of my own design cut out by Admiral Steel. I also plan on fixing up a bench grinder that has a bad cable and maybe trying to convert one side to a belt sander. Thanks Ken for the L6, man that stuff is tough to cut

 

[MelancholyMutt]

What about old metal files? it seems that Files need to be hard and durable to do what they do...

 

[Planterz]

Cool knife. Now go kick Tommy Lee Jones' ass.

 

[powells85]

Cool knife. Now go kick Tommy Lee Jones' ass.

Hahahaha... seeing that movie is what actually brought me back to knives and even more so with trying to make my own. I know most of you here rag on that movie and I can see why, but I thought it was okay.