Getting into Knifemaking/Heat Treatment

M

Metzger_Siegfried

Joined
Jun 12, 2010
Messages
11
Hey Guys,
i'm new to this board. Because i'm not allowed to do sports for the next 3 months and i always wanted to create my own knife/knives i decided to start this now.
I thought about making a fixed knife by filing the shape and then heat-treat it instead of forging ( because i don't have access to any anvil right now or other stuff that could be crucial to create a forged one).
Now all i want to know what different heat treatments i should do, what i need to do it and wheather a normal oven (max. 300°Celsius) is enough.
That's my plan so far:
-> Planning knife (Shape/Size/Materials), same for the sheeth
-> get materials (HighCarbonSteel/Steel for Pins etc)
-> Saw/File the shape//Drill holes for Pins
-> Heat Treat it (big knowledge-gap^^ some links to tutorials would be nice)
-> when successful, get wood for handle and leather for sheeth
-> get the wood in shape
-> assemble everything (Handle/Blade/Pins)
-> create sheeth
-> sharpen it

And hopefully it's done afterwards^^

I don't expect it to be good-looking or to be a well-cutting knife.
But it should be relativ cheap, and give me some experience for upcoming knives.

Please share your impressions with me and give me some advices. Of course you're allowed to criticize my plan, but if you do, then tell me on how to do instead.
Greetings from Germany and excuse my (hopefully not too bad) english^^

Phil.
 
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I got the plans of my knife done now. I'm gonna do it the full-tung way, seems to be the easiest way. I'm gonna use c85 steel (equal to 1084 in the US) and walnut-wood for the handle. The blade will be about 4" long and the back will be about 5mm thick so it'll be able take some hits if i need it to chop wood.Maybe i'll get my plans up if i find my cam. Now i need to get the stuff and then i can start working on it^^

greetz Phil
 
Please fill out your profile and read the stickies at the top, especially "Working the three steel types".
 
You got the last two steps backwards. {IMHO}
The VERY LAST thing I do is sharpen the blade.
Be careful, Jerry
 
i got the last two in the right order now. thanks for that Jerry.
I think i'll give it to a professional Bladesharpener. Because all i got is an old grinding wheel attached to a washing machine engine :)

@Dan Pierson
i hope that's all i have to fill out in my profile, couldn't find anthing more that could be interesting for you guys^^
thanks for redirecting me to that steel sticky.
But there's one question i have. The author says that it's easier to deal with steel that has 0.83% carbon when it comes to heat treatment. Should i go for .85% carbon or .8%? I mean what would be worser for my knife if i don't get it tempered proper? I hope i don't annoy you with questions like that^^

Phil
 
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Metzger_Siegfried said:
But there's one question i have. The author says that it's easier to deal with steel that has 0.83% carbon when it comes to heat treatment. Should i go for .85% carbon or .8%? I mean what would be worser for my knife if i don't get it tempered proper? I hope i don't annoy you with questions like that^^

Phil
Click to expand...

There should be very little appreciable difference between .80 and .85.
 
it doesnt matter. most places wont even sell you .830000% C rather something like .75-.85%
 
What these guys said. To explain a bit, the eutectoid point for steel is somewhere around .8% carbon, depending on how it's measured. Anything close to that with minimal other alloying elements will be pretty simple to heat treat. Thus, the right question for you isn't so much "is .83% carbon OK?" as "does c85 have anything else important that 108x doesn't have?". I suspect not, but it's a pure guess because I've never seen the specs for c85.
 
A word of advice about the advice: learn to walk before you attempt to run.
Kevin writings are a mine of science.
I call him one of the Gods of Steel.
But trying to replicate his results at a first try may lead to frustration. He's got lots of advanced equipment and experience.

So, although all that he says is true for you as it is for everybody else (that's one of the nice aspects of science), it has to be put into context. Read it, decide which parts you can apply to your equipment, and which ones have to wait (I, for example, work with a humble hand cranked coal forge and can only dream of the technology of salt baths) and try to understand all that you can about it (and read it again after a while you've been heat treating, and you'll understand what he really meant here and there), and use it to learn how to walk properly, but take small steps.
First time, if you manage to get a test blade hard at all, and flexible enough not to break is already an achievement.
Work up from there, using each success as a brick to create a platform of experience from which to build up.
You cant' build a house from the roof (ok, some houses are built roof first, but you know what I mean), you have to start from the foundations.
To avoid the frustration of having the oh so nice knife you made crack or bend during heat treating, start with some test blades, they have to be just good enough to have the same proportions and measures of a real, finished one.
Try different heat treats, try to break some (Safety!) and look with a magnifying glass at the break under strong light.
And change ONLY ONE ELEMENT AT A TIME.
Otherwise, if you make a mistake, or get the perfect blade, you'll never know why.
 
thanks for the comments.
I hope it didn't look like i think it's easy to aquire the experience and knowledge to create a knife that works. Because that's not what i'm thinking at all. I'm very ambitious when it comes to stuff like that and i always want to get it done proper, even if it's going to cost me some test blades, but i won't give up on it so fast. Maybe i'm lucky to go to a technical school, where we for example learn to work with diffrent types of material and also learn about the theory behind all of this. So i'm pretty confident that i'll get this done somehow and if there are problems i can always ask my teacher^^

@Dan c85 is just normal steel with 0.85% carbon without any special contents. So i thought i'll get some c85.
 
just came back from my schools workshop where i had to finish my compressed air engine. I had some time to talk with my teacher and he said i could use our schools oven and some of the drills when i need them and that he'd help me out with the heat treatment^^
 
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