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SamuraiDave

SamuraiDave

Joined
Apr 6, 2001
Messages
2,632
Well,
Last night while cleaning up some junk in a drawer I found a "Cold Steel" brand knife that my father had given to me to "fix" after he dropped it and snapped the last 1/4" off the tip.
Before I knew what I was doing I had sat down at my desk with a clamp, my dremal, and a set of files and started attempting file work on the spine (It turned out pretty good, but nowhere as great as yall's). I also reground the tip so that now it is now a spearpoint rather than the origional clip, and I got the finish up to 400 grit last night. I am planning a trip to Wally World or Home Depot to get 600 and up tonight.

So, Long story short. I can get 5160 over the net, make my own knife, send it off to be heat-treated, and finish it myself?
I have files, a dremal, lots of elbow grease, and a very small apartment. I think I can do it, but am I missing something?

Maybe I should go get a book on this stuff, but I have been reading the forum everyday for...geez I think it has almost been 2 years?

Any guideance would be great.
 
Yes, you can do it.

;)

You can buy practically any material you need to complete a knife over either the internet, or at your local Home Depot/Lowe's/McBuilding Supply. When it comes time to heat treat, you will be among the dozens, if not hundreds, of makers who send off their blades to a pro to HT for them.

If you have enough patience, and a strong desire, you can make a knife out of practically anything, with practically nothing. Ask the residents down in Huntsville!

You at least have tools! The only thing you might be lacking is insight into a few tricks and tips. However, as you've been following BFC for a couple of years, I'll wager you have a headstart on a bunch of the regulars, here, who started before the internet was even thought of!! Thus, though you may make some mistakes, and you may have to invent or reinvent a few wheels, you can get into the craft--and, "Welcome to it!"

:D

P.S.--If you're ever heading north, drop me an email, and you can swing by my garage/shop! You'll see, it doesn't take much to get going! Or, next time I swing down to the family home in Temple, maybe I can swing by and we can get together, Bro!
 
"If you have enough patience, and a strong desire, you can make a knife out of practically anything, with practically nothing. Ask the residents down in Huntsville!"

That raises another question.
Do you need to know what type of steel you have before you have it heat treated?

I have this HUGE piece of tool steel that I found at my grandfathers place. It needs to be annealed, but it could be turned into a great bowie. I sharpened one end of it and turned it into a big throwing knife as a kid, I have never had to sharpen it since. It would take me forever and a day to do it by hand, but it would carry significant sentimental value.
 
Hey Dave, It certainly helps to know what the steel is. I don't think many people would be willing to heat treat it for you if you couldn't tell them what the steel is because they would have to experiment with it and that could be time consuming. As far as that goes are you even sure the steel you have is tool steel?

Steel is really just about the cheapest thing that goes into a knife, so ordering some should be no problem. You could even get 5160 possibly for free from a spring shop where they might have short unuseable cut offs. One thing to keep in mind is that if you make a knife out of a oil hardening steel like 5160, O1, 1084, etc. then you may still have a hard time finding someone to heat treat it for you because of various laws governing hazardous substances (i.e. the quenching medium). If you have the time and put the effort into it you can fairly easily heat treat simple medium to high carbon steels yourself or find a custommaker willing to do it for you. Otherwise any number of places offer heat treating services for the stainless blade steels.

So definitely get some books on the subject. Once you make one you are hooked for good!
 
Silent, Thank you.

Wayne Goddard's Fifty Dollar Knife shop is #1 on the christmas list that I e-mail to my mommy every week (Dont laugh, it is a great way to get free stuff that is hard to find).;)

Now, just to hold me over for the next few months. What steel should I get to attempt my first knife in? I dont know much about stainless steels in their annealed state. What is easy to work with if you have to file and dremal your basic shape then sand everything using elbow grease? ATS34, 440C, 440V ?

Thanks yall!
 
Dave,

This might not be the best way, but here is what I did:

Bought the book "How to make knives" by Loveless from Amazon.
Bought 1/8" steel from the hardware store
Bought knife blank, Micarta, brass from Texas Knife Makers

Built a simple kitchen knife for the wife on the blank
Ground and sanded that cheap steel to death.

Bought some D2 steel
Made blanks
Got heat treated locally

Finishing up those right now.

Steve

PS I also pested the folks here into giving me lots of excellent, free advise.
 
I've already done a few kitchen knives, mostly from knives and small files that were laying around. (I kept the stuff I built as a kid and I got back around to them and finished them 10 years later.)

I have also made a handle for a Khukri. Last week I rebuilt the handle on one of those knock off Katanas that belongs to a buddy of mine. Sanded it down, roughened up the tang and the guard, re-threaded the pommel and 2 hour epoxied / bolted everything back together. He said he never felt such a good grip on the pos.

I would like to move from handle making to something else.

How hard is the D2 to shape? Any problems?
 
How hard is the D2 to shape? Any problems?
Click to expand...

Didn't seem all that bad to me. The only mistake I made was leaving too much metal on before the heat treat. Now THAT was hard to finish.

Once I got past that, SC sandpaper worked just fine (the AO stuff I have doesn't even scratch it).

First I hand-sanded all the marks out with 320. Then I used a wheel with bobbing compound, then green chrome. Not a perfect mirror finish, but good enough that I can see why people don't use it. Great when clean, touch it with so much as a finger and it looks awful.

So I rubbed that out with 500 grit and got a very nice, usable finish.

The edge I can put on it is really cool. D2 is OK by me, but I need to try more kinds.

Right now in the garage there's 12' of S30V calling. "grind me, grind me, grind me, ...."

Steve
 
Where did you get S30V?
Where do you guys order your steel?
-(I will also do a search)

--Thanks
 
SamuraiDave, here's what I do/how I got started and what I continue to do to this day:

First of all, find some steel that you can heat treat yourself. This isn't a requirement, though, because you can really get steel of any type and send it to a heat treater to get past that step, but there is something inherently cool about doing it all yourself. Get the Koval's catalog because it is a great resource. It'll flip you out, too, so keep it in a lockbox at the bank so you can't make impulse buys! ;-)

I started on 1/8" thick 1084. It is ridiculously easy to heat treat with a caveman setup and the steel itself is very forgiving. 1/8" is plenty strong for knives of a pretty decent length, kitchen stuff, etc, and it isn't so thick that you kill yourself grinding it. To make a knife I plan, cut out the length of steel from a long bar using a simple hacksaw, drill holes using a drill press for my handle scales, then rough out the shape on a 6" medium grit wheel on a Craftsman bench grinder. Total investment in power tools is about $120, I think.

Then, I take off as much of the blade as I can with the bench grinder, which isn't much. It's far from an ideal knife setup, but I hog out as much steel as I can, then I go crazy with a 12" long bastard file. You can file one of two ways, or both, like I do. I first file perpindicular to my edge, roughing in the overall shape, balancing the sides so my edge is in the middle, etc. This type of filing gives you a slightly convex edge. Then I draw file parallel to the edge of the knife, which gives a finer finish than regular filing. If you are good at draw filing you can actually hand grind a flat grind, but I like convexity myself. Once all that's done, I use three grits of stone on the blade to finish it, then move on to sandpaper. I prefer tiny little knives, so when I'm pleased with the finish, I bring the 1084 to critical temp (non magnetic) with a few propane torches and quench it in olive oil. Then I temper it for three cycles in an over, do my final finish, etch the blade, attach scales, shape, final finish, make sheath, etc.

It sounds like a lot, but the moral of the story is that you really can make a great knife with bare minimum stuff. Some of my knives have beebn downright nice to look at, even! :) You don't need a million bucks worth of stuff to make a good knife. When you get into thicker steels and things having power tools helps a lot, but there is something extremely satisfying about being able to make a knife in a day with hand tools. It is do-able, and you get faster and better every time you make one. Very rewarding.

Anyway, Koval's is a great place to start, and 1084, 1095 and O-1 are all simple steels that can be heat treated at home or are "easy" to work with hand tools. You can buy epoxy and sometimes pin material for handles at hardware type stores, but avoid "piano wire". Trust me. Woodturning shops are a great place to find weird woods for handles, although in my experience G-10 is the easiest handle material to finish by hand (files and sandpaper), but also one that requires some diligent clean up and safety. Oh, and before you start doing anything, invest in a good respirator so you don't kill yourself with yout new hobby. Wayne Goddard's book is great, and Loveless's is helpful, but Goddard's is better. Finally, nothing beats grabbing some steel and working!
 
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