How To Grinding a forged knife

B

Blackdirt cowboy

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Oct 29, 2015
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I’m making a skinning knife for a buddy for an upcoming elk hunt that we have coming up. I’ve forged the blade out, ground the handle flat, ground the bevels in. I have not ground any on the flats or the ricasso. I’m wanting to leave some of the forging character, but I’m not quite sure how to do that, and still give it a finished look. Should I leave it as is and do my heat treat? Should I grind the flats and ricasso down some, leaving less of the forge marks than I currently have? How should I prepare these areas for heat treating so that they have a durable finish out of the quench? Any advice is very much appreciated. Here is a picture in its current state, pre heat treatment.

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The difficult part of that area is getting it to look clean with epoxy without showing gaps. If I’m doing a finish like that I’ll dye my epoxy black so it looks better where the gaps are. You’re going to have to take some time to really clean those areas where the handle will attach in order to get the epoxy to stick properly.
Have you thought about a wrapped handle?
 
It looks like the handle is rounded over a bit on the left side. That might give you a gap if you plan on attaching scales. Maybe black micarta or G10 scales, and dye the epoxy black as Josh suggests. Or grind it flat.

If you want to preserve the forge marks and give it a finished look, maybe you could just get rid of the scale chemically instead of grinding. A quick search suggests vinegar might do it. Another option might be sand/bead blasting. Full disclaimer: I have never tried any of this, just throwing out ideas.
 
The light is reflecting off the handle weird in this picture. It’s definitely flat. I’m more concerned with how to treat the blade above the bevel and the ricasso. I’m not sure how to get all the scale out of the forge marks.
 
How are you heat treating? If it’s in a forge, I wouldn’t do too much work on the areas with scale-it’ll develop some again when back in the forge heating up to austenizing temp. Afterwards, you could always do the vinegar soak as suggested. Or, you could wire brush it until you feel good about how it looks. Then finish grind your bevels and handle. What’s left of the forging marks will be there.

I’ve removed scale with vinegar a number of times. It’s very effective. Just depends on the look/how much scale you want left on there. In regards to what the guys were telling you about attaching scales, it’s good info. Where it appears there is still scale in a couple spots at the bottom of your handle, I’m assuming those are low spots (didn’t get ground out as you made the handle flat). If so, when looking at it from that side, there will be a gap. Same thing could happen at the front of the scales, depending on how far forward they’ll be. If they’re stopping before the scale that’s left on the blade, no biggie. If they’re going to lay on top of that scale, it “could” be challenging to have a nice seamless joint there (scale is proud of the clean ground steel, or is shallower, leaving a gap under the scale material).

Hope that all makes sense. And sorry if I’m stepping on any toes with the handle material advice since you didn’t ask specifically about that. Looks like a really cool knife and I know for me, if a couple of the details end up a bit off, it bums me out in the end. Good luck and post up how it finishes out. Nothing like getting to use a great knife on a hunt that you made :).


Jeremy
 
I personally would skip the vinegar and use hydrochloric acid. Sold in the pool supply as muriatic acid. The 14% stuff is about as effective as vinegar but the 31% stuff rocks. Strips off rust and scale without touching the good steel underneath. Usually done in under an hour
 
tkroenlein said:
Vinegar over night.
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Backyard said:
I personally would skip the vinegar and use hydrochloric acid. . . Usually done in under an hour
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It's all about strength of the acid and time. I use vinegar because I usually have time and it's safer to have in an open container than stronger acids, IMO. I sometimes leave my steel in the vinegar for 3-4 days.

If it were me, I'd do the vinegar/acid soaks with wire brushing (a wire wheel on an angle grinder works well) until you have all the forge scale removed and are down to clean steel. Only then will you see how deep the forging divots go and how much material you'll have to remove to get a flat tang.
You can do the dyed epoxy trick to hide the unevennes of the tang and while it can look decent. it won't hide it completely. Another thing I've seen done is to use something like thin black felt for the liner instead of a rigid material like G10 or micarta.
 
weo said:
It's all about strength of the acid and time
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Weo is right on ... but I would add temperature to that also. Warming the vinegar before doing the soak (and keeping it warm during the soak if you can) should help things along quite nicely....
 
I tried the vinegar trick overnight last night and it looks like it’s working. Think I’ll let it soak all day today then hit it with a wire wheel, drill my holes in the tang, and then heat treat it. Tanks for the tips, guys. Some of the forgings are a bit deeper than I would like, but I’m still very new to all this. I think my forging will continue to get better over time.
 
One thing to consider is a jar of vinegar in the forge is very safe won't affect anything but the blade in it. A container of muriatic acid is a very dangerous thing and will make everything in then shop rust if left in the shop for long. Even closed and sealed a container of muriatic acid will make nearby things rust. I have it for some special etching situations, mainly on stainless damascus. I don't use it inside the shop and store it in an outside well ventilated shed with the garden tools.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
One thing to consider is a jar of vinegar in the forge is very safe won't affect anything but the blade in it. A container of muriatic acid is a very dangerous thing and will make everything in then shop rust if left in the shop for long. Even closed and sealed a container of muriatic acid will make nearby things rust. I have it for some special etching situations, mainly on stainless damascus. I don't use it inside the shop and store it in an outside well ventilated shed with the garden tools.
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I don't seem to have this issue and I use it quite regularly since I have good access to it due to pool maintenance being part of my job
 
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