Im new, and I have questions!

[SunnO)))]

Finally decided to post, after lurking for a loooonnng time. I started making blades July of this year. Mostly out of files, and mostly stock removal. A little bit of band saw material, and a little bit of rough shaping on some hot steel is the furthest I've gone. I have made a multitude of blades, just whatever ive drawn out on the steel and ground to shape. I'm starting to refine my skills, and branch out into new, interesting territory. I am not totally ignorant to the terminology, nor the skill, so feel free to answer (if you please,) as in depth as possible!

Im using an old half-horse Craftsman 1x42 i got for 20$ after a month or two of hand filing blades. It's a good little machine, and i have been modding it constantly (very mechanically/technically inclined/minded.) i have extended the table, and hacked it off for quick belt changes. All of the guards have been sacrificed to Bocephus. I have yet to rectify the deplorable platen situation with a piece of ceramic glass, but it runs strong, and doesn't bog down.
Its a bit fast at almost 5200SFM, but since I won't wear gloves heat/steel burning isn't much of an issue.

Questions:

I'm a lefty. My left hand bevels are usually very passable, and my right hand ones start passable, and quickly go south due to how inconsistent my right hand is. Any tips on how to remedy this?

Kitchen blades: how thin is too thin? I got my hands on some band saw blade, and it is thin, but stiff, i sheared it down into blanks, and roughed them out. Now is the time to start the thinning process. What's the best method? It's thin, but not thin enough to just put an edge on... I haven't put the caliper to it, but at a glance, it's a 16th thick.

Any advice, whatsoever, is greatly appreciated! Thanks, and im looking forward to getting to know everyone!

 

[Hesparus]

Hi SunnO))),

It is definitely a bonus to be ambidextrous as a knife maker. Unfortunately, very few are. The best advise I can give you is just to make more knives. Everyone has trouble with the grinder at first, but if you stick with it you will get better. Some people recommend that beginners pick one simple knife design and make 20 of them in a row. You may or may not decide to do this, but it would certainly improve your skills.
There are lots of kitchen knives out there that are 1/16" thick at the spine. To be thin enough to just put an edge on it, it would need to be around 0.0005" thick and that would really be too thin. I don't think I'd go any thinner than 1/16", and something that thin is going to be fairly difficult for a beginner. 3/32" is a good thickness for most kitchen knives and will be easier to work with.
With that said, you should be buying new steel, rather than working with scrap. For less than $20 (+SH) you can get a 48" x 2" bar of high quality steel in 1084, 1095 or 52100 (all suitable for kitchen knives, but differ in how easy they are to HT). With scrap, you never know exactly what you're getting, so you never know exactly how to HT. When you're putting your time in, you might as well be getting the best results you can.

- Chris


p.s. If you post some of your work we will have a better idea of where you're at and we can help you out better.

 

[SunnO)))]

This one was about 10 blades into using the grinder, I did a bunch of small stuff I ended up using at bookmarks because they were pretty bad... I started one side and ended up with a decent result, but botched the other side pretty badly. One f-up (is there any rules against profanity here? I'm losing all of my color words, here. ) and I lost my flow. I have a semi-background in woodworking. The whole scrap scenario is kind of why I got into this, I get really disappointed when I see some of the things that get tossed, and if there is anything I can do to repurpose something, I do it. I do plan on eventually buying steel stock, but for now, I have to stick within my means!

Grinder:

At some point, I got bummed with my inconsistent results, and made a little armature jig with half of a smith's sharpening kit, a piece of threaded rod, a stack of bricks and a digital angle cube. Pretty good results, but my pride is bruised a bit from having to use a jig.

I'm still very amatuerish, but I'm looking forward to learning from the masters here!

Today's work. Some of those blades are from July, when I started. I would hope what you see here is an improvement from the previous photos...

 

[Atlas Knife Company]

At some point, I got bummed with my inconsistent results, and made a little armature jig with half of a smith's sharpening kit, a piece of threaded rod, a stack of bricks and a digital angle cube. Pretty good results, but my pride is bruised a bit from having to use a jig.

Why be bummed about using a jig? That's what Scrooge McDuck called "working smarter, not harder!" It's not like you're just pushing a button and it grinds itself, you're still doing the work.

 

[A_T_WorkHorse]

Looks like some very decent work to me. Cool forum name, too!

 

[saltyveins]

I am also a newb, but I think your newest grinds look pretty solid. Def improvement from the early files to the newer IMO.

Keep at it!

 

[Hesparus]

Your work looks solid — above the curve if you only started in july.
A couple of suggestions:
1) Some of your edges look pretty thick — shoot for 0.01" or less before you put the edge on. Digital calipers are really handy for this.
2) What are you doing for your heat treating? A lot of people start with files, but there can be a lot of variability in the exact alloys used, and even when you know what it is, they aren't the easiest thing to heat treat (commonly in the area of 1095 or w1). You can get decent performance out of file knives, but you'll get better performance out of Aldo's 1084 (www.njsteelbaron.com).
3) Your knives still pretty much look like the files you made them out of. It's not so much that you're leaving the teeth on (this is a fine aesthetic choice), but the profiles of the whole knives. Add some curves. Design your knives without thinking about the shape of the steel your going to use to make them. MS Murray Carter has a recent book out on designing knives that you might want to check out.
4) The choils that you have on some of your knives are not well-conceived. The big triangular one is just going to snag things and creates a fairly massive stress-riser (and I think it's kind of ugly, but our tastes may differ). The one below it is too small to put your finger in but way bigger than it needs to be for sharpening purposes. I can see that you're doing lots of experimentation (which is great), so maybe you've already come to this conclusion.
5) As Zaph1 mentioned, there's no shame in using a tool rest to do certain types of grinds. I use them for scandi and BESH wedge grinds. You obviously have the skills to do full flat grinds freehand, so feel good about that and keep the tool rests for the trickier things.
Keep up the good work.
- Chris

 

[SunnO)))]

Hey! Thanks guys, this is really encouraging to see that other folks find them passable! I'll just address what Mr. Hesparus has stated in order, hopefully somebody else is having the same problems/pitfalls as me and will learn from my questions!

1. I've been eyeballing for even lines, and using objects for comparison so that could explain my edge thickness issue. I also think I may be laying them back a little too far. The big one with the black micarta, according to my angle cube is supposed to be 22/per side. Giving me an overall of 44 (I really hope this is the right way to do it, I've been working for symmetry for the most part, due to not knowing what to look for, otherwise.) My armature jig dealio is pretty handy for sharpening, but it's design needs some work. The rod has some flex in it, and I'm fairly certain that I'm flexing it, and laying it down even further than I should be. Adding a digital caliper to my list of things to buy.

2. I've tried various things, a tiny MAPP torch for the first couple, and that left me with butter-soft steel. So I went to Harbor Freight (cringe, gasp, boooooo,) and snagged a weedburner torch. I was meaning to buy one anyways for the house, two birds one, stone. Advertised temperature of 3000 degrees at it's hottest. I have been making a small enclosed area out of fire brick, and heating the steel until it is no longer magnetic, then dunking it into my motor oil refuse bucket. The come out to a point where a fully hardened file won't cut it, and the leftover file patterns will cut already annealed files. I have tried snapping them off in vices, beating them with hammers, etc. I have only had breaks, no bends, and it takes a lot of doing. I assume that is a reasonable thing to aim for (no experience heat treating, ever.) Then I bring them home, to my girlfriend's dismay, and let them soak in the oven at 400 for about 90 minutes for some spring. The variance in steel hasn't made itself apparent to me yet, probably due to being so green, I don't know what to look for. I have made several blades simply for testing. Been throwing them, batoning them, cooking with them (my poor girlfriend,) and generally torturing them. They all hold edges well, considering how poorly I'm treating them. They also come right back to shaving with a little work on a fine-ish stone and my kitchen steel (she hates me.)

3. I do feel somewhat limited by files, I'm still learning how to balance, and hand comfort, general egronomics. It's strange that you mention to add some curves, I tried some just this afternoon!

4. Should I round out the triangular one? Those were something I saw on other knives, and my mind just went "DO ONE!" They remedy the problem of not having a square platen (the edges are rounded,) when I go to do the final bevels, the back end never gets sharpened because of the slope, and that little guy eliminated it. The big one does look goofy, the more I look at it. That thing is a quarter inch thick, and it's been a beast to work.

At this point, I'm just going with the flow, adapting things as I make mistakes on the blade, and fixing them however it seems practical. Looking forward to your responses, thank you for all the advice and encouragement, everyone! You'se guys are awesome.

 

[Hesparus]

Try scribing a center line with a drill bit so you don't have to eyeball your grinds.
The weed burner forge is endorsed by some good people, and if it's getting your steel hot enough and even enough then there's no reason to stop using it. The file test is a good start, but it has a limitations. It will tell you whether you got some martensite, but it will not tell you how complete the transformation was, or how big the grain size is. There are lots of threads on heat treating different types of steel, and you should read up on that. There is a thread that has links to lots of discussions on heat treating here: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...etta-Stone-of-Metallurgy-Lots-of-HT-info-here. Read all of this twice. Motor oil will do a serviceable job if you don't have anything else, but canola oil or peanut oil will work better. Heat it to 130 before quenching your blades. There is much more that I won't bother going into here because it is all in the other threads. Break a couple of blades and look at the grain size: if the broken steel looks coarse like grains of sand, you can do better. If it is smooth, you did good.
If you haven't finished it yet, I would go ahead and round out that triangular choil. It will still be too big, but the round choil will be more structurally sound than the triangular one. Both Murray Carter and Ed Fowler (both master smiths), as well as others, will tell you that choils are useless at best and detrimental at worst. Lots of people still use them, of course, and they make a knife a little bit easier to make and sharpen. You've got plenty without them, and I'd urge you to consider whether you want to use them or not.
1/8" stock is good for probably the majority of knives, and it is pretty nice to work with. When you buy your new steel, I recommend going with this size.

- Chris