It's a good day (to make knives for my JS test) Professional photos added

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Here's a neat trick, to make a sanding stick to sand the choil, I used the choil on the knife to shave the stick to same shape. Then I wrapped sand paper around the stick and sanded the choil.

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After sanding cross ways with the shaped sanding stick, I sanded it lengthwise. At this point, the blade should be symmetrical. It is particularly important to make sure the plunges are even at the choil and the point are even. It is possible to make small adjustment here to even things up with sand paper but we are talking about mere thousandths of an inch.

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There should be no indication of where the plunges are by looking at the spine of the knife, no undercuts.

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I'm using these things, and real good lighting in the shop to make sure I am seeing as good as I can, don't want to miss anything.

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When the blades are finished, I'm giving them a coat of paste wax to keep my finger prints from etching into the blade.

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Two more ready for handles.

Thanks for looking.
 
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Mark, I so look forward to Blade. Can't wait to shake your hand. And I thought I was anal about MS. You are letting it all hang out.😀
 
Hi Mark,

You KNOW I'm rooting for you. :)

I'm seeing a different style from you--as it needs to fit their criteria. I am certain you are up to it.

Who do you have in mind to go over these with you, prior to testing. That appears to be a smart requisite.

Staying posted. Good thread. :D

Coop
 
Hi Mark,

You KNOW I'm rooting for you. :)

I'm seeing a different style from you--as it needs to fit their criteria. I am certain you are up to it.

Who do you have in mind to go over these with you, prior to testing. That appears to be a smart requisite.

Staying posted. Good thread. :D

Coop

Thanks Gary and Coop, Well, I'm going to have Bill Burke look at them (he's going to administer the performance test) I also plan on contacting Burt Foster or J.R. Cook and see if either one of them has time to look them over. Thanks, both of you, for your support.

I gotta make a living so I will be back with more stuff toward the middle of next week.
 
I was able to get all of the presentation blades hand sanded. I have about a hundred hours of hand sanding in these nine blades. All of the tool marks are gone. The sanding pattern is all straight with no "J-hooks" and everything seems to be symmetric to me.

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Here's the line-up, I'll fit the handles to these and pick the best five with two alternates for presentation in Atlanta.

I've also been working on the performance test knives.

In talking to a couple of Master smiths I gained a little insight into the subject of the width of the hardened section on deferentially heat treated blades. What the masters like to see on the performance test knives is the width of the heat treated portion of the blade to be at least 1/3 of the width of the blade or 1/2 inch wide, whichever is less. There seems to be a little controversy over the idea of hardening just 1/8 or 1/4 inch of the edge and leaving the rest soft thereby assuring that the blade will pass the bend test with flying colors.

I personally want to make the best knives that I can. The purpose of this test is to demonstrate that we have the ability to build a knife of superior quality. To build a knife with a narrow edge hardened just to pass the test, seems to me to defeat the purpose of a performance test. The wording in the instructions for the test says we must build a "properly heat treated knife" and that the master smith administering the test is the judge of what proper heat treatment is. I think that most of us would not consider just hardening a narrow strip of the edge "proper heat treatment" on a high performance knife.

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Many Master smiths like to have the blades on performance test knives lightly etched so they can see where the hamon is. I measured the the distance to the heat treat line, where the hamon would be on these blades. The width is shown in thousandths of an inch along side the total width of the blade. All of these blades should make the Masters happy.

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The other thing I wanted to do is learn what blade geometry will perform best in the rope and 2 X 4 cuts. I ground the edges of two of the blades to .015" thick and three of them to .020" thick before I ground the secondary bevels. I then ground the secondary bevels on one of the blades to 17 degrees, two of them to 15 degrees and two of them to 20 degrees, inclusive. The edges will ultimately become convex but I needed to start out with measured angles. All of the blades cut the one inch hanging rope easily although the ones with the 15 degree angles did it more easily. The blade marked with .015 thick edge and a 15 degree angle wrinkled on the first 2 X 4 cut, I did hit a knot with it though. The blade with the .020" thick edge and the 15 degree angle wrinkled on the third 2 X 4 cut. The blade with the .020" thick blade and the 20 angle cut the 2 X 4 several times without wrinkling or rolling. I'll do more cutting with blades with the .020", 20 degree configuration. For fun I started out with a blade that was .040 thick at the edge and had a 20 degree secondary bevel. It was difficult to get it to shave hair or get through the hanging rope.

Next is the bend test.

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This is what a blade that passes the bend test correctly looks like. I passed the performance test with this knife three years ago but I let too much time pass before I started my presentation knives. The three year time limit from the performance test to the presentation test lapsed in February this year so I need to do it again.

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This is what a blade looks like that does not pass the bend test, apparently I forgot something since I passed the last time. I'm pretty sure I know what I did wrong, I'll do some more heat treating and some more testing and let you know what I learn.

Next time, more heat treating, some more bending and maybe some work on the handles.

Thanks for watching.
 
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I love your attitude, Mark, and thanks for carrying us along with you on this journey.
 
Thanks for the peek into your process. I'd be interested to hear what you felt you did wrong in your heat treat that resulted in the broken blade. It may help one of us to avoid a similar situation. We're all pulling for you. Good luck.
 
Those are some fine blades you're making Mark, I'm sure you will do well with JS test.
 
Thanks for the peek into your process. I'd be interested to hear what you felt you did wrong in your heat treat that resulted in the broken blade. It may help one of us to avoid a similar situation. We're all pulling for you. Good luck.

Thanks everybody, It's my sense that I didn't go quite hot enough when I drew the spine back. I have redone that on four other knives and will be testing that today, I will let you know what my results are.
 
OK, I have regrouped after my dismal failure.

It boils down to not having heated up the spine of the blade enough during the draw-back. I had forgotten the exact procedure taught to me at the ABS Introduction to Bladesmithing class I took five or six years ago. In researching for this testing I found a website that describes the procedure and in the description the bladesmith suggests heating the spine to a blue/white color. I did that and found it did not soften the spine of the blade enough resulting in the broken blade of a few days ago.

I have no doubt that the procedure described by the Mastersmith on his website works well for him. it just didn't work for me. With so many variables it is impossible to exactly re-create what another smith does. We all have to find what works best for ourselves.

By all the testing I am doing my memory was jogged and I remembered that in my ABS class we turned off the lights during the draw-back of the spine and heated the spine to a dull, dull red, then let it cool to room temperature. One smith I talked to suggested doing that three times. The difference in temperature from blue/white with the lights on to a dull, dull red with lights off could only be a couple of hundred degrees but it was enough to do the trick.

I drew back the spines on three knives, the first one I cycled once, then I cycled one twice and finally I cycled one three times. I want to see if multiple thermo-cycles would make much of a difference.

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This is a blade I did two draw-back cycles to. It's almost to 90 degrees. The objective is to soften the blade to about spring hardness to distribute the bend along the length of the blade. If softened too much the blade could kink at the vice jaws and cause a crack of more than the permissible 1/3 width of the blade.

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Angel said "smile". That's my version of a smile.

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I kept going past 90 degrees just to make sure I was making progress.

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Here's the spring-back after the bend.

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No cracks.

While we're in the subject of testing, here's some shots of the rest of the performance test.

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I tried several different angles for my secondary edge, I used bevel blocks on my belt sander to maintain consistent bevels. This one is at 12 1/2 degrees. Added to the 2 1/2 primary bevel it makes for a 15 degree edge bevel or 30 degrees inclusive.

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It can be a little risky sharpening a blade with the edge up but, I could find no other way to do it with a bevel fixture. After the bevels were established the hard edge between the primary and the secondary bevels was softened to make it a convex edge.

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The thirty degree bevel cut the one inch hemp rope very easily.

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It's a lot of fun cutting rope, six inch pieces pile up fast.

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Of all the angles I tried, the thirty degree bevel handled the 2 X 4 cuts the very best. It cut the wood multiple times with no damage.

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I ran out of arm hair a while ago, and a new crop was too slow to grow in, so I made up these test sticks with bear hair, caribou hair and fox fur stapled to them. I was going to say that my wife has copious amounts of leg hair I could test my edges on but that probably wouldn't go over well, besides, I would never be able to get her to stand still long enough. This is just better all the way around.

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The thirty degree edge bevel cut all of my samples really well. This is the caribou hair.

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The bear hair probably resembles human hair the closest though it is somewhat courser.

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The fox fur, being the softest, and most apt to fold over, was the most challenging to cut. The thirty degree bevel did the job surprisingly well.

I'm pretty happy with this outcome. I'll do the same thing with two more blades to make sure it wasn't a fluke. If the results are the same I will make my test knife with the same heat treat and sharpening procedure.

Stay tuned, more testing and the designs for the presentation knives next time.
 
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Interesting Mark!

Thanks for taking the time to share your progress and procedures, I enjoy seeing methods of other bladesmiths.

Steve
---------
Member, W.F. Moran Foundation
ABS Apprentice
 
Congratulations for bending, not breaking! This is making for an interesting and educational read. I'm anxious to see the final products.
 
Mark fantastic thread that is FULL of good info! Thank you for taking the considerable time it took to build this thread, take the pictures and make the blades.
 
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In this test, I made three knives the same. The only thing I changed was the number of times I drew back the temper on the spines. They all shaved hair, cut rope and chopped 2 X 4's with no problem.

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In the bend test the blade I drew the spine back once on kinked at the vise and cracked about half way through, so that one would have failed. The blade I drew back twice, flexed evenly, didn't crack and flexed back about half way back to straight. The third blade, the one I drew back three times, flexed evenly, didn't crack and didn't flex back as much as the second blade. For overall blade performance I would say the second blade performed the best.

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During final sanding some hard spots showed up on the spine of one of my Bowie blades . It could have been caused by water splashing up on the spine while deferential heat treating, the aluminum cooling rack I put the blades in while they cooled or anomalies in the steel. What ever the reason, this blade is removed from the pool of knives I will choose from for my presentation knives.

Here are the designs I have decided on for the presentation knives.

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Now the knives really start to come together. Stay tuned, I'll build the final knife for the performance test and start fitting handles to the blades for the presentation knives.

I drew jury duty this week so things will be slowed down a little.
 
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