L6 steel and rust pits.

G

Guy Thomas

Joined
Feb 1, 2000
Messages
1,370
Well I started working on my first knife, it's to be a compact utility/hunter made out of 1/8" thick L6 from a big circular mill blade. I sliced out a nice strip of it with the angle grinder and went to town on my 4"x36" Delta sander to get all the rust and pits out. I've now got a nice piece of clean and flat L6 that I annealed, but now it's not 1/8" anymore, it's a little less than 1/8" and little over 3/32". Is this still sturdy enough for a 3 1/2" blade of this type and did I actually need to get all the pits out, especially from the handle area?
-Guy T.
 
I'd say it's plenty thick enough for a blade, but doesn't leave much room for error and cleanup later. What kind of finish do you intend to put on it? The finer finishes end up taking quite a bit off in some cases, and you lose some to heat treat, too...

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Oz

Now, what other news did I have? Oh yes, IT'S A GIRL!!!
See her and my latest blades @
http://www.freespeech.org/oz/
 
I have done the same thing with no problems.Then I was looking at all the period pieces-textured blades-and blades with hammer markes left in and decided to leave the pits in and you can make some realy cool looking Knives this way,Try one and see how you like the look.Just my opinion....Bruce........I do have a picture of one done like this on my for sale page of my web site http://bladesmithing.isfun.net

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The Soul of the Knife begins in the FIRE !!!!
 
Thanks for the replies guys, I am going to hand finish this knife to a satin of around 600 grit. I had intended to flat file the bevel all the way to the spine of the blade but since it's a little thinner than I wanted I was wondering if I should drop the top of the grind down from the spine somewhat. Each step I take on this knife seems to change my origional plans somewhat!
-Guy T.
 
Organic knifemaking! Too cool! You should see what the plan was on some of mine when they started. "It was going to be a cheese grater, but I ended up with a head knife." This is where real creativity starts, have fun with it!

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Oz

"Over a long enough time frame, everyones life expectancy drops to zero."
http://www.freespeech.org/oz/
 
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