Making a blade with Mr. Koster.

Allen Newberry

Allen Newberry

Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,923


Dan was helping me with some heat treating and we figured it would be a good opportunity for me to work on my hollow grinding. So I had this lawn mower blade and Dan pointed out that it conveniently had this big hole in the middle. He then drew out a sweet knife with a karambit style handle. I got to grinding and the result is probably the most fun knife I own.

Allen
 
Looks great! Classic lines, and I like the unground texture. The handle lines look smooth and comfortable.
 
Allen - it was my pleasure to help you with your knife. Not every day you can make something interesting from a lawn mower blade!


Had a chance to try it out much?
 
Can we hear more about the production process? How did you heat treat the blade? What type of steel do you think it is? Where did the blade come from (is it an old blade, or one you bought from Home Depot, for example)?

Thanks! The blade looks good, gives me some ideas what to do with the old lawnmower blades I have lying around here....

Andy
 
It was similar to this one:

Blade%20Mount.jpg



The ring was the hole in the middle (drive shaft - but not keyed like above).

The place where your fingers wrap around (on the knife) was the "notch" you see on the blade.

Not sure where Allen got the blade - was pretty old, well-used.

I wasn't sure it would have enough carbon to be properly hardened. But we redid the heat-treat anyway, and sure enough, it hardened.

I think you should cord wrap the handle, Allen. :thumbup:
 
I found the old blade ($50 knife shop style) in my Dad's garage and he said I could have it. I would guess it was more than a decade old at least. As far as cord wrap goes, I like it the way it is but ,I guess it wouldn't hurt to give it a try and if I don't like it then take it off. Then I would have at least figured out how to cord wrap a handle.

Allen
 



Here are a couple of "action shots". And as for cutting... The most interesting things I have cut were the straps on the box of my new Harbor Freight metal cutting bandsaw. Maybe I will get lucky in the next week or so and have something with antlers to try it out on. However, I generally hunt only a couple of days a year so the odds aren't that great.
 
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