Making two knives out of my beloved broken machete

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hardway

Joined
Jan 29, 2015
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First post here, so "hello" first, and thank you for all the amazing knowledge on these forums. Wasn't sure where this was most appropriate so I double posted it here and in the custom knifemaker's forum.

Today I broke my 20+ year old Ontario Knife machete in 1095 carbon steel (I think, that's what they are made of now at least). I have carried this tool all over the US and Central America and generally abused the hell out of it. It is a beloved tool with a lot of personal history for me.

I broke it while trying to split a 14" diameter round of wet Black Locust I will make tool and knife handles out of. I was beating it into the round lengthwise with a 3 lb single jack and splitting the round into 2" sheets to dry. I honestly was surprised that it lasted as long as it did, I had no idea what I was getting into trying to split this wood by hand. I immediately ordered another Ontario Knife machete, I love this tool.

Anyway, I don't want to throw out this old warrior, so I thought I would turn it into a couple of knives. I have put handles of all sorts on many prefabbed blades, but I have never shaped a blade before. I am looking for advice on how to grind/cut this steel into full tang blade shapes. I have 4" and 9" right angle grinders with cutoff wheels, a plasma cutter, and a portaband available to cut the metal with, but I have no experience with cutting blade steel. I am looking for advice on shaping this metal without messing up the temper from people with experience, please help! What is the best tool/technique to make this happen?

http://1drv.ms/1ySEmA6
 
Machetes are tempered pretty soft so it shouldn't be too hard to cut with your bandsaw. A fine (32 TPI) blade will help but you can get by with coarser (or at least I did for a couple blades). Angle grinders scare me and I personally wouldn't try that... again :).

From there you can file your way to victory or seek out a belt sander of some kind. Even the weedy HF 1x30's will do the job. Because you want to keep the temper you'll want to make a grinding pass and then dunk it in cold water and repeat. If filing you don't have to worry about the temper.

One issue is soft steel makes for good machetes but not so great knives. Sending it out for proper heat treat would solve that and the loss-of-temper concern.

Good luck!
 
Great info, thank you!

Any recommendations for getting it heat treated? Stupid question, but I would shape the blade and then heat treat, right?
 
Not a stupid question. Some do 90% of the bevel grinding before HT, others do everything but the bevel, HT, then grind bevels.

Check the stickies for a HT vendor.
 
I disagree with zhyla, and suspect it will be quite difficult to cut and shape that at its current hardness. It will have to be annealed. Do you have a knifemaker friend nearby who can help you anneal it?

If not, build a good charcoal fire in the Barbie and place the blade pieces in it. Heat to red hot, and then let the coals die out on their own. The next day the blade will be annealed. This is far from the perfect annealing, but will work. The HT to harden it after making the knife blades will be far more complex, and you will need a knifemaker friend or send to a professional HTer.
 
Put a point on the piece that already has a handle and re-sharpen it.

The other half just needs a handle design ground into it and then cord wrap it.

Keep it simple.
 
Thank you all for the advice. I don't have any knife makers near me that I know, but there is a blacksmith down the road who makes custom gates and weathervanes and that sort of stuff, he could help me the annealing if I needed it.
 
hardway said:
Thank you all for the advice. I don't have any knife makers near me that I know, but there is a blacksmith down the road who makes custom gates and weathervanes and that sort of stuff, he could help me the annealing if I needed it.
Click to expand...

Unless a blacksmith is specifically into knives and heat treating, not all blacksmiths are knowledgeable on that.
 
Might want to re-consider the project. Unless you are prepared to do heat treating it sounds like that you will wind up with two knives that are going to be relatively soft and need sharpening frequently. If that's not an issue go for it.

You can cobble together the means to heat treat pretty inexpensively, but the impression I get in reading and watching people do it is that there is a learning curve to doing it right and that most initial blades for people getting into this are considered sacrifices and often junked. If the blades are of sentimental value be aware you may have to trash them.
 
12345678910 said:
Unless a blacksmith is specifically into knives and heat treating, not all blacksmiths are knowledgeable on that.
Click to expand...

I don't think he makes knives, I asked him about it once and didn't then anyway. I figured if I could anneal in my Webber though, his forge would probably work better? And he works a lot of metal, knives or not, and I am sure has a better grasp on the basic processes than I do.

As for heat treating, I would send it out to be done if I needed to go that route.
 
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