As a maker who makes his living from selling knives, never pass off a knife that should be in the scrap bin to a customer/friend/family it’s one thing to jig weld the spine and keep it yourself as a shop knife or a beater knife fire the truck or camping but as Stacy has commented the right fix is a new blade. As knife makers reputation is everything and fixes that you see on forged in fire to get through a competition are rarely acceptable outside of that specific scenario. Here is a relevant story, I do a lot of wholesale work and one of my wholesale clients had purchased about 30 knives from me and they had a client that purchased the entire lot from them but to make the sale the dealer had to sell the end client a prototype integral chef knife I had made for them and the client wanted 6 more exactly like the prototype. So the dealer reached out to me to get 6 more made, I had just started making integrals and wasn’t super confident in making a batch that all had to match a one off knife that I had no template for but I said I could make them, 1 month later with the deadline approaching I had 25-30 failed attempts and was on my last bar of steel in the size I needed to make the knives, got the 6 knives through heat treating and on to final grinds and this batch was looking perfect. Well doing the final grind on the first knife and I start seeing metal flaking away near the edge, keep in mind these were mono steel so no forge welds, my best guess is there were micro voids in the steel a flaw from the manufacturing of the steel that made it to me, probably a 1 in a million chance. So I set the first knife down and starting grinding the rest and each knife has the same voids, they were all from the same bar so it confirmed my suspicion that it was a flaw in the material versus a process issue, I probably could have kept grinding thinner and removed the voids but I knew they were there and what was to say that there wasn’t more in the very center that I wouldn’t be able to see. I had to call the dealer to say not only was I going to miss the deadline but that after that many failed attempts we would need to change the order to a different style of knife I knew I could confidently make. The client ended up liking the new style of knives but he had intended on purchasing 150 knives as a large wholesale order and I knew the moment I made that call to the dealer saying we can’t put our names on this and unfortunately we will have to change the design that we would lose that large order. But I made it very clear that quality and reputation was worth more to me than the money and that dealer has continued to purchase knives from me and we have built an even better product line and even better relationships since that incident. If I had passed off those knife and any of them failed due to a defect I doubt I would still be making knives for that dealer. Long story short it’s better to disappoint on a deadline than the product itself, use this as a lesson and make a better knife.
Yes sir! I waited till it hit almost room temp and just splashed some water on to get it holdable which idk if that may have been the cause but I put it in a 400 degree oven for two hours right after that and that’s when I saw the crack. Don’t know if it was after the quench or the tempering when it cracked. Jason knight said I can try forge welding again so we’ll see
As a maker who makes his living from selling knives, never pass off a knife that should be in the scrap bin to a customer/friend/family it’s one thing to jig weld the spine and keep it yourself as a shop knife or a beater knife fire the truck or camping but as Stacy has commented the right fix is a new blade. As knife makers reputation is everything and fixes that you see on forged in fire to get through a competition are rarely acceptable outside of that specific scenario. Here is a relevant story, I do a lot of wholesale work and one of my wholesale clients had purchased about 30 knives from me and they had a client that purchased the entire lot from them but to make the sale the dealer had to sell the end client a prototype integral chef knife I had made for them and the client wanted 6 more exactly like the prototype. So the dealer reached out to me to get 6 more made, I had just started making integrals and wasn’t super confident in making a batch that all had to match a one off knife that I had no template for but I said I could make them, 1 month later with the deadline approaching I had 25-30 failed attempts and was on my last bar of steel in the size I needed to make the knives, got the 6 knives through heat treating and on to final grinds and this batch was looking perfect. Well doing the final grind on the first knife and I start seeing metal flaking away near the edge, keep in mind these were mono steel so no forge welds, my best guess is there were micro voids in the steel a flaw from the manufacturing of the steel that made it to me, probably a 1 in a million chance. So I set the first knife down and starting grinding the rest and each knife has the same voids, they were all from the same bar so it confirmed my suspicion that it was a flaw in the material versus a process issue, I probably could have kept grinding thinner and removed the voids but I knew they were there and what was to say that there wasn’t more in the very center that I wouldn’t be able to see. I had to call the dealer to say not only was I going to miss the deadline but that after that many failed attempts we would need to change the order to a different style of knife I knew I could confidently make. The client ended up liking the new style of knives but he had intended on purchasing 150 knives as a large wholesale order and I knew the moment I made that call to the dealer saying we can’t put our names on this and unfortunately we will have to change the design that we would lose that large order. But I made it very clear that quality and reputation was worth more to me than the money and that dealer has continued to purchase knives from me and we have built an even better product line and even better relationships since that incident. If I had passed off those knife and any of them failed due to a defect I doubt I would still be making knives for that dealer. Long story short it’s better to disappoint on a deadline than the product itself, use this as a lesson and make a better knife.
Thanks for this actually. It’s a tough thought to scrap it if it gets to that but you’re right that reputation is everything. Going to try and forge weld it but if not I may just restart
