My first ever forged knife :)

K

Kiwi303

Joined
Feb 13, 2005
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295
Heres a link to the picture page I made at the suggestion of a mate to chronicle the construction of my first ever forged knife.

http://www.cybamall.com/303shooter/knife.html

When I started i knew so little abou forging that i decided to do it the way i knew how to work brass... cold with a hammer :P so the first step was to heat the ground off shard of automotive leaf spring up to red hot in the fireplace, (it actually got to a vivid orange) and drop it in a pail of water, then away to the shed to smash it about with the bak of an axe head against the sledgehammer head held clamped in the vise.... guess what... it shattered.

After that a cry for help on Ironknees forum on the knifemaking page garnered a set of links from redhawk44p including www.Anvilfire.com which I used the most, and here.

So what do you chaps have to say about my knife? :) it's designed as a whittling knife for a woodworking artist and as such has a short fairly wide and stiff blade with both a fairly flat area and a nice curve towards the tip. I have yet to make the handle. Being what i now know is most likely 5160 steel, oil quenched and tempered it shoud be quite tough and stay sharp :) At least I hope so :P

_______________________________
Rhys the Newbie from New Zealand :)
 
I say it takes a gutsy guy to grab a hunk of steel and turn it into a knife. I think your blade is looking great.
 
Thanks redhawk...

Any comments from others out there? over 100 ppl read this thread and over 30 read the webpage and only one comment?

What do you experienced, less experienced, and non experienced knifemakers think of my first try... ??

good? bad? chuck it out and try again?
 
looks really good. good shape too! once you get good with a hammer you wont have to do so much grinding after the forging. i forge my knives almost completely. all i have to do is a little touch up with some 80 grit belts on a belt sander then i do the finish and HT the blade, polish it, and put on the handle.
 
um, did you shape it while hot or did you let it cool? because stress cracks will be formed in the steel if you shape it while its cold, even if it is annealed! get it hot and beat the crap out of it! it'll make it stronger and make grinding way easier, because there more shaping done hot and less to do at the grinder.
 
I told Kiwi to come here for help. I figured he would get a lot of suggestions. He is new but dedicated to knife making he could use some feedback. :(
 
I think for a first attempt , you did good.

Please pardon the lack of enthusiasm for the guys to jump in and offer a whole lot of info. I think the recent rash of new guys has some of the old geezers a tad winded offering the same advice over and over.

Do not follow the advice given above. You do not get it hot and beat the crap out of it. You are working with fairly small material and finese is more important than crap beating. Learning to control your blows and what to expect from the blows will come with practice. You may want to try and form the point a bit more instead of just grinding it out. Terry Primos has a great set of photos somewhere listed as ."What is forged?" Maybe someone can pull up a link.
 
i tried to help him with his knifemaking because you said the veteran knifemakers are getting long winded, and also i was in the same place he was untill i went to anvilfire.com, but i needed something more knife oreinted. so i came here and i have learned alot! i owe that to you, mr. williams, and mr. linger, and mr. nap. and i just wanted to take this chance to say thanks to you, and all the other knifemakers who helped me out.
 
Thanks for the comments y'all.

This was a bit of a disaster at the start. as was mentioned in the forum i started in and which is linked through from the webpage, and at the top of this thread. I started working it like i expected brass to behave since thats what i used during high school metalwork not quite a decade ago. So heated it up to red-orange and dropped it in a pail of water... expecting that to anneal and be ready to work soft :P imagine my surprise when it shattered. that is when stress cracks formed on what is now the tang, that end WAS supposed to be the blade :eek: :o :confused: :o :confused: :o

While waiting for replies on Ironknees forum I occupied myself shoving the blade intot he fire and heatign it a medium-bright red and hammering it flatter with the back of a 4 pound axe using a sledgehammer head for a makeshift anvil.
After that redhawks link to anvilfire got me the info needed to anneal, and I annealed it in the wood fire overnight, as the fire burnt down into coals and then ash and cooled it must have been slow enough because i was able to work it fairly easily while cold after that using a geologists hammer about 1 1/2 to 2 pounds in weight. when I ground the blade to shape I used an angle grinder rather than belt sander, one swipe with the grinder and dip the blade in cold water... alternating water and grinding to the picture shown of the shaped blade with the sharpie marks still on. Next I hit it cold again untill the blade edge was as thin as my hammer could get it. I suppose I should add a pic of my hammer and anvil to the page :) then started grinding with a 60 grit belt on a belt sander.

the finishing after tempering was done by hand with 240 grit paper. I've just edged it and managed to get it to shave my arm, cut though a 1/2 inch pine branch and still be able to shave with afterwards, so I'm happy with it :)

the next one I want to try and forge the tang out into a spike type if I can... ambitionous but worth trying :)
 
very nice beggining work. dont feel bad about the annealing mistake! when i first started,i was heat treating a bowie made from a file. its was in the annealed state and i had sharpened it!!! then i put it in the fire till it was red on the blade and yellow on the tip. brought it out of my camp fire, and quenched it in really cold water. didnt crack! like ive said before ive had terribly amazing luck never craking a blade in the quench. i heated it like this a few times, thinking i was hardening and tempering and that this would be a great knife! yeah i took it to a tree branch and it snaped at the tang in my hand with the first hit. i nearly cried!(i was little) figured id tell this storie to cheer everyone up!
by the way i completely forgot to tell you that is a nice knife!
 
The thing that helped me the most with forging a knife was watching a knifemaker in person.
If there is any way that you can find a forger locally spend some time with him (her) and watch carefully. If they are obliging, and most knifemakers are, you will learn a lot.

Joe Foster
 
Welcome aboard, doesn't look that differant from my first forged blade, except I turned it into a banana shape pretty quick.

A good investment is Wayne Godard's "Wonder of Knifemaking" and "the 50$ knife shop" Anouther good investment when you have the basics down is Ed Fowler's "Knife Talk" 1&2 Loads of info and tips.
 
Thanks for the further comments everyone... Took me a while to find the thread again, I'm nit used to forums that move threads to the second page in 2 days, 2 months is more like it :eek:

Elevn, did you manage to salvage that blade? maybe got someone to weld on a tang like many stock removal makers seem to do with damascus blades to save on the cost of extra damascus for a full hidden tang? I've read comments on welding 5160 et al to damascus blades once into the handle where it cannot be seen...
What happened to the blade?

Oljoe, thers not very many knife makers in NZ, Svord knives use stock removal IIRC, and while there are others around they aren't close to me... NZ is the size of california and has less than 4 million ppl :P makes getting blacksmith supplies like anvils difficult too, I had a google and theres no mention of new anvils for sale in NZ :( I've an eye on a second hand one of 50 pounds about 3 to 4 hours drive away that may do if the price is right. Untill it is I'll stick with my makeshiftanvil :P

Terry, that link has been saved into my favourites folder. thanks for that.
 
no that blade broke at the shoulders where the blade starts into the tang, so it was too far gone. besides i never weld anything on my blades just seems wrong to forge the whole thing then have to weld it together. kinda like super glueing a hand made clay pot that broke in the kiln.
 
Alright, all done except for a final polis and edge on the blade and some more coats of linseed oil on the Kanuka wood handle. please excuse the rather wonky in holes :rolleyes: the drill press was rather shoddy :P broke two cheap drill bits doign those and the press visibly flexed, even when just letting the drill drop under it's own weight...

http://www.cybamall.com/303shooter/knife.html

or directly to the final picture.

http://www.cybamall.com/303shooter/knife0025.jpg

I like the way the .303 shell came up as a guard ;D the scanner bleeched some of the richness of the colours out however. it's a deep golden coulour while the scanned pic is a dull brownish colour.

_________________________
Rhys the Newbie from NZ
 
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