My first forged knife

D

DannyDiablo

Joined
Mar 18, 2008
Messages
176
Well this is my first forged knife (also Looks like my first time with a camera). Sorry the pictures are not the best but you get the general idea. Any pointers would be much appreciated whether its on the knife or the picture taking!

I forged this from a bmw coil spring, not really sure what type of steel it was. I heated it and did the old magnet trick and then quenched the edge in oil. I still have to do some buffing on it but I will keep everyone (who cares) updated on my progress.

The handle is from an Adirondack whitetail and the spacers are buffalo horn.
I did some file work on the spine but the picture is kind of rough!
Everyone on here has been extremely helpful in the past so any further input would be great.

Thanks
Dan


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I think the knife probably looks very good, but it's really hard to tell. The lighting for the photos is terrible.
 
Looks great, tons better than my first forged knife.

What is your forging setup; gas, charcoal, blown?
 
It's a single burner gas forge, and yea I know I need help with the lighting. Whenever I used the flash the blade caught the light too much so I went without it.
 
The knife looks great. A good source of light would be a bright cloudy day.
 
I have a pointer. I'm not sure from the photos, but.......it appears that the blade isn't coming perfectly straight out of the guard. A way to make sure they are straight is to put the guard on, then put a mirror on the front side of the guard. Get the mirror nice and flat on the guard so that you can look into the mirror and see the reflection of the knife blade in it. If the guard is perfectly square, you'll see the knife blade and it's reflection making a perfectly straight line. If it's off just the smallest touch, you'll see a bend right where the blade spine ends and the reflection starts. It's a great tip that I received here a while back that has improved my guard fitting immensely.
 
The knife looks great but the picture sucks mine get blurry if i dont were my glasses. Itake pics no flash on macro setting and thats all you need out side sun light is the best place to take picture. kellyw
 
scottickes said:
I have a pointer. I'm not sure from the photos, but.......it appears that the blade isn't coming perfectly straight out of the guard. A way to make sure they are straight is to put the guard on, then put a mirror on the front side of the guard. Get the mirror nice and flat on the guard so that you can look into the mirror and see the reflection of the knife blade in it. If the guard is perfectly square, you'll see the knife blade and it's reflection making a perfectly straight line. If it's off just the smallest touch, you'll see a bend right where the blade spine ends and the reflection starts. It's a great tip that I received here a while back that has improved my guard fitting immensely.
Click to expand...

I wish I understood this, as it seems laden with wisdom. :(
 
Farmer Phil said:
I wish I understood this, as it seems laden with wisdom. :(
Click to expand...

hmmmmmmmmm....let's try to explain it this way.

  1. After slotting your guard and ready for glue up, put your guard on the blade. I use JB Weld on my guards, so it's all slopped up when I put the guard on.
  2. Now that you have just the guard on the blade with epoxy all over it, clean up the front of the guard so that no JB weld is present.
  3. Place a flat faced plain everyday mirror against the front of the guard, with the bottom of the mirror resting on the spine of the blade.
  4. Hold the blade at arms length with the point of the knife pointing right at you, looking at the mirror and spine.
  5. What you'll see is the actual spine of the knife and a mirror reflection of the spine of the knife. Two images...One the actual knife spine and it's reflection.
  6. If the guard is on nice and square, you'd see a nice straight continuous spine with a knife tip at each end.
  7. If the guard isn't square, you'll see the fattest part of the spine, right where it changes from the real knife spine to the reflection breaking off at an angle. If it's breaking off at an angle, tweak the guard slight by tapping on one side or the other to square it up.
  8. Then use the mirror again. Keep tweaking it until it's a perfectly straight line from the actual real knife tip to the reflection of the knife tip.

Does that help?
 
Beautiful knife! Congratulations. It occurs to me that the angled guard might be intentional, a design item.

Scott, thanks for the great tip. That is an excellent idea, one that might have saved me a great deal of angst this weekend. ;) I played hell getting a handle fitted up, and finally just took what I could get and chalked it up to experience. Now I have a way to approach a correction; thanks! Except I have a question.

How do you tweak the shoulders to get the guard square if the blade is hardened? I know that if I fit the guard before HT, finishing the blade would affect the guard slot fit. I'm probably missing a critical part of your explanation, sorry. This feels so useful to me I want to understand so I can apply it. I need to! :D
 
ddavelarsen said:
Beautiful knife! Congratulations. It occurs to me that the angled guard might be intentional, a design item.

Scott, thanks for the great tip. That is an excellent idea, one that might have saved me a great deal of angst this weekend. ;) I played hell getting a handle fitted up, and finally just took what I could get and chalked it up to experience. Now I have a way to approach a correction; thanks! Except I have a question.

How do you tweak the shoulders to get the guard square if the blade is hardened? I know that if I fit the guard before HT, finishing the blade would affect the guard slot fit. I'm probably missing a critical part of your explanation, sorry. This feels so useful to me I want to understand so I can apply it. I need to! :D
Click to expand...

You do all of this after heat treat and after final sanding of the blade. Do it after you've finished the blade and are working on the guard.

I slot my guards to have a slight press fit. I also bore out the back side of the slot with a large end mill and leave just over 1/8" of actual slot depth that will ever make contact with the tang. Think of the guard as a slotted funnel to picture what the slot looks like.

Even though the guard is slightly press fit onto the tang, it will still move a little. If you lightly tap the back of the guard on one side, it will twist to that side slightly and square up.

Here are some drawings to assist...
 

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Scott,

What is your strategy if the guard's top is flush to the spine and therefore has nothing extending to "back" or brace the mirror?

-Phil
 
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