My third knife blade WIP

[Dr Heelhook]

My third stock removal knife blade. 10 inch clip point. I'm very happy I finally got a belt grinder. Any critique welcome.

Rough grind at 40 grit:

After some cleanup:

The aim is to get it to a mirror polish, but I find the steel is pretty hard to work with. The steel is Uddeholm ARNE (Uddeholm is the factory that makes ELMAX). ARNE is supposed to be comparable to O1. Either way, great fun.

 

[John mc c]

Very nice
That steel mustn't be anything like o1 or it would be lovely to work with.very machinable

 

[John mc c]

I just reread your post and think you meant after heat treatment.they are all hard to work after HT

 

[Dr Heelhook]

Very nice
That steel mustn't be anything like o1 or it would be lovely to work with.very machinable

Thanks! Could be that I'm just not used to making such a big blade. It's coming along all right.

 

[Dr Heelhook]

I just reread your post and think you meant after heat treatment.they are all hard to work after HT

No, this is pre heat treatment. The milling machine had a bit of a hard time when I was cutting out the profile, but it was probably mostly due to the thickness of it.

 

[Sando]

Wow! I wish my third knife looked like that. Heck, it'd be nice if my 100th one looked like that. Can't wait to see it finished.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Good work.

A suggestion for future knives it to try and not have the knife look like a bar of steel shaped into a knife. That gives it a "stiff" look.
It should usually have some gentle curves between the butt and the point … especially in the handle.

 

[Dr Heelhook]

Good work.

A suggestion for future knives it to try and not have the knife look like a bar of steel shaped into a knife. That gives it a "stiff" look.
It should usually have some gentle curves between the butt and the point … especially in the handle.

Thanks!
I hear you, I'm still bouncing around some ideas for the final shape of the handle. It doesn't show so well from the former pictures, but this will be a hidden tang:

The final handle will be stacked leather, hopefully with a bronze guard and pommel (I will try to get a hold of a big chunk of bronze from a foundry close to where I live where I know some people).
The handle shape I'm leaning towards is a Randall "Commando Shape" inspired design. It turned out a bit KABAR-ish in the sketch, but I think it might look good with the leather and bronze:

(I made a rough wooden model of the handle to check how it feels in the hand.)

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

That is good. Everyone's eye likes a curve.

 

[john april]

nice blade and grinder !

 

[Dr Heelhook]

Some more work done on the blade + some bronze that I machined out for the guard:

 

[Scott Hanson]

That's turning out really nice.