Need help with a knife idea - WIP thread

[Hengelo_77]

That 2nd one looks good. I'd lose the thingy behind the indec finger.
It gets in the way. Contouring the scales will give a secure gripp

 

[Natlek]

Perfect. Thanks for the help, guys.

 

[Scaniaman]

For edc thickness I wouldn't go above .1", and I'd keep the blade at 3" max length.
It's gotta be light and compact carry, comfortable in hand and pocket. This is my current EDC and small game hunter, around 160 mm OAL and .1" thick RWL-34. Gonna update it with thinner stock though.

 

[J-T-K]

These are all just opinions. The great thing about making your own is you can do whatever you want and see how you like it.
REK (has a subforum here) is selling these like hotcakes. They are a bit different from a traditional profile and perhaps more like your original drawing.

EDC is obviously subjective, but what are the dimensions?

 

[fishface5]

It's also a good idea to make a wood mock-up first to check the ergonomics in hand

 

[Blackdirt cowboy]

That’s a great idea, fishface. Unfortunately, I already forged the blank. I’m annealing it now. When it cools I’ll see what I ended up with. It’s a bit oversized to allow me to grind out some of the imperfections and get the profile exactly how I want it. It’ll be really close to 7” over all and will have a tapered tang. I may make this thread a WIP. This is my first attempt at a forged knife, so I could probably use some tips along the way.

 

[Hengelo_77]

Make a good hunter/user out of this one and start over with the EDC for your son.

Turning something into something it isn't usualy ends up behhhhh

 

[Horsewright]

What would the EDC uses be for your son? Do you live on a farm or ranch? What does he do? Knowing some of this would help me help you. An EDC for me (that spends a lot of time horseback) may not be the right EDC for him based on what he does.

 

[A.McPherson]

Remember, he's a 16 y/o be boy. I don't know if you guys remember being 16 or not, but I do!!

If you gave him a machete with sharpened sawtoothed hooks on the spine, wrapped in barbed wire, and called it an EDC, he'd think it was the best EDC ever.

Practical and the 16 y/o brain are not compatable.

If you're going for what he'll think is awesome, the bigger one is better. If you're going for what is practical, the smaller one.

 

[Blackdirt cowboy]

Thanks, guys. Horesewright, we do actively farm and ranch for a living. He’s not so much horseback all the time, but he cuts lots of feed sacks and hay twine, castrates bulls, lances abcesses, just general farm and ranch work.

Now, for the unfortunate part. I broke the knife today doing some cleanup grinding. I thought I annealed it properly yesterday after forging. I took it up to critical and then shoved it in a bucket of wood ashes overnight. This morning, while grinding, I kept it cool by dipping it in a bucket of water. It never got so hot that it was uncomfortable holding it bare handed. I noticed an ever so slight bend in the knife. I thought since it was annealed I could just straighten it cold. I lightly, and I mean lightly, tapped on it with a one pound hammer and it split in two. What did I do wrong? I sure want to avoid this for next time. Luckily, I have plenty material on hand to start over.

 

[Willie71]

I do a fair number of these as edc knives.

248D4FDE-E5B8-45D8-B4CB-57DDC8F73576 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr

The feedback is great. It’s a bland looking knife, but it works well.

 

[Natlek]

Now, for the unfortunate part. I broke the knife today doing some cleanup grinding. I thought I annealed it properly yesterday after forging. I took it up to critical and then shoved it in a bucket of wood ashes overnight. This morning, while grinding, I kept it cool by dipping it in a bucket of water. It never got so hot that it was uncomfortable holding it bare handed. I noticed an ever so slight bend in the knife. I thought since it was annealed I could just straighten it cold. I lightly, and I mean lightly, tapped on it with a one pound hammer and it split in two. What did I do wrong? I sure want to avoid this for next time. Luckily, I have plenty material on hand to start over.

Can we see grain ? After forging you should done several normalization ............

 

[Blackdirt cowboy]

I’ll get pics of the grain here in a bit. So after forging, normalize a few times, then anneal?

 

[Blackdirt cowboy]

 

[Natlek]

That s don t look good my friend . Normalization is to correct the grain growth caused by forging at higher heats. Normalizing will cause grain growth, but they will even out in size. Then you refine the grain with lower heat ..................Search for 52100 steel here.....https://knifesteelnerds.com/

 

[Blackdirt cowboy]

What doesn’t look good about it? I have no idea what I’m looking at or what it should look like.

 

[J-T-K]

What doesn’t look good about it? I have no idea what I’m looking at or what it should look like.

I don't do forging but I've never seen broken steel with so many visible grains - looks like rice crispies! If you look at the edge, that does look like snapped metal.

 

[Natlek]

What doesn’t look good about it? I have no idea what I’m looking at or what it should look like.

Look this picture and compare which one is close to your blade I m sorry English is not my native language so I can t go deep with explain , make search on link i posted ...there you have everything you should need to know

 

[Blackdirt cowboy]

Makes perfect sense now. Looks like I need to normalize at least three times before annealing. Thanks for all your help.

 

[Drew Riley]

Even though the blade is broken, I'd still check your anneal by trying to drill and/or file the blade, just to make sure you actually annealed it at all. You definitely need some grain reduction.

You might still practice normalizing those pieces as well, just to work on getting the process down and give you a good visual of grain change.