Newbie - as always

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lilcamo25

Joined
Nov 16, 2010
Messages
11
hello all,
i'm 18 years old and ive been a knife collector (due to my father) since i was very very young. within the last couple years ive realized more of what's a good knife and whats not and started collecting much nicer knives. within the last year ive been interested in making some knives.

a few question-
for my first few knives i was going to use an old saw blade
this blade i have is an actual antique- very hard steel
ive rehandled kitchen knives before and have been able to drill through the steel, however i had to buy slid carbide bits to drill this stuff
so i know everyone will say heat treating a blade will be the best way, however i have decided to make a few knives this way just to start out. but i was just curious
-will the hard saw blade steel give me a good hard knife?

also ive got a nice peice of maple i was going to use as a handle w. a stain and some beeswax.
-is maple a good handle material??

i apalogize early for being such a noob. all help appreciated! :rolleyes:
 
old saw blade should work o.k. It wont be fantastic, either to work with, or as an end result, but my first blade was neither of those things, so it shouldn't matter too much. I am assuming you are going to grind it on a belt grinder, and if that i the case you will want to dunk it in water often to keep it cool. If it over heats then it will ruin the temper.

The saw blade should give you a decently hard usable blade.
I make all of my knives by grinding fully hardened planner knives, that way I dont have to bother getting it heat treated. not the best way but I'm o.k.

Oh and before you get "the standard reply to newbies V8", I would fill out your profile (some people really dont like blank profiles). you can also learn allot by reading, I would suggest the stickies up top to start with.
 
No need to apologize for being a Noob. We were all there once. Recycling saw blade steel is not a beginner project. and the steel is probably in the mid 40s RHC - great for a saw blade that will take a pounding, but not much good for a knife blade. The steel is unknown, so heat treating it requires at least a bit of knowledge and some testing equipment. You can get a piece of known steel fairly cheap and outsourded heat treat isn't very expensive either. You are going to put dozens of hours of labour into this knife, so don't skimp on the HT which is the soul of the blade.

By all means, take on some saw blade projects when you get some experience under your belt, but consider known steel and HT for your first few. The steel will only be a few bucks - and the HT maybe $10 - $15. You are going to put 30 to 50 hours into this blade. Isn't is worth a few bucks for a qualty product?

Rob!
 
wait what kind of saws are we talking about here hand saws. hand saws will not make good knives as posted above. big hacksaw, or circular saw blades can make o.k. knives
 
I think that you would be better off ordering new steel (say 1084, etc) from one of the many online steel vendors. That would reduce a lot of variables, and you would have new steel that works far easier than a hardened saw blade.
 
Thanks alot for the replies, I am in louisville Ky. What is the best way to go about finding a place to get blades heat treated?
 
Have you seen this ?

The Standard Reply to Newbies v8

The answer to a 13 year old student is different than to a 40 year old engineer, and you may have a helpful neighbour.
We can often recommend a local supplier, but that depends on where you are.
Fill out your profile with your location (Country and State at least), age, education, employment.

Look at the stickies at the top; many are expired, but not all.

The basic process in the simplest terms

Absolute Cheapskate Way to Start Making Knives-Printable PDF
Absolute Cheapskate Way to Start Making Knives-Website

This is a very detailed set of instructions by Stacy E.Apelt.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=694673


Books

A list of books and videos on the KnifeDogs Forum
http://www.knifedogs.com/showthread.php?t=5285

BladeForums - E-books or book previews Google books
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=603203

I like:
David Boye-Step by Step Knifemaking
Tim McCreight-Custom Knifemaking: 10 Projects from a Master Craftsman
These are clear, well organized, widely available and inexpensive too.

Knife Design:
On the Google books thread, you can find
Lloyd Harding drawings
and
the Loveless book with large variety of proven classic styles.
Google books thread


Forging Books:
Lorelei Sims-The Backyard Blacksmith
An excellent modern book with great colour photos for forging in general - no knifemaking.

Jim Hrisoulas- has 3 books on forging knives. Check for the new cheaper paperback editions.
The Complete Bladesmith: Forging Your Way to Perfection
The Pattern-Welded Blade: Artistry in Iron
The Master Bladesmith: Advanced Studies in Steel


The $50 knife Shop
It is a popular book, but it confused me for a long time.
Forging is NOT necessary, you can just file and grind everything away to create a knife (stock removal)

The goop quench is total Bull, commercial quench oils are available, even grocery store canola oil works much better.

Junkyard steels require the skills of an experienced smith to identify the steel and heat treat it properly.
You can buy proper steel like 1084 very cheaply.
(Mentioned in the new edition)

I like cable damascus, but that is an advanced project that has no place in a beginners book.

The home built grinders are the best thing about this book, but there is now a huge amount of info on 2x72” belt grinders on the web, including excellent free plans.

Videos

Heat Treating Basics Video-downloadable
http://www.archive.org/download/gov.ntis.ava08799vnb1/ava08799vnb1_512kb.mp4

Many specific how to knifemaking videos are available, some are better than others.

The best overall Knifemaking video I have seen is
“Steve Johnson-Making a Sub-Hilt Fighter”

The best video on leather sheath making I have seen is
“Custom Knife Sheaths -Chuck Burrows - Wild Rose”
-(Paul Long has 2 new videos I haven’t seen yet, his sheath work is fantastic. I hope the videos are too)

You can see a list of videos and reviews at this rental company; some are worth buying, some renting…
They are slow to get new titles and wait times can be measured in months,
http://smartflix.com/store/category/9/Knifemaking

Green Pete's Free Video
Making a Mora bushcraft knife, stock removal, hand tools, neo tribal / unplugged heat treat.
"Green Pete" posted it free using torrent files.

Greenpete Knifemaking Basics-on TPB
You can also find it on YouTube broken into 4 parts.


Steel
The “welding steel” at Home Depot / Lowes… is useless for knives.
If you want to ship out for heat treating, you can use A2, CM154, ATS34, s30v 440C, plus many others.

If you want to heat treat yourself, find some 1070, 1080, 1084,
1084 FG sold by Aldo Bruno is formulated just for knifemaking.

You can find a list of suppliers here
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=699736

Aldo’s website inventory is unreliable, call instead.
http://njsteelbaron.com/


Heat Treating
You do not have to buy a lot of equipment to start with.
You can send out for heat treating, 10 or 15 $ per blade

This is a PDF brochure which gives good general info
http://www.buckknives.com/resources/pdf/Paul_Bos_Brochure.pdf

http://www.petersheattreat.com/
http://www.texasknife.com/vcom/about_us.php
http://www.knifemaker.ca/ (Canadian)


Grinder / Tools

Hand Tools
You can do it all by hand with files and abrasive paper like the Green Pete video.

Photo of a nice bevel filing jig .
http://www.flemingknives.com/imagesPrime/FileStation/KPicB007.jpg

Entry Level Grinders
Many makers start with the Sears Craftsman 2x42 belt grinder.
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00921513000P?prdNo=3

Commercial Production 2 x 72” Belt Grinders
http://www.prometheanknives.com/shop-techniques-3/grinders

Mapp arm
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=466024


DIY 2 x 72” Belt Grinders

KMG Clone
Free Plans
http://www.dfoggknives.com/PDF/GrinderPlans.pdf

NWG No Weld Grinder
http://www.usaknifemaker.com/plans-for-the-no-weld-grinder-sander-nearly-50-pages-p-723.html

EERF Grinder (EERF =“Free” backwards)
Free plans
http://wilmontgrinders.com/EERFGrinder.aspx
http://blindhogg.com/blueprints.html

Buy the kit
http://polarbearforge.com/grinder_kit.html
 
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ive got tools and more tools haha. grinders, drills, sanders, so that's no problem.
so heating the blade untill it is no longer magnetic and then quenching in old motor oil actually works?
 
lilcamo25 said:
Thanks alot for the replies, I am in louisville Ky. What is the best way to go about finding a place to get blades heat treated?
Click to expand...

If you can't find anyone locally to HT your blade, send it to me and I'll do it for free. Just pay shipping both ways.
 
I here this question quite often from a newbie and it gets under my skin when everyone wants to pile on about how you need to go by a piece of good steel. The biggest percentages of them are only repeating something that they have been told from the moment they asked that very question. It took a long time before they really knew why they were being told this. Good steel is only part of the equation to making a good knife!

You need to learn the basics first and with everything else from there on it is practice, practice, practice. Once you get the basics down then if you really want to make a good knife then get you a good piece of steel and follow the steps to make a good knife. Simply buying a good quality piece of steel does not mean you are going to make a good knife. If you don’t learn the techniques that need to go into making a knife and the proper process for finishing then you simply have a good piece of steel shaped into a pointy thing! After all each different kind of steel has different characteristics that dictate the process. Granted this is mostly confined to the finishing process such as heat treating but it something that has to be learned. Practically everyone out there has a pile of knives that for one reason or another were failures. The design was bad, the handle cracked, the heat treat went bad, or and when you get too this one you know you are on your way. The knife simply did not meet your standards.And that's OK but you must learn from those failures!

My first knives were made from a two man saw like they used to use for cutting timber! They were never tempered; however you have to be careful how you handle the cutting of the steel and anything that may cause heat to steel. You do not want to overheat the steel. I found that I could spot anneal with anneal the steel to drill for handles with a torch and MAPP gas. Wrap the blade in a wet rag and hold the torch on one spot to red hot and while red hot slap it on the drill press and drill non stop. Not a good process on the bit but it will work. After all these saw were used to cut all day long and the steel was good enough so that they did not need to be sharpened all the time!

I also posses some knives made by my wife’s Grandfather that date back to the early 1900's. A couple of them were made from handsaws I am pretty sure. He, as most farmers back then used to butcher his own livestock.

Now that most purists and those that have had it drilled into their heads are about to puke or already have!:barf: Let me make this statement the steel in these particular knives was not tested to be identified. However I will tell you there is enough carbon to hold a good edge and their is not so much that they are hard to sharpen. A knife made from a source such as this can have and edge on it and lets say in the course of a butchering it will need to be put to a stone a couple of times. That' not bad in my opinion.

Another thing those first knives I made taught me was the basics of knife making. They were all done entirely by hand. All shaped and edges made by files, sandpaper. They gave me an insight into what will work and what will not work. There is nothing more disheartening than to shape and file out a knife only to realize that you have made a mistake in the design of the knife and it doesn’t' look like you thought it was going to, or their is no way to fit the parts of the knife together because you failed to think ahead. You learn that a good knife has certain steps that need to be followed to make a good knife.

Having said all that. Nowadays I would recommend some good 1080 and take it from there with learning. 1080 is an easy steel for the beginner to work with and very forgiving on the learning processes and when properly heat treated it will make a good carbon knife.
 
i hear 1080 really often however it's a bit hard to find.
where can i buy a piece with the perfect size for stock removal
 
lilcamo25 said:
-will the hard saw blade steel give me a good hard knife?
Click to expand...

Maybe! Don't over-heat it and ruin the temper. Put a nice keen edge on it and see if it holds up. You don't really have anything to lose except time, and you'll likely learn something.
lilcamo25 said:
-also ive got a nice peice of maple i was going to use as a handle w. a stain and some beeswax.
-is maple a good handle material??
Click to expand...

Yup. It won't hold up to the elements like micarta or professionally stabilized wood, but what you're describing has been used for a very very long time.

Our frontier forefathers likely would have been very happy to use a knife made from an old file or saw blade and seasoned hardwood from the back forty, in fact an awful lot of them did and got along just fine. It's really not a bad way to start. You could do a lot worse.

Is it going to be the very best possible? No. But it stands at least an even chance of being noticeably better than most of the crap on store shelves these days.

I'm NOT a huge fan of mystery steel, BTW. I've used several old files in the past but now I prefer to make my knives from new stock and have them HT'ed by pro's with zillion-dollar fancy-schmancy vacuum ovens and liquid nitrogen cryo tanks. But before we all pile on this fella, take note that he does have some experience with tools and is asking the right questions. I find that refreshing and encouraging.
 
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you gave a perfect answer!
thanks so much for the help
and you may be surprised im actually not a fella haha
but rather a female. no biggie
thanks again for the post
 
lilcamo25 said:
i hear 1080 really often however it's a bit hard to find.
where can i buy a piece with the perfect size for stock removal
Click to expand...

1084FG here
1/4" is pretty thick, but it's good stuff
http://njsteelbaron.com/shop

and we are more than happy to welcome lady makers, it's just that they are so few and far between.

If you go through that post you will find steel suppliers, heat treaters, and lots of info to get you started.


I love maple handles.
You can stain them with a homemade mix of steelwook and vinegar, which would match your old sawblade material very well.
Search for Steel wool vinegar stain, or vinegaroon stain
IMG_1810.jpg
 
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lilcamo25 said:
and you may be surprised im actually not a fella haha
but rather a female.
Click to expand...

Oops, sorry! Welcome to the knifemaking addiction. Have fun!

P.S. O1 is another good, fairly simple steel that's easier to find in thin stock, though a bit more touchy to HT than 1080/1084. For goodness sake don't be tempted to buy "welding" steel bars from the hardware store, they're low quality and low-carbon which means they won't harden worth a damn. At that that point you're better off with old saw blades.

The stain 12345678910 describes is great, simply let a pad of plain (not soapy) 0000 steel wool dissolve in a jar of regular vinegar and strain out any bits with a coffee filter. Shape and sand your handle the way you want and stain it with the liquid. When it's as dark as you want, rinse well to neutralize the acid, let dry and seal the wood with tung oil, linseed oil or similar according to directions. As he said, it will make a very attractive look that's appropriate for a saw-blade knife. Don't forget to google like he said, there's many variations and more details available, but that's basically it. A person could easily write a whole term paper or book on all the old-time staining and finishing techniques.

Did I mention have fun? :)
 
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