- Joined
- Jun 8, 2000
- Messages
- 3,140
Well, it's finally happened. I've finished my first knife! It's certainly not as pretty as I'd like it to be, but not as crude as an Ek knife at least. Hopefully it is as functional.
It's an Inregral Utility fixed blade made from .300 01 tool steel and heat treated in my very own One Brick Forge. The blade's nearly 5" (4.800) and was too long to get up to temp in a traditional one brick forge, so I modified the concept and used two torches on a single brick (see additional pics below).
I milled the large stock removal parts out on my old manual Bridgeport mill, then profiled it on my metal cutting bandsaw and finally ground it on my 2"x42" Craftsman belt grinder using various belts obtained from Tru-Grit. Final finish is 400 grit. The handles are American Walnut with stainless screw together rivets (Corby style?) and Gorilla Glue. I know it could be a lot better, but it's my milestone first knife and I need to get on to #2. Completing my first knife was more important to me than making it perfect. I've been in this learning curve/ tool aquisition mode for too long and just needed to get one done! There's a few stainless blanks ready for heat treat, but first Paul bos moved (and is way back ordered), then Roger stopped doing HT, so I got complacent. While on vacation last week, I finally decided to quit trying to make my shop perfect and set the stage for making perfect knives and justjust beat up some 01 stock I had around. So I made this one and carved out it's brothers and did a basic heat treat to see what happens. I'm really happy and will now move on to new knives
Even though a little rough (ok, a lot rough) I think it's still a useful tool.
Without further adoo....
John
It's an Inregral Utility fixed blade made from .300 01 tool steel and heat treated in my very own One Brick Forge. The blade's nearly 5" (4.800) and was too long to get up to temp in a traditional one brick forge, so I modified the concept and used two torches on a single brick (see additional pics below).
I milled the large stock removal parts out on my old manual Bridgeport mill, then profiled it on my metal cutting bandsaw and finally ground it on my 2"x42" Craftsman belt grinder using various belts obtained from Tru-Grit. Final finish is 400 grit. The handles are American Walnut with stainless screw together rivets (Corby style?) and Gorilla Glue. I know it could be a lot better, but it's my milestone first knife and I need to get on to #2. Completing my first knife was more important to me than making it perfect. I've been in this learning curve/ tool aquisition mode for too long and just needed to get one done! There's a few stainless blanks ready for heat treat, but first Paul bos moved (and is way back ordered), then Roger stopped doing HT, so I got complacent. While on vacation last week, I finally decided to quit trying to make my shop perfect and set the stage for making perfect knives and justjust beat up some 01 stock I had around. So I made this one and carved out it's brothers and did a basic heat treat to see what happens. I'm really happy and will now move on to new knives
Even though a little rough (ok, a lot rough) I think it's still a useful tool.Without further adoo....
John
