Hey guys! I recently tried my hand at making my first homemade knife. I made it from an old Dewalt Planer blade (M2 already hardened to 62-64rc). It came out decent for a first try. The piece of steel was only 1/16" thick, not very tall (<1"), and had .25" holes every 2", so it wasn't ideal, but I learned a lot. Anyway, I decided to make something a little more "proper". I've always wanted to try CPM 10V, and there are not tons of knives out there that use it, so I figured why not try to make my own. After all, it's just $21 worth of steel if I screw it up. So, I ordered a piece from Alpha Knife Supply and went about making a 5" blade, roughly 10" overall fixed blade. I did most of the rough grinding on it today, and it's shaping up pretty nice. I still need to straighten the grind transition, drill holes, and do some other work. However, while looking through the info Peters Heat Treat gave me about their services, I saw that they recommend the minimum edge thickness on an oil quenched steel (which I believe applies to CPM 10V) is 0.030" due to warping concerns. However, because I didn't have my calipers with me while grinding, I ended up with an edge that is roughly 0.040" for most of the edge, but the last 3/4" or so tapers down to about 0.020". From the research I've done, it seems hollow ground blades are the ones that suffer the most from blade warpage, and mine is flat ground (not FFG, but almost). What do you guys think? Should I grind the tip back a bit to get it back up to 0.030", or should I let it ride? I really like the profile and don't want to change it, but it's better than a bunch of wasted steel and effort.
Here's the planer blade knife for the hell of it:
Here's the planer blade knife for the hell of it:
