rampant misinformation...

The only thing I can add is that forging, as a process, can be used to manipulate grain flow, which can in fact produce a stronger component than machining from barstock. Most aircraft fittings that were subject to high stress and cyclic loadings were produced by starting with a specific forging and machining the finished part from it.

Maybe that is what the guy was talking about. Maybe not.

I do not see any substantial difference in the overall strength from forging as applied to knives-They are simply too thin and too straight for grain flow to come into play.
 
Steve Schwarzer did an article in Blade a while back about the "great grain flow fallacy." He had photomicrigraph pics of forged vs stock removal. The grain alignment took olace during hot rolling, IIRC.

And no, I don't remember which issue.

Realistically, a properly heat treated knife doesn't care whether it was forged. There is very little that a knife user can possibly do in real world use that would ever show a difference. That statement will probably generate some discussion, so read it carefully. And I both forge and do stock removal.

Gene
 
GibsonFan said:
Doesn't "grain flow" come from the mill when the steel is rolled out?
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Grain doesn't flow! The flow is from the impurities being stretched out and thinned as the piece gets longer and narrower. Grain, is grain, is grain. and....almost all of the steel that we use to make a stock removal knife was forged down to that piece that we started cutting and grinding on. All modern knife steels start out as a large cast bloom. Most are about 3 foot in circumference by about 15 feet tall. It's one huge chunk of steel. From there it is rolled smaller and smaller and smaller (this is a forging process, since the steel is heated to forging temperature and squeezed down through rolls in a rolling mill). Eventually it is rolled down to the size we as knifemakers use. That's a lot of forging already put into the steel. The real difference in the quality of a knife is at the heat treat stage when we take our knife shaped piece of steel and harden and temper it. This heat treat doesn't care whether it was forged all the way down to that shape, or whether it was from stock removal. The heat treat creates the grain structure we're after, not the forging process.

The amount of forging done to a small piece of steel by a bladesmith is a small and insignificant portion of the total forging that the piece of steel, now shaped like a knife has undergone.

All knives are forged is what I'm saying. A bladesmith just forgers a little closer to shape than a stock removal maker. He/she still has do some minor stock removal to clean up the forged blade.

I also don't see any reason that a properly heat treated stock removal knife wouldn't be able to pass the ABS guidelines for Journeyman or Mastersmith. Of course, those guidelines are for a forged blade, but still, if it's properly heat treated it can pass the test just as easily as a properly heat treated forged blade.

The stock removal maker is counting on the steel manufacturer to have a good annealing and normalizing process usually, since they don't do this themselves. We, as forgers control this step, so this may account for why some forged knives will out perform a stock removal knife.

Why do I forge now? Because it's fun! Because I can conserve on materials! Because I like the way my damascus patterns distort to fit the blade, instead of being just cut off visually as well as literally.

Because I can!!

Scott (Ickie) Ickes
 
scottickes said:
Grain doesn't flow! The flow is from the impurities being stretched out and thinned as the piece gets longer and narrower. Grain, is grain, is grain.
Click to expand...

Yup, that's what I thought, I put "grain flow" in quotes like that because it seemed to me like two different things. ("grain" from rolling the steel and its impurities, and the grain that results from the crystalline structure of the steel.)

Please correct me if I'm wrong; I want to learn the vocabulary correctly. (Like strength vs. toughness, I think I finally have my head wrapped around that.)

BTW I'm one of those guys who read some books/articles about forging back in the 80's and got turned all sideways... including all that stuff about edge-packing and grain flow... after a long absence from the topic, I'm awful glad to be finding better info.
 
scottickes said:
The stock removal maker is counting on the steel manufacturer to have a good annealing and normalizing process usually, since they don't do this themselves. We, as forgers control this step, so this may account for why some forged knives will out perform a stock removal knife.

Scott (Ickie) Ickes
Click to expand...

Some of us stock removal guys normalize for mutliple cycles after grinding to refine the grain structure and equalize stresses caused by uneven heating during the grind. :cool: Other than that, I love what yer sayin' Bro! :D

Brian
 
Galloglas, I'm only a beginning SR guy but I assure you, I have also taken to heart what I've read about HT, multiple normalizing and tempering, etc. Seems to me, that's the one performance aspect that a custom maker can control/improve upon better than a commercial manu can or will. I haven't bothered yet to read up on stainless HT, but I must confess that no less an authority than Loveless disappointed me (in "How to Make Knives") by brushing off HT as something you just farm out and forget about... not knocking him by any means!!
 
Thank you.....Scott! I agree with you.

After a while it isn't fun any-more. I enjoy it too much to get too scientific(?) and worry about everything being perfect. There is always a little room for human error. If not, then perhaps no one should make knives any more. Wheather we admit it or not most of us are taking someones word for certain things because we are only willing to go so far with what we have to do to prove a thing/experiment. The smallest particle of matter that is the same chemically as the whole mass (molecular). Some claim that even our thoughts contain molecules. Maybe that is what they mean when they say "I see what you are saying";) . I'm not sure that some of this can be controlled enough to repeat and compare. An exact sameness. If you make a product and folks tell you how much they like it and that it really does what they hoped it would, then what more could one ask for?....A happy customer.:D I think everyone who is doing anything and putting thought and study into it will enjoy it and continue to increase their skills. Learning is part of the fun, but not all of it.........move that metal!

One can pick out any subject and study it all their life and still not get close to knowing all there is to know about it. Sometimes we think we do, but that is because we don't know what we don't know.

Ramsey
 
GibsonFan said:
You got that right, chief. A colleague of mine once described a shoddy coworker as having "One year's experience, ten times." Not the same as ten years' "real" experience.
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I like that phrase a lot. It puts into words what I have been frustrated with for some time. There is a tendency to use time doing this blademaking thing as a credential unto itself. "Joe Bladesmith has been edge packing for over 25 years, he must know what he is doing!", doing something backwards or wrong for more time than anybody else doesn't make you any more correct, it just wastes that many more years. I wouldn't even be impressed if Joe had been doing everything right for 25 years. What would make me think Joe REALLY knows what he is talking about is if he was willing to say that he has been steadily making mistakes for 25 years and continually learning every bit he could from them. Now that would be an impressive accumulation of knowledge, that may even qualify as wisdom;) .
 
Glad that phrase struck home. Personally, I only have a year's experience making mistakes in this field (and have not yet put a knife up for sale), but I try to learn from each one, and not make the same mistake twice. I think that's a reasonable goal.
 
I think that it all boils down to the following:
1. Do you test your knives?
2. Do they perform the function that they were intended to perfrom?
3. Do you enjoy what you're doing?
4. Are you learning from your successes and failures?
5. Are you getting better?

Notice what I put at numbers 1 and 2. I think that these are two most important points when it comes to how we manipulate steel and make blades. There is no absolute "right" way to do anything. I tell my students (mechanics and engineers) that if what I tell them in a class is different than what they're doing, then let's discuss it. I follow that statement up with "successful history in any endeavor is more important than the correct way of doing something". If what you're doing works, then the only reason to change it is if you find a better way to do it.

I'm not new to steel and heat treating, but I am a "neophyte" when it comes knife heat treating. My background is in heat treat in a steel mill and heat treat in a bearing factory. I've learned that the ways in which these different products are heat treated are similar, but not identical. There is always room to learn and improve.

The most important thing (IMHO), as I stated earlier is to test what you're doing to make sure that it will perform. It's the reason I have rope hanging in my shop and the reason that I don't throw out any scrap of lumber that I can chop up. Let's continue to trade ideas, listen, debate, learn and have fun!

Scott (Ickie) Ickes
 
Can I add one to that list, Scott?

6) Do you have the humility to accept that there might be others with a greater understanding than you, and are you willing to apply their knowledge to your applications?

Arthur C. Clarke has a quote that I use too often in threads like this:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology will be perceived as magic."

One way to translate this is:
"If it's beyond my understanding, then I'll just claim superstition as the cause."

There's nothing wrong with not wanting to know how or why, but if others can prove REPEATEDLY that they do understand, and you aren't the type to just stuff your hands into your pockets and refuse it because it doesn't fit into your worldview, aren't you a bit of a goof for not latching on to that information and using it?
 
Interesting thread. About the only thing that gets more dander up is calling Marines sissies.

The end result of all these 72 posts is this:

It is the last things you do to a blade that determines if it is good or not, not how it was shaped.
The HT and subsequent finishing are the only changes to the steel that will remain in the steel when the knife is used.

Done right ,there is no real difference between a forged and a ground blade.

There is a lot of hype and misinformation spread through the Internet and the fact that anyone can say what they want as an expert. Some examples are - edge packing,fantastic gains from cryo in the home refrigerator, forged knives being twice as hard as ground knives, mystery superquenchants ,etc.

All modern steel is forged - technically.

I forge for fun, then grind it to make a knife. All forgers are stock removal people,too.

My final observations on this subject are on the roots of the debate:
Many makers start as grinders and become forgers. Only a few start as forgers and go to grinding only. The difference in the blade quality shows up in years of experience, not the method used. Thus the brand new maker who ground his knife on a 6" Black and Decker shop grinder and did the HT on the kitchen burner is compared to Bill Moran or Ed Fowler, who has been forging for years and has the proper equipment and THE EXPERIENCE IN USING IT. So in the end, the argument is specious. It is apples and oranges being compared. If you put Bill and Ed's knives up against Buck and Randal, the comparison is more on the same field.

END RESULT - IT IS THE EXPERIENCE IN HEAT TREATING THAT IS THE MOST VALUABLE ASSET TO BE LEARNED FROM THE INTERNET AND FORUMS. The experience in forging and grinding is a learned ability and must be done to become proficient. Once learned, it does not matter which you use.
Stacy
 
When you start with a large billet, and subsequently forge it into a fitting that has lugs, tabs, whatever (radical bends), the grain of the steel can indeed be seen to flow around the corners when the fitting is sectioned and micrographed. This is a fact. I saw it on many helicopter parts we used to produce at Sikorsky Aircraft.

As I said, this has little bearing to the knifemaking process.
 
rj martin said:
The only thing I can add is that forging, as a process, can be used to manipulate grain flow, which can in fact produce a stronger component than machining from barstock.

I do not see any substantial difference in the overall strength from forging as applied to knives-They are simply too thin and too straight for grain flow to come into play.

When you start with a large billet, and subsequently forge it into a fitting that has lugs, tabs, whatever (radical bends), the grain of the steel can indeed be seen to flow around the corners when the fitting is sectioned and micrographed. ....As I said, this has little bearing to the knifemaking process
Click to expand...

Some random thoughts:

I suppose the forger could claim this as an advantage if he specializes in kris or flamberge blades. (but I don't see too many of them coming out of the ABS these days.)

This argument goes out the window if he's making them from twist damascus, though. ;) If a forge guy tries selling me on the virtues of keeping the anistropic grain aligned through forging, and then I notice most of his blades are mosaic damascus made from randomly oriented bits of steel stacked in a can of powder, well, I'll ignore that part.

At least the stock removal guy will consistently have that grain pretty much aligned with the blade. Unless he's getting barstock sheared from plate with the grain flowing the wrong direction, that is. :)
 
Several years ago I was invited to tour a bearing manufacturing company. The foreman escorted me and explained the process. The size of their forge was amazing and made my shop forges look like miniatures. It was large enough that a few men could walk around inside. I stood there looking in and thinking that I might see Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They bring the various sizes of round bar in and place the end of it in the forge. Some of these bearings end up being 18” and up in diameter. The bar is placed into the forge and there are something like four to six men involved at the forge in turning this 20 foot bar into bearings. The bar is heated, brought back out placed on a pedestal that spins. They have a hot cutting tool that cuts it to length, it goes back in and comes out where a large pointed hydraulic bar is pushed through the center. It is placed back into the furnace standing up and then brought back out, placed on the pedestal and it is spinning extremely fast. They have hand tools they use to hold against it and hand shape it to size. The huge chunk of metal is shaped like potters clay. After it is shaped then it is sent out to be machined to exact size. At least these bearings were forged similar to the way we heat and forge except that they didn’t use any hammers or presses in the shaping process. In contrast it kind of made me feel like a kid looking at real tractors and then having to play with little toy ones. Some might think that the bar was totally machined from a block of steel, but theirs are not. I am just passing this information along as it was very interesting to me and thought I would mention what I had experienced.

There used to be a saying: They can’t help being ugly, but they could stay home more! I think that can apply to the computer. If one can’t help being ugly in their speaking then they could stay off the computer more. No need to be mean and ugly about any subject. If anyone can not discus a subject in a civilized way then don’t join in.

Stacy, you are exactly right…! (about the Marines too)

Ramsey
 
" the grain...seen to flow around the corners " There are things that happen to cause this --the inclusions are moved into a visible direction [this especially true in old steel making technology but far less so in a modern bearing or aircraft quality steel] , some alloys display anisotropy, and situations where completely new grains are formed.In any case it's not significant where you don't have corners !
 
After a bout with insomnia last night I read much more the web page that prompted this thread, and I came away with good vibes about these folks. I really think they are trying their best to make a good knife and make a living while doing it. This one forum is just an itty bitty corner of the vast, hyped-up, advertisement laden field of knifemaking information. They found sources of information that they felt are very reliable and they got some of the prevailing “wisdom” that everybody wants to believe at one time or another. After all, the guys who get the headlines in the magazines swear by it so it has to be true, doesn’t it?

On a side note about testing- “testing’ has become the hot item in most discussions these days and is right at the top of the list of things that make a great knifemaker to a large number of people. Real testing is not sensational or even exciting, it is tedious, meticulous and even boring. Real quality control testing is done for the purpose of finding any weaknesses your product or process may have and reveal exactly how they can be fixed. When you do attention grabbing things solely for the purpose of making your knives look good, that is called ADVERTISING!

If I make a knife with too flat a tip, shaped like a screwdriver, and the only test I will ever focus on is how many more screws my knife will drive than others on the market, that is not legitimate testing, I am not even sure if that is honest. Real testing is not tailored to make your product look good. People who really care about gaining insight from testing will agonize over any possibility for error or variables skewing the results. If a tester gets positive results and is in such a hurry to run to the press that he doesn’t even bother to ask what other unforeseen variables could have been in play, well this should tell you what their real motivation is.

When I hear that a maker got ten times the performance out of their last blade when compared to their previous ones, I don’t think about giving him the “best maker” award, I think he is a great candidate for “most improved”, if you know what I mean;). (i.e. a 10 fold improvement from a material that the rest of the world figured out long ago, tells me a whole lot more about those previous attempts than the latest one;))

As a knifemaker do you test for your own knowledge or do you think about how good this will look in your brochure?
 
scottickes said:
The stock removal maker is counting on the steel manufacturer to have a good annealing and normalizing process usually, since they don't do this themselves. We, as forgers control this step, so this may account for why some forged knives will out perform a stock removal knife.

Scott (Ickie) Ickes
Click to expand...
not always
I'd like to see you change your mind about that view.
and I know that you put "usually" in there for a reason" :D

If the steel manufacturer can't annealing and normalizing and do it right, should they be in the business.
I stock remove and have a oven so I can do this if I have too also,

With that said I do Forge some also, but my joints won't let me forge a lot though.
anyway there are many good things to both sides,
IF there is a side to be on.
I don't think it's a side issue or it shouldn't be at least, but it's a choice that can be swayed at any point in time hopefully to make for a well rounded maker... why did we start where we did?
some times it's a money thing just getting into it. or just by the interest from who you picked it up from in the first place. be it grinding or Forging..

the one thing that I like most about stock removal is, in a normal blade I can grind one out a lot faster than Forging one,
forging would be moving that steel just a pinch maybe because it's not there in stock
as I say each has it's advantages.. IMO

someone mentioned some time ago that you could save money by using less steel by forging. this is true , maybe,,,, but what is your time worth and are you really saving money??

if we think about it real hard , there are those that truly think that what they do is the best way ONLY because that is what they do and only know and haven't tried any other ways.. that man has a closed mind..
just some things for thought..:)
 
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