Rookie needs guidance

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Deepsouthdrilling

Joined
Apr 6, 2008
Messages
4
Hello, guys I am not a knife builder ,but I love to sharpen and buy them, a few of my ships crew are going to have a knife built and would like to know the stages of construction.
we have designed the knife
we are fortunate enough to have a friend of the boat that owns an EDM company he will cut the blanks out.
we think we want cmpsv30 steel
What's next
who can we get to profile the blade and heat treat and sharpen

thanks in advance.
 
Once the blanks are cut to shape you will need to get the bevels ground, get any holes drilled and get the blade to a reasonable level of finish before heat treat. Once hardened you don't want to have to do much other than final finishing, and drilling will no longer be possible with standard drill bits.
If you fill out your profile people will be able to see your location and might be able to make more helpful suggestions. I can't suggest anyone to grind the bevels for you but there are some commercial heat treating companies that HT blades for knifemakers, Paul Bos and Peter's Heat Treat come to mind, Texas Knifemakers Supply also offers this service, I believe.
 
Have you seen this ?

The Standard Reply to Newbies v6

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
http://www.hossom.com/jonesy/

This is a very detailed set of instructions by Stacy Apalt.
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
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 and 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.

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

Jim Hrisoulas- has 3 books on forging knives, Check for the 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 popular, 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, commercially made quench oils are cheap and easily available. Even a 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 for an experienced smith and has no place in a beginners book.

The home built grinders are the best thing, but there is now a huge amount of info on home built 2x72 belt grinders on the web.
The revised edition of this book should have included this.


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, but all better than nothing.

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”

You can see some titles and their reviews at this rental company,
Rental wait times are measured in months.
You can reviews and buy some of the good ones much faster than renting.
http://smartflix.com/store/category/9/Knifemaking

Green Pete's Free Video
Making a Mora style bushcraft knife with simple stock removal using hand tools and a neo tribal / unplugged heat treat.
"Green Pete" posted it for free distribution.
It is available here for those who can use torrent files. + plus more too.

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4995247/Greenpete_s__Knifemaking_Basics_-_Make_a_Mora_Bushcraft_Knife
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 ATS34 or 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 lists 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
http://www.buckknives.com/resources/pdf/Paul_Bos_Brochure.pdf
This is a PDF brochure which gives good general info

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


Grinder / Tools

Hand Tools
You can do it all by hand with files and abrasive paper.
The Green Pete video does it this way.

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.

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
 
Last edited:
Deepsouthdrilling said:
Hello, guys I am not a knife builder ,but I love to sharpen and buy them, a few of my ships crew are going to have a knife built and would like to know the stages of construction.
we have designed the knife
we are fortunate enough to have a friend of the boat that owns an EDM company he will cut the blanks out.
we think we want cmpsv30 steel
What's next
who can we get to profile the blade and heat treat and sharpen

thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Do you want some one to make the knife for you from your blanks?
Do you want them just ground and H/Ted and you finish the handles?
A little more info is needed,
If you want some one to make them for you look at some of the makers here and contat them for pricing for the work you want done.
Stan
 
Thanks Guys, I did fill out my profile hope I did it right
What I want is to buy the steel, have my design cut out with the EDM machine, send it to someone to profile the blade, mirror polish, sharpen and heat treat, not necessarily in that order. There is most likely going to be about 12 of theses I am looking for these to turn out perfect with a very sharp blade and a mirror finish any suggestions are appreciated we don't mind paying for quality.
my email address is deepsouthdrilling@hotmail.com

Thanks for you help it is appreciated
 
If you and your friends are on ship, you will probably use these pretty hard, correct? Why do you want them mirror finished? I work on a ship myself and I would rather have satin or brushed finish, just because that first scratch just kills me on a mirror polish.
 
Jason that's a good question we are going to have it cut with the EDM and buy the steel I guess we would need to send you a drawing and let you give us a price on the rest except heat treating I guess you would have to send that out?
 
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