rustic knife

M

M Ely

Joined
Nov 21, 2000
Messages
2
I was recently in S.D. and purchased a knife that was very rustic looking. It was a new knife but has the look the guys that buckskin like. I am a maker and have a friend that wants a knife of that type. What is the trick to making knives that look like 1850s era? Do you grind and perfect the knife and then reheat or how do you get the knife down to finished without grind marks? Is this all done with forging?
 
There are a number of ways to do it. Bruce Evans and Max the Knife are about the best I've ever seen at taking the knife to finished shape in the forge. That is the best way because that's what made them look rustic in the first place.
 
I forge the knife to shape as close as I can get it.
Then clean up the profile and normilise 3 times, heat
treat and draw back in a cook stove 3 times, draw the
spine back with a tourch, cutting edge in water, into
a vinager bath over night to get rid of the scale.
I grind the hardened blade leaving about 1/3 of the
forge finish on, don't touch it with the belt. Take
grouned area down to a brush finnish. This works for
me there are other ways to do this and end up with
a atractive knife. Gib
 
I forgot to mention one other thing. If you do need to grind the majority of the blade, you can boil the entire thing in water and walnut hulls. The finish is almost like a forge finish.
 
Just t'other day I stumbled onto an antique finish. I had ground all the black powder coat off of my Ka-bar and was trying to rust blue it (using and acid mixture to rust the steel then boiling it to turn it black) but somewhere I screwed up. Probably degreasing. Anyway, it came out of the water with only about half the red rust turned into black oxide giving it a mottled effect. After steel wooling it looked like an old carbon kitchen knife that's been used for years. I liked it so much I blotched on some cold blueing and it looked even better. I did the same thing to the guard and pommel and now it looks like something that's been used for years but always taken care of. Looks way out of place in the shiney, clean kydex sheath now. Have to get out the leather...
 
Here is a little trick I use when trying to get the rustic old used look on my forged Knives...

You won't believe this but I start with the rustiest pitted piece of old spring,file,sawblade I can find...First thing I do is bring it up to a welding heat and brush off the rust.Now just forge to shape and only grind a half bevel up the blade.When heat treating used the blackst old motor oil you have around and edge quench in this and after the back has lost it's color submerse the whole blade thus getting the black in the pits.Then temper back in the oven with the oil still on the blade thus backing it on.Finish grind and then hand rub even over the pits that way you shine the high spots and leave the rest black.This way of forging will also leave some pits in the grind bevels that will only add to the looks of the blade.
My thoughts on this is why try and put ruff marks and pits in by hand when mother nature has already added them and thus they look more realistic to me..
Here is a picture using this process only I ground it almost all the way to the spine.
Bruce
Nov19_01.jpg
 
That's Rustic Bruce?:D I remember in the 60's, there was always someone in the crowd that could dig out a pair of blue jeans and a sweatshirt that someone had thrown away. When they put them on all the wrinkles went away and they looked like they were ready for the cover of Vogue magazine.:D

Gee...even the deep pits are neat!:eek:
 
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