I am really sorry to hear of your newly contracted disease. It just keeps getting worse and worse and there is no cure. It has proven to be contagious as well.
Let me tell you what the symptoms are that first occur. It generally starts with some interest in hunting blades or the "big honkin'" bowies. It is either that or that of the Japanese strain, commonly known as the katana or tanto virus.
It generally either starts with the kit blade or a "can I make a blade out of tin can" syndrome.
Since you are already afflected with the kit blade syndrome, we'll start from there.
The first one is easy...heck, you can do it with a hand drill and a portable sander clamped in a vise! Oh, but the holes aren't exactly straight on both sides of the "handle". Well, a drill press could "fix" this problem. Hence, the drill press is the first in a series of treatments...
Number two...Hey! Its not as nice as the first one! Maybe I need a
"real" grinder. After posting a thread on one of the knife or blade forums, you soon find out that you really don't or won't or can't afford a variable speed Hard Core, Bader, Wilton or Frink grinder. So you go out and buy a Craftsman 4X36 grinder and can get only the 60 and 120 grit locally at the Sears Hardware Store. So there we go, down to Sears or if we save our quarters, we get a Kalamazoo, Coote or Grizzly grinder. Man! I'm gonna make some knives now! (Booster shot...)
What comes along now are all the relatives that want a knife. I mean, Hey! What's the problem, you're makin' 'em in your garage, aren't you?!? (At about 30 hours each!) We soon find out that we have more relatives than we do knives! (Or time to make knives!)
Things are going good now, we have accumulated every buffing compound known to man, we have figured out that there is no such thing as the best steel so we stick to 440C or ATS34 and make a few knives but...if I only had that variable speed grinder...
So we go on a campaign to the purchasing department, commonly known as momma, the missus or the better half. We do some pretty sweet talking, whining, complaining until finally one day, it arrives! The hi falootin', wiz-bangin', varible speed $2000 grinder! We have arrived! It is better 'n ... well, you know. (booster shot)
So then we frequent a few shows, read a few magazines and we discover - forging and pattern-welded, er, uh, damascus. Man! That stuff is expensive! Twenty-five dollars uh inch by Gawd!!! Then we hear this little voice in the very back our brains...maybe I could learn how to make it myself!!! NO!!! But then I would have to get a forge and learn how to forge first! So we visit Don Fogg's website and get "the stuff" to build our very own forge! Satanite is the new buzz word. (Second vaccination)
Then we find out more about forging, heat treating, grain growth and structure, annealing, etc.
If any of this above occurs, you are truly afflicted, there is no turning back, you are terminal. We do have our own support groups. You have found one of them. There are many under the guises of "knife interest groups" all over the internet. Ask away! Misery loves company.
C Wilkins
