Strating over

H

hobbiest

Joined
Jul 26, 2014
Messages
55
Well I was wanting to make my first knife out of a file and I still want to play around with that but was recommended I started with a known steel.
So I have a ontario sp 47 sabre grind and would like to make a blade similar to the sp46 witch is the same but flat grind. 6" blade,3/16" I think. Kinda a chopper/skinner. Wanted recommendations on steel. The original is 5160. Of the steel recommended can I get it annealed already? If I make something I like I will probably send it off for HT. Will probably put a wood handle on it and would like recommendation on type of wood for a beginner. Not wanting something expensive.
 
Hi there! No doubt you would have had recommended to you to read through some of the stickes. Of particular note would be 1234567890's (The Count's) standard newbie reply. The questions you have are in there plain as day.

If you show that you are willing to do some legwork yourself you will find this a great place to learn.

If you don't, well you will get out of it what you put in. So welcome again!

I am a newbie with 4 completed knives under my belt. So there are many more experienced than myself. I got both 154CM (stainless) and 1084 (high carbon) from Aldo at njsteelbaron.com

I can tell you that the high carbon is easier for me to work with (and creates more gratifying amounts of sparks when ground) but of course it can rust.

If you are sending out for heat treat you can use whatever steel you want.

All of the steel you would get from njsteelbaron.com is annealed already to my knowledge. Just open the shipping tube and start mangling some steel.

I have so far just used micarta for scales (the slabs on either side of a full tang knife) but any hard and dense wood should work fine for you. Nothing soft like pine, aspen etc.
 
I started making shop knives and then some working knives for friends, I used some California oak, from firewood. I looked through the pile and found a log that was not cracked to pieces, cut with a chainsaw and then slab with a hand saw,

Simple oil finish and they are still working.

Full w-sheath.jpg
 
Sry if it was a stupid question. Ive been going back and forth skimming the stickies and then trying to do searches and kept reading 1084 was good for beginners. Since it keeps getting stressed its good for beginners I thought maybe there was a better steel for what I wanted since I haven't seen a production camping knife like that made out of 1084 of the ones I look at. I see though I would be better off doing a steel vs steel search instead of just a search for a specific steel search. The phrase good for beginners had me thinking it was so so.
 
"Good for beginners" just means it's easier to work and HT on your own. !084 is a superb steel for most any knife. And, it's not expensive.
 
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