The Snark Abides

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james terrio said:
Anything's possible, and yes getting iron from meteorites to make steel is a legitimate, proven thing. I'm just saying the more amazing it is, the more it needs to be checked out before laying down money. There are some real scammers out there :(
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Yeah, I know, but I'm pretty sure this was legit. Maybe not, but I'd almost bet on it.

james terrio said:
By all means go for it, even if it's just as a hobby or sideline (as it is for probably 90% of the people doing it). Everyone should know their way around a basic workshop anyway, and knifemaking will introduce you to all kinds of useful skills. I wouldn't recommend actually apprenticing at this stage. You can learn a whole heckuva lot on your own just by "picking brains" on the forums, and especially by going to hammer-ins/grind-ins and real knife shows. That's a more efficient use of your time and resources. Also, do you want to learn to design and make your own knives, or how to copy someone else's? There's nothing "wrong" with either approach, but it's something to consider.

For Pete's Sake, start with known, fresh steel, not old rusty junk full of pits and microfractures and who-knows-what else. 1075/1080/1084 is your best friend, starting out. They're inexpensive, easy to work with, pretty easy to HT without a lot of fancy equipment, and they make very tough blades that take a very crisp edge easily.

But if you want to do it for a living, Have a serious backup plan. It's not a coincidence that most fulltime makers are retired from doing something else. Get a cert or degree in something that could get you a "real" job, marry money, something. And as Todd said, being a fulltime knifemaker is not always as fun and glamorous as it looks. The work can be lonely and dangerous, the hours are long and dirty... but at least the pay sucks!

Making knives is like being an athlete or a rockstar... many are called, few are chosen. (except that in music or sports, there's a slim chance you might actually make money at it someday :p)
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Yeah, I don't plan on apprenticing for a good while now that I've thought on it a couple days, it's definitely gonna wait until I've made a few knives and decide whether or not it's something that I want to at least try to make some money on. If I do eventually get all the stuff I'll need to fix one up, I will probably try to make it as original as I can, but take little ideas from lots of things.

Thanks for the steel advice, would an old car leaf spring be any good? If not I'll get some 1080 or something.

And I do have some other possible plans, I just need to decide on which one I want to pursue or like usual figure out something completely different. :D

Thanks again.
 
Arkanian said:
Haven't been on for a while, and looking at the snark, good to see nothing has changed...
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Who are you again?
Oh, wait....that name does seem familiar....didn't you used to be gold or something?

Arkanian said:
You don't need to see my identification, I am the Asian you are looking for.

Gah! This was my 1500th post and it was in response to Guyon, what a wasted post.
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All posts in the snark are, essentially, wasted.

Welcome back (if only briefly), Ark!
 
um, I think in his mind "old rusty junk full of pits and microfractures and who-knows-what else" = old leaf spring..........
 
worldwood said:
Ill use said scroll saw to cut the pants off me and reveal these delicious legs!!


:D
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I'd watch that no homo. Like NASCAR, you watch it for the race but the crashes are what make it exciting :D

Great news on that place close to your dads! good luck on the hard decision!
 
1066vik said:
um, I think in his mind "old rusty junk full of pits and microfractures and who-knows-what else" = old leaf spring..........
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Wouldn't that be good practice though? I mean, if its free and you can try your hand at a good beater and see how ya like it. I've seen lots of old files, saw blades, mower blades, all kinda good stuff you can get free esp from your dads friends and around the farm. And if you trash it, nothing's wasted but time and that time is really experience so you actually gained.
 
Noswad, I'm speaking from zero experience but I've pondered just grabbing a cheap angle grinder from harbor freight and a few grinding wheels, cutoff wheels, brushes, etc. that and a vice is really zero investment because its all useful in so many ways. Then get whatever I can get my hands on and start cutting and grinding off parts that don't look like a blade. Heat treat is a whole next step but it'll give ya a feel of the work involved. Of course, as always, safety first!
 
SMH.jpg
 
if you're going to work in a shop, a lot, invest in your health... get the proper gear, and use it, every time. from clean air to not having things embedded in your skull, your long term health and ability to work, will be improved, if not cut short. zzzzt. hey lefty!
 
something weird going on with the site...

i can post little messages but nothing larger than a few paragraphs? mmm...
 
speaking of stuff... over the Winter, i gutted the under sink area in the kitchen - lot of long term seepage from the previous owners - my house inspector actually found the cause, and it was stopped, but the wood is another story. turns out that removing all the old cruft, left pretty much the house framing and interior cabinets in not very bad shape, and over the Winter i scraped and cleaned out any nasty stuff. so, that mostly left some weakened face boards on the cabinet, and/or just years of stress with perhaps too big doors on thin frames; turns out under the paint it's oak... figured it would be better on a first attempt to save that. so. reset and glued up the corners. used the table saw to make fussy widgets for the corners and middle strut out of some of the junk i ripped out - hey, that's oak too, nice. got everything flush with a chisel and plane, and glued everything up and clamped down. we'll see how that goes. later, i'll drop a couple stainless steel finishing screws per corner to reinforce the bits, and perhaps even see about a bit more structural integrity. on a nice airy warm day, i'll scrape the old nasty white paint and put on a few fresh coats. should be good.
 
fairly basic work, but if solid, should last 10-15 years. got to use my tools and putter in shop. set up the dust tornado for pre-extraction in front of the table saw. a really sucky dust system is down the road, but for light chores, this will do very nicely, heck, keeps the shoppe vac that much cleaner too. yar.

now, to ponder making the under sink area NICE. perhaps to cut a proper botto board, and paint everything inside WHITE. for some reason, they painted it black. it's cave like and stupid. probably should also get a "water frog" alarm thingy to make sure leaks aren't surprising anyone. the old kitchen aid garbage disposal is original to the house, and will need updating before it rusts out. under counter inspection confirms my fears that plumbers with saws (or big drills) are pretty frakking scary people :D it's the little things ;) course, the guys who re-topped the counters were not too swift either. you can see a lot of bad cuts where they were in a hurry. still, could be worse :D

gotta say, i'm liking the table saw, the more i use it, and the more i tweak and learn the sled, the more this will be quite pleasant to get things done without hassle. i have a few spare slot runners, and will probably make some more interesting things for jiggery. fun fun fun. nearly time to get the mega outfeed table done, and then it's time to make a few special things.
 
NCSlice said:
Wouldn't that be good practice though? I mean, if its free and you can try your hand at a good beater and see how ya like it. I've seen lots of old files, saw blades, mower blades, all kinda good stuff you can get free esp from your dads friends and around the farm. And if you trash it, nothing's wasted but time and that time is really experience so you actually gained.
Click to expand...

NCSlice said:
Noswad, I'm speaking from zero experience but I've pondered just grabbing a cheap angle grinder from harbor freight and a few grinding wheels, cutoff wheels, brushes, etc. that and a vice is really zero investment because its all useful in so many ways. Then get whatever I can get my hands on and start cutting and grinding off parts that don't look like a blade. Heat treat is a whole next step but it'll give ya a feel of the work involved. Of course, as always, safety first!
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Yeah, that's what I meant. I'm not trying to make something super nice on my first try, so even if it eventually breaks I will have gained experience and I'll know a bit more to make a nice-ish knife.

james terrio said:
SMH.jpg
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Excuse the dumb questions, please. :D

Bladite said:
if you're going to work in a shop, a lot, invest in your health... get the proper gear, and use it, every time. from clean air to not having things embedded in your skull, your long term health and ability to work, will be improved, if not cut short. zzzzt. hey lefty!
Click to expand...

Don't worry, I will. Even if I do cut off a few digits I'll just replace them with rusty leaf spring knives embedded into my flesh. :D
 
Bladite said:
fairly basic work, but if solid, should last 10-15 years. got to use my tools and putter in shop. set up the dust tornado for pre-extraction in front of the table saw. a really sucky dust system is down the road, but for light chores, this will do very nicely, heck, keeps the shoppe vac that much cleaner too. yar.

now, to ponder making the under sink area NICE. perhaps to cut a proper botto board, and paint everything inside WHITE. for some reason, they painted it black. it's cave like and stupid. probably should also get a "water frog" alarm thingy to make sure leaks aren't surprising anyone. the old kitchen aid garbage disposal is original to the house, and will need updating before it rusts out. under counter inspection confirms my fears that plumbers with saws (or big drills) are pretty frakking scary people :D it's the little things ;) course, the guys who re-topped the counters were not too swift either. you can see a lot of bad cuts where they were in a hurry. still, could be worse :D

gotta say, i'm liking the table saw, the more i use it, and the more i tweak and learn the sled, the more this will be quite pleasant to get things done without hassle. i have a few spare slot runners, and will probably make some more interesting things for jiggery. fun fun fun. nearly time to get the mega outfeed table done, and then it's time to make a few special things.
Click to expand...

What about painting it with something like Kilz? Or using some other type of water barrier paint. So that way if it does drip it won't seep into the wood and ruin it... quite as quickly at least.
 
speaking of dumb questions...

i'm thinking of installing those sliding ball bearing draw things into my existing kitchen drawers. the old under drawer rails are ... eh. maybe.

anyone got good pointer to conversion? naturally, i'll google, but if you've done that already :D
 
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