What are you doing now for R&D?

Sam Salvati

Sam Salvati

Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Messages
5,060
For alot of people, it's business as usual, making knives, selling knives etc.

But what do you have going as far as research and development? Smelting any steel, new grind, heat treatment, quenchant, construction method, building any new tool or machine? Everyone has something the tinker with on the side Let's hear what you have your "R&D department" working on :D
 
I am putting the finshing touches on my high temp salt pot, this has been a 10 month build. I will be starting my low temp soon. Also have been playing with some Cru Forge V, like it so far, it isnt O-1 but it is nice. Been working with Don Hanson's W-2 trying to get those awsome hamon's. Definatly a full plate.
 
Sam Salvati said:
For alot of people, it's business as usual, making knives, selling knives etc.

But what do you have going as far as research and development? Smelting any steel, new grind, heat treatment, quenchant, construction method, building any new tool or machine? Everyone has something the tinker with on the side Let's hear what you have your "R&D department" working on :D
Click to expand...


R&D Department is sound too great for me althought doing R&D is very very important for me.

I started knife making early this year.
Equipment and suppy are all come from USA (Texas Knife, knifekit)
Almost every bill cost me some thing like one few thousand US DALLARS.
In terms of businesswise isit is a poor cash managements to pay cash in advance , allowing long period work in process and collecting payment sometimes after time.
Therefore my R&D is i have to be asble to rely on myself for the Raw materail supplies.

My R&D is mostly on the consumable item such as
- Micarta
- wood stabilize
- special tooling

In real life I really spent some thing to be able to save some cost :eek:
 
I discovered some flaws in my initial test of my oven tempering muffle.

Initially my results said my oven set at 375 gave me 400F in the muffle but the results I've been getting more recently show a more dramatic difference so I only have to set it to about 325 to get 385F, which will decidedly be my tempering temp for carbon steel with 0.95 or higher carbon from now on.
 
The current R&D effort here is CPM3v/ATS34 damascus. First attempt failed due to my own stupidity, second attempt will commence when I get some more 3v...

-d
 
Well Sam my R&D is working on a few projects. Getting parts for my surface grinder, multi bar mosaic damascus for knives, mosaic damascus bolsters, building a rolling mill, and figuring why I have one layer in my billets that welds except for 1/8" on each side?! All in all I'm just slowly going insane trying to make a living.
 
Well... in my R&D i've discovered that people will buy a lot more 20 and 30$ hand made pens than they will 150$ or so hand made knives, and the profit margin is larger on the pens too... So i've been making a bunch of pens for people at work in the last few weeks with the time i'm usually in the forge =P Next to start making pen knives and combining the two !

somepens.jpg
 
Also, doing some research on wakizashi and katana blade shapes, cross sections, historically correct fabrication, etc as I intend for one of those blades to be my next forging with some W2. I don't know that much about their construction so I am not sure if it will be correct or not.

Also testing 52100 blades and HT. I have a set of blades in second cycle of freezer time and will go for third temper tonight.
 
I'm working on fine tuning my skills on knives with bolsters. I also just purchased an etcher, to upgrade from the simple acid etch mark I have been using. Also just made a few knives in D2 after 65 or so from simple carbon steels. Also just put mammoth on a couple knives for the first time.
 
Switching to stainless steel and learning to engrave. Picked up a Lindsey airgraver this summer, trying to find the time to play with it. :D
 
Well, seeing as how I won an auction on a used hardness tester about 5 minutes ago, my R&D department is going to be going to town....assuming it's all in working order :(.

I've got a 5 day window to return if necessary. It's a PTC 415C tester. Basically a drill press or arbor press mounted unit testing from 20 to 67C. It has referrence blocks and a storage case, and hopefully the penetrator is in good shape. Otherwise it may take a few $$ to replace the penetrator. It's the older model before the PTC redesign of the body of the tester, but I believe it still uses the same penetrator design.

I picked it up for $195 + shipping. Not bad considerring the new model retails for around $995. :D We'll see if I scored a good deal or a bum buy in a couple of days.

--nathan
 
Right now all my research is going towards building a gas forge and heat treat oven to take the place of the coal forge and and toaster oven. Also lots of time spent on blade designs and handle configurations. Oh and Justin those are nice pens.
 
My R&D has been in forging damascus.Just finished my first billet at 189 layers of 15n20 and 1084.Ground a blade out of it and it turned out pretty well.Now to get it H/Ted and finished.
Stan
 
Im playing with clay!

Trying out a few types of clay to see what gives the best hamon. Going to start with clay and charcoal powder.

Jamie
 
My real job has kept me from the shop for quite a while , but I have a new 12'x28' building on the way. I am in the process of breaking all of the equiptment down to get ready for the new shop. 1st I have to wire , insulate and sheet rock it before I can move in. It looks like my job is taking me to upstate NY for at least 6 months..No shop time in the forseable future for me. Oh and I've started making mountain man folders...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top