Shipping it out?
Air hardening stainless is easier to find treaters for
A2, ATS 34 154cm, S30V
Doing it yourself, 1084 from Aldo = "Euctiod Steel"
1095, W1 are harder to home HT
Peters does both air and oil quenching,
other do only air quenching
Pick the steel that makes you happiest, somebody will heat treat it for you.
Have you seen this ?
The Standard Reply to Newbies v8
The answer to a 13 year old student is different than to a 40 year old engineer, and you may have a helpful neighbour.
We can often recommend a local supplier, but that depends on where you are.
Fill out your profile with your location (Country and State at least), age, education, employment.
Look at the stickies at the top, many are expired, but not all.
The basic process in the simplest terms
Absolute Cheapskate Way to Start Making Knives-Printable PDF
Absolute Cheapskate Way to Start Making Knives-Website
This is a very detailed set of instructions by Stacy E.Apelt.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=694673
Books
A list of books and videos on the KnifeDogs Forum
http://www.knifedogs.com/showthread.php?t=5285
BladeForums - E-books or book previews Google books
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=603203
I like:
David Boye-Step by Step Knifemaking
Tim McCreight-Custom Knifemaking: 10 Projects from a Master Craftsman
These are clear, well organized, widely available and inexpensive too.
Knife Design:
On the Google books thread, you can find
Lloyd Harding drawings
and
the Loveless book with large variety of proven classic styles.
Forging Books:
Lorelei Sims-The Backyard Blacksmith
A modern book with great photos for forging in general - no knifemaking.
Jim Hrisoulas- has 3 books on forging knives. Check for the cheaper paperback editions.
The Complete Bladesmith: Forging Your Way To Perfection
The Pattern-Welded Blade: Artistry in Iron
The Master Bladesmith: Advanced Studies in Steel
The $50 knife shop
It is popular, but it confused me for a long time.
Forging is NOT necessary, you can just file and grind everything away to create a knife (stock removal)
The goop quench is total Bull, commercially made quench oils are cheap and easily available, even grocery store canola oil works much better.
Junkyard steels require the skills of an experienced smith to identify the steel and heat treat it properly.
You can buy proper steel like 1084 very cheaply.
(Mentioned in the new edition)
I like cable damascus, but that is an advanced project for an experienced smith and has no place in a beginners book.
The home built grinders are the best thing about the book, but there is now a huge amount of info on home built 2x72 belt grinders on the web.
The revised edition of this book should have included this.
Videos
Heat Treating Basics Video-downloadable
http://www.archive.org/download/gov.ntis.ava08799vnb1/ava08799vnb1_512kb.mp4
Many specific how to knifemaking videos are available.
Some are better than others, but all better than nothing.
The best overall Knifemaking video I have seen is
“Steve Johnson-Making a Sub-Hilt Fighter”
The best video on leather sheath making I have seen is
“Custom Knife Sheaths -Chuck Burrows - Wild Rose”
You can see a list of some older videos and their reviews at this rental company.
They are not the quickest on getting new titles, but some videos are worth buying, some are worth renting…
Rental wait times are measured in months, buying is MUCH faster, but more costly.
http://smartflix.com/store/category/9/Knifemaking
Green Pete's Free Video
Making a Mora bushcraft knife, -stock removal, hand tools, and neo tribal / unplugged heat treat.
"Green Pete" posted it free for those who can use torrent files.
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4995247/Greenpete_s__Knifemaking_Basics_-_Make_a_Mora_Bushcraft_Knife
You can also find it on YouTube broken into 4 parts.
Steel
The “welding steel” at Home Depot/Lowes… is useless for knives.
If you want to ship out for heat treating, you can use ATS34, 440C, plus many others.
If you want to heat treat yourself, find some 1070, 1080, 1084,
1084 FG sold by Aldo Bruno is formulated just for knifemaking.
You can find lists of suppliers here
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=699736
Aldo’s website inventory is unreliable, call instead.
http://njsteelbaron.com/
Heat Treating
You do not have to buy a lot of equipment to start with.
You can send out for heat treating, 10 or 15 $ per blade
This is a PDF brochure which gives good general info
http://www.buckknives.com/resources/pdf/Paul_Bos_Brochure.pdf
http://www.petersheattreat.com/
http://www.texasknife.com/vcom/about_us.php
http://www.knifemaker.ca/ (Canadian)
and others
Grinder / Tools
Hand Tools
You can do it all by hand with files and abrasive paper.
The Green Pete video does it this way.
Photo of a nice bevel filing jig .
http://www.flemingknives.com/imagesPrime/FileStation/KPicB007.jpg
Entry Level Grinders
Many makers start with the Sears Craftsman 2x42 belt grinder.
Commercial Production 2 x 72” Belt Grinders
http://www.prometheanknives.com/shop-techniques-3/grinders
Mapp arm
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=466024
DIY 2 x 72” Belt Grinders
KMG Clone
Free Plans
http://www.dfoggknives.com/PDF/GrinderPlans.pdf
NWG No Weld Grinder
http://www.usaknifemaker.com/plans-for-the-no-weld-grinder-sander-nearly-50-pages-p-723.html
EERF Grinder (EERF =“Free” backwards)
Free plans
http://wilmontgrinders.com/EERFGrinder.aspx
http://blindhogg.com/blueprints.html
Buy the kit
http://polarbearforge.com/grinder_kit.html
and i want to make a hunting/ bushcraft/ survival blade. i was thinking A2 or W2 seemed ok but the stock is .312" thick
... Thats dang thick for a bushcraft blade. so what should i do... i dont want to spend more than like $50 on steel (my dad has bought me enough stuff this year
)... I am going to order some hidden bolt fasteners so i have something for the handle atleast.
