WIP - Forged hidden tang hunter

[Wulf]

Hey folks - I just finished up this WIP for my website and thought I'd post it here as well. WIPs are my favorite threads - I've learned so much from you guys and often found inspiration to try something new, so I figured, who knows, maybe one of you will find something useful in one of mine as well.

So without further ado, here we go.

This project started when I was contacted by a SGT in the U.S. Army looking for a knife to carry on an upcoming deployment, and continue to carry when he gets back home to Kentucky, where he likes to spend time bow-hunting in the beautiful Kentucky woods. He asked for a medium sized knife with an ergonomic handle and a rough forged finish. We exchanged a few emails and I started sketching out some ideas for him. As you will see later, the design evolved a bit as we progressed.

Once we settled on a basic design I got to work. I selected a piece of 1/4" 1084 - Aldo's high manganese stuff - and got to forging. Knives are usually pointy at the end, so that's where I started.

With the point forged in and a little curve to compensate for the bevel, I brought out my home-made guillotine fuller to pinch off the tang.

And here it is out of the fuller...

I then drew out the tang until it was long enough to fit a handle.

 

[Wulf]

Now I started in on the bevels...

With the bevels forged and the edge centered it was time to set the ricasso. I found a section of good edge on my anvil, placed the ricasso on the table just behind the blade edge and gave it a few solid whacks on the spine.

The blade was forged to shape but I wanted to spend a few more heats tweaking things a bit at lower temps. I like to take my time getting everything straight and even before I grind. It's kind of therapeutic, and the successively lower heats also help to relieve stress in the steel. In this pic I've sprinkled some forge scale on the anvil face to help drive a little bit of texture into the blade flats.

Once I was happy with the forging I annealed the blade in a bucket of screened wood ash. Then it was off to the grinder to clean up the profile. I usually don't wear eye protection, a respirator, or pants when I grind but I did it this time for the benefit of all the safety freaks here who always feel compelled to lecture and scream at me when they see me grinding without my pants on.

Let's see how the forged, profiled blade looks next to the sketch...

 

[thegeek574]

Once I was happy with the forging a annealed the blade in a bucket of screened wood ash. Then it was off to the grinder to clean up the profile. I usually don't wear eye protection, a respirator, or pants when I grind but I did it this time for the benefit of all the safety freaks here who always feel compelled to lecture and scream at me when they see me grinding without my pants on.

You, sir, are a comedian masquerading as a blacksmith. How heavy is that hammer you are working with?

 

[Burton Harruff]

Nice WIP. Keep the pics coming as it progresses.

 

[Wulf]

Good so far. Now I put the blade down on a flat piece of granite and find the center with a height guage. I make sure to do this from both sides because I haven't surface ground the flats and there may be some irregularities that will hopefully be evened out by hitting it from both sides.

Now that I have my center I begin to grind in the bevels using a fresh 36 grit belt.

I rough in the clip using the rubber wheel below my flat platen. I've drawn some lines on the workbench at 30 and 45 degrees which I use as a visual reference to maintain a consistent angle.

At this point we've made some modifications to the original design and decided to make a guard for the knife. Here's a quick shot of the profiled blade next to the new sketch (this photo is out of sequence, taken before I started grinding the bevels)

Once I've gotten the bevels and clip rough ground I like to put the blade in the vice and clean things up a little with files. Files, by the way, are among the most underrated tools in a knife shop. I have dozens in all different shapes and sizes and I use them constantly.

 

[Wulf]

Hi Geek. I do most of my work with a 3# french pattern Peddinghaus hammer but I also use a smaller swedish pattern hammer and a 1 1/2# straight peen for the light finishing and touch up work.

Oh and I was serious about the pants. I quit my job a year ago and ever since then I've stopped wearing pants.

Anyway the next step is to get the bevels nice and flat with the disc grinder. Here I'm using 220 grit sandpaper.

Satisfied with the grinding, it's time to heat treat the blade. I fire up the heat treat forge I built over the summer and take a few moments to get the gas and airflow dialed in. I have way more control over temperature and atmosphere with this forge than I do in my regular forge and it has helped me dramatically improve my heat treatment. Here you can see the blade slowly coming up to temp.

I gave the blade three normalizing cycles to relieve stress and reduce grain size, then after a few minutes soak at a decalescing heat I plunge the blade into some warm Parks 50 quenching oil.

Now that it's fully hardened I give it a quick, light pass on the grinder just to make sure everything is clean and true. Then it's off to the kitchen oven for an immediate temper at 450. I preheated the oven and checked the temperature with an oven thermometer just to be sure I didn't over heat it. Because you can always temper a blade more if you have to, but you can't really untemper one.

I do this two more times for about 90 minutes each, and then bring it back out to the shop to draw back the tang, spine, and ricasso to a spring temper with a torch. I keep the edge submerged in water to protect the temper on the cutting edge. I do this three times as well to make sure it's thorough.

 

[Wulf]

Voila. Hardened, tempered, and drawn back.

Let's see how it cuts. I put an edge on it and went to work cutting, chopping, and hacking various materials including some crazy hard brazilian wood that I don't recall the name of. Upon close inspection of the edge I noticed a couple of very minor chips, so I brougt it back for another tempering cycle at 475. This high manganese 1084 gets crazy hard. I talked to Aldo about it and he indicated that he had heard similar feedback from other makers. Anyway, this is precisely why I test my blades before assembling them. Following a standard heat treat recipe is often good, but there's no substitute for real testing and observation. The next round of testing told me I needed to dial it up a tiny bit more so I brought the next tempering cycle all the way up to 485. After that everything was great - it cut like crazy, remained sharp throughout, and didn't chip or deform at all.

Good. Now it's time to work on the fittings. Here I am forging down a thick bar of old wrought iron on my air hammer

And here's the wrought iron, some stainless steel and phosphor bronze spacers, and a nice piece of stabilized spalted curly maple that SGT H picked out from the pile.

Now I clamp the blade in my file guide and file in the shoulders. I bought this file guide from my friend John Perry - an ABS Mastersmith and talented machinist. It's by far the finest file guide I've ever seen or used.

 

[BRTATCK]

Great WIP Derrick, but come on we really need to see the no pants grinding, got to watch out for those sparks. Seriously, good stuff and good job showing what is involved in making a knife.
Brion

 

[Wulf]

Thanks Brion!

OK next step, getting started on drilling out a guard slot. I begin the process on my crappy Chinese mini-mill...

And clean it up with some files...

I then drill small holes through the remaining pieces of guard material and pin them to the bigger, fitted piece of wrought iron. Next time I do this I will do it a little differently and pin all the pieces together before I begin the drilling and filing work. Anyway once I have everything fit up nicely I lay the tang against the wood and trace out exactly where I want to drill it out.

Into the drill press vise it goes, and the drilling begins. I use squares to make sure I come at it from the proper angle, and drill two holes - each one following the outside edge of the tang. I then hollow out the space between using my handle broaches, which incidentally were also made by John Perry.

Once the hole accepts the tang I butt it up nice and tight and drill through the handle and tang for my handle pin. With the pin in place and holding everything together tightly I go to the grinder to rough out the guard and handle shape.

 

[Wulf]

Now I do some more handle shaping, using files and sandpaper to get all the contours the way I want them.

Then I go back to the blade to do some finishing work. I clamp it down on a chunk of angle iron held in my vise and begin hand sanding, first at 220, then 320, then 400, then 600, and finally 800 grit.

Crap. Started sanding the handle and saw some bad things. As I got into the interior I hit some soft, punky areas of wood that, despite being stabilized, just aren't going to be strong enough for a hard use knife. Can't have any weak spots that will chip out or crack during use, so this handle is has to go. Bummer too because not only did I lose the $35 and a few hours of work I invested in the handle, but I really liked the way this wood looked. Oh well, even though it's pretty, I don't think I'll be using any spalted wood on a knife again... After this little episode I sent SGT H. a picture with various other handle material options and he zeroed in on the best chunk of the lot - a nicely figured piece of desert ironwood. Good choice! Here it is fitted up.

Pinned and roughed out, first on the bandsaw, then the grinder.

Working in the contours with files... at this point I have also finished shaping, sanding, and polishing the guard. I also etched and blued the wrought iron using ferric chloride and then oxpho blue from Brownells. Here I've covered it up with tape to protect the finish while I work on the handle.

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks for this WIP. Keep er coming. The pics are real clear and instructive too.

 

[Wulf]

I now have the handle shaped. You can see that little round file that I used for a lot of the contouring work. Love that thing...

Then I sand it down, first removing the file marks with 220, then successively moving up though finer grits until I get to 1200. Then I hit it on my little ghetto buffer to make it shiny.

Now I wipe it down with some oil and look at it under the light to make sure the finish is uniform and smooth. Once satisfied, I mix up some epoxy, pour it into the hole, then wipe down the tang and pin with acetone and coat them with a layer of epoxy as well. Then I assemble it, wipe off the excess with some WD-40 - which does an amazing job of cleaning up epoxy, by the way - and let it cure.

Cool. The knife is now pretty much done. But it needs a sheath, so it's time to get started on the leather work. First step is to trace out the outline of the knife on a piece of paper and draw up a design. This can then be used as a template to cut out the leather parts.

With the back, the welt, and the front all cut out I dampen the leather with warm water and do some basic tooling, first carving in a groove for the stitches and then working in a basic basket weave pattern. I'm using a chunk of 4140 as an anvil so I can work inside the house where it's warmer. Which is nice because I still don't have any pants on.

 

[Wulf]

Once I've got the basket weave pattern done I run the stitching wheel along the groove to mark out my stitch holes.

Then I grab some leather dye and generously wipe down both sides of the leather. After that, I rivet the belt loop in place.

With that done, I drill out the stitch holes using a tiny little drill bit on my Foredom rotary tool mounted in a little Foredom drill press fixture. I want to keep the holes really small so that they remain snug, and doing it this way is faster, cleaner, and more precise than using an awl.

Once that's done I begin stitching. I'm using one long piece of waxed thread with a needle on each end, and looping both ends through each hole, pulling the thread nice and tight after each stitch. This part is really fun. I just love to sew. If I wasn't doing this I'd probably be crocheting a doily or perhaps macrameing myself a pair of jean shorts for when I go roller skating in the park in the summertime.

Last stitch. This one gets looped through not once but three times. On the last loop I tie a little knot that will act as an anchor within the stitch hole once it's pulled through. I also put a drop of epoxy on the knot to keep it secure. Then I trim off the ends and drink a celebratory beer because I'm so glad to finally be done with this sewing crap.

 

[Wulf]

Next I clean up the edges on the grinder using a fresh 40-grit belt to make everything flat, straight, and uniform.

With that done, I dampen the leather once again, wrap the knife in saran wrap to protect it from the moisture, and put it in the sheath. It's a nice snug fit and the dampened leather will conform to the shape of the knife while it's in there. I also put a button snap on to the retention strap at this time. Once that's all done, I dye all the edges and burnish them with a wooden dowel to make them nice and smooth.

 

[amcardon]

Awesome WIP, and from start to this point it looks like it's taken you less than 3 hours, that's impressive! I love it when WIPs are completed before pics are posted (or at least a good amount of the WIP is completed) because then I can indulge my desire for instant gratification instead of being patient and waiting it out (Nick Wheeler might want to take a tip or two in that regard ... making us check the progress on a knife spread out over weeks and weeks...)

Really enjoying this thread, thanks for posting Brother! Oh, and I understand the no-pants thing, but you at least gotta use a loin cloth or something... Don't want any hot bits of steel in the wrong area, ya know...

 

[Wulf]

The last step is to put a final edge on the blade so it's nice and sharp, and then I snap a few final photos before shipping it off to its new owner.

This knife is now officially en-route to its new owner. Let's hope the good SGT is pleased with his new knife. May it serve him faithfully for years to come, whether on the dusty roads of Afghanistan or in the rugged forests of the Kentucky hills...

Well that's about it for this WIP. Feel free to ask any questions you might have, or if you have some tips of your own please share!

Thanks,
D

 

[Wulf]

Oh, and I understand the no-pants thing, but you at least gotta use a loin cloth or something... Don't want any hot bits of steel in the wrong area, ya know...

Yep. Not to mention the very unique dangers posed by the guillotine fuller when forging commando style.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Superb WIP - Added to the BBQ.
Thanks Wulf:thumbup::thumbup:

 

[Dawkind]

Reall nice WIP my friend.....you've done another great job.

 

[Justin Howell]

Man, this was absolutey AWESOME! Yuo got a real gift and that knife is gorgeous. Great job. God BLess