compzombie slaycutter help

[_scorpio_]

since BB has decided to die i am going to ask here.

does anyone know an answer to any of these questions?:
1) i am making a zombie slayer which is (full length) half a meter long and 5mm thick, will this work if made out of 01 tool steel?
2) will drilling the handle weaken the blades strength and on a blade this size will it make a difference?
3) how should this size of a blade be heat treated and who can i send it to for HT?
4) how much will this HT cost (average)?
5)something else, will edit later when it comes to me
6) am i actually insane for attempting this as a first knife?

first question is the most important really because i am itching to get started and buy materials so i will have no excuse to put it off for another few months... again...

 

[zorro]

In reverse order............yes.

 

[_scorpio_]

so no.. and to what... its too late for riddles!

 

[zorro]

6) am i actually insane for attempting this as a first knife?

I'd start with something a bit smaller.

 

[_scorpio_]

ill do that second! gotta have a big knife for the little knife to go with first...
will the 01 work? or do i need to find a leaf spring...?

still 2 years till we get the forge built... uugh! would be sooo much easier to HT.

 

[JonathanD]

ill do that second! gotta have a big knife for the little knife to go with first...
will the 01 work? or do i need to find a leaf spring...?

still 2 years till we get the forge built... uugh! would be sooo much easier to HT.

)

01 will be fine, most leaf springs are 01 just tempered to become fit for their purpose. It's all in the treating.

 

[_scorpio_]

excellent i shall place an order tomorrow....
too may threads with the same people at once and i have been up for 20 hours or something! im going to cry....!

 

[_scorpio_]

wasnt there someone on BB whose first knife was a lovely great big 11" bowie? im just going bigger... i could have started doing this knife making stuff a year ago but a mora is cheaper, quicker and easier. big chopping blades are a whole other story though.
and who can truly say when the reactor will fail in dungeness and we will be fighting zombies? dont want to be doing that with a 1" neck knife i made and a mora with fishgut rust patina...

 

[_scorpio_]

aah, im all worried about the handle materials now... i want to do it mostly zebrano but need 2 lots of scales to do the whole handle and it just wont look right joined straight on to a bit that doesnt match... i need a spacer but what? dymondwood caught my eye but a bit too bright maybe... something simply black?? or a chunk of brass?

 

[Longstrider]

Scorpio... the best advice I can give you on all of this is simple... Slow down fella

A 500mm OAL zombie slayer as your first ever knife-making project ? Unless you have a grinder, and some previously earned knowledge and skill-sets in this sort of field you're really going to struggle. Honest.

Try making the smaller knife to go with the big one first 01 will do you well for the smaller knife,. It will give you an idea of the amount of work a far larger blade will entail and it will allow you to make a ****-up of things at least once and you'll still have enough steel left to start over again (assuming you buy a 500mm length of 01 to start with)#
Heat treating a 500mm blade will give you problems unless you have a barrel-oven fitted with a PID or something similar. Simply keeping the whole length of such a blade at a constant and even temperature (vital for good H/T ) with something like a forge, a BBQ with a hair-dryer or some similar set-up will be all-but impossible. A smaller blade will at least allow you to attempt to do the whole job yourself with relatively few tools and little equipment.

BTW.. I'd have said that if yo can find a suitable leaf spring for a 500mm blade, then that would actually be a better bet than 01. Really big blades like that are more like swords or machete's and will need a good deal of built-in shock absorbancy. The spring steel of a leaf spring would be better for this than 01 unless you plan on tempering the 01 back to the point where it is soft enough to withstand the impacts and stresses that it will endure as a monster-chopper. Most leaf springs are in fact made of 'spring' steel like EN42 or EN45, not 01 .

 

[Mojoracinguk]

For joinging sections on the scales if you want black, Buffulo horn Is Jet black (well the stuff i'm using now is)
Just polished it up yesterday and it looks like smooth black polymer resin has filled the gap between the wooden sections.
It fits really nice and was as simple as wood to work with.
but as the guys have said I started small.
This is my first proper attempt at making a conventional blade (bevels each side) as the others were single bevelled curved blades (3 off)
and this 2" blade was enough to learn on.
It is possible to do a 500mm straight off but you may have to accept from the out set that it will have charachter, i.e. i might not look the way you intended.

there are so many things I learned on the 2" blade that I feel it will take another couple of knives to put it all into practice.
and that being said it does not take long to knock up a small blade (making drilling cutting grinding an hour or two if you think about it lots, then heat treat another hour)...so why not just make a couple of first offs up to HT as it is the marking out and grinding were the tricky bits (wish i'd left more material on in places and used different methods of marking)

Good luck
I'm sure you'll be de-capping Zombies soon, although i've never seen any swim so think i might just go grab a boat and live on a large body of water eating fish for my tea
If you make it, i'll be the one with the 2" blade wishing he stopped faffing and got on with some proper forgings!

 

[Ph34r]

I don't think that zombies are natove to this land... 50cm blade... what are you cutting with that - oh of course - you are using it to slice veg. Just kidding, but shall be interested in the results

 

[Alfredo]

O1 could be good if you don't care about rust danger, anyway the temper process is at least important as the steel choice so take care of it.

 

[Tengu]

Do you have a problem with zombies then?

I would use an axe or a club

 

[Ph34r]

Do you have a problem with zombies then?

I would use an axe or a club

Or susan boyle...

 

[_scorpio_]

Or susan boyle...

harsh but effective...
ok... ill start small... been doing a lot of research about knifemaking since i joined last year and am fairly certain i could do the whole process of a bushy sized blade start to finish, but how BOORING are bushy blades!
getting a dremel and a blowtorch for my b-day in 20 days... i think i will do a bit of everything... i got a nice ww2 kukri for £20 at the war and peace show today but it has no sheath... so thats woodwork and leatherwork (and possibly an attempt at stuffing a bit of brass onto it) and i will make a little knife and a ferro rod to go in the sheath with it. (it had the usual small knife and sharpener missing, hence the price).
i will get myself a little piece of 01 and start there then... still tempted to get the bits for the zombie slayer and wait till the forge is built...

 

[_scorpio_]

Do you have a problem with zombies then?

I would use an axe or a club

the shotgun in the loft would be my first choice really. only one real point of entry up the stairs and im sure they are even slower up stairs.... the velux windows provide a good escape route and let me see both the front and the back garden and enable me to get some shots of them before they reach the house and clear them out of the way with the various smoke and stun grenades that would be borrowed from the neighbours relatives who own the outdoorsman ( http://www.outdoorsman.co.uk/index1.html )down the road...
i have thought this through you know. not like those silly folk with there underground radiation proof bunkers! just stay with them for a bit until the worst of the explosion passes then run for it with most of their supplies and radiation suits!

 

[Chris the Cat]

My first ( and only! ) knife that I have made is an 11" Bowie, made from a landy leaf spring!
Full tang, yew handle , navey brass guard and bolts.
Makes a great splitter for fire wood, but most of all it is good fun!
C da C.

 

[_scorpio_]

did you post that on BB earlier this year (or possibly last year for all i know!)?
look at post #8 on here... i remember...

 

[Bushmeister]

Hiya Fella,

My first knife was a massive bowie - see link below. I posted a few months back on BB. Since then done two others - both damascus. I would say with hand tools - it was a complete labour of love, taking weeks of filing. However - it is much harder to go wrong with hand tools as they take less metal away!

If you plan well, and read all the info available on BB and here - you'll be fine. Mick Wardell does a great heat-treat (don't know if he'd do that big though). 01 is fine, but at that size I would agree, a tougher steel might be better (especially if beheading a lot of zombies.....)

Cheers,

BM

http://www.britishblades.com/forums...ie-(working-on-the-principle-bigger-is-better....)