Making a knife
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if you buy steel that hasn't been heat treat it will be soft and no way near as good as a heat treated blade! but..you can recycle knives and make ones from them and not have to bother with the heat treating!
this is one I done but still need to get round to finishing it off..
sorry for the mass of pictures but it shows what I mean
it's a meat cleaver that you can pick up from carboots or ebay pretty cheap and if you cut it without powertools you won't mess with its heat treating and won't have to do it again.
good luck mate!
this is one I done but still need to get round to finishing it off..
sorry for the mass of pictures but it shows what I mean
it's a meat cleaver that you can pick up from carboots or ebay pretty cheap and if you cut it without powertools you won't mess with its heat treating and won't have to do it again.
good luck mate!
Thats genius Samon. Does putting a grind on it not alter the heat treatment due to the heat generated?
not if you use hand files
it takes a hell of a lot of elbow grease though, the whole cutting out and filiing took me ages but it's still not finished as it got lost for a while but then I went off doing other things haha.
without a proper machine to put on the edge it wont make much of a cutter but it's a well balanced thrower!
make sure to post your progress on it!
seeing peoples diy knives is great! the cruder the better arrg
irate:
Heat treatment (HT) is fundamental to produce a decent knife if the steel you start out with is soft.
However you can go around it in a couple of ways. Yet you will have to put in more work and/or change your perceptions of how you want the knife to look.
BOTH options need a grinder or linisher as you will be there forever if not.
Option one: - use High Speed Steel (HSS)
This is the steel often used in hacksaw blades - though they are often bi-metal which is pretty useless to you.
If you find a large hacksaw blade - ie 2mm thickness and about an inch wide - you can grind a blade from it with little difficulty.
This type of steel can be taken to quite high temperatures before it affects the tempering of the steel. Hence it is easy to grind a blade.
Option two:
Use an old file and simply temper it in the oven.
Tempering is the process normal conducted after heat treatment which heats the blade to relax the steel and thus soften it slightly. Making it softer thus tougher.
By tempering the file first you make it easier to work with, and so you can grind out a blade with relative ease.
The knife maker Michael Morris uses this method.
Both methods - particularly option two require you to keep the steel cool. If you get it too hot - you make the steel too soft and it won't take a sharp edge.
This is simply a case of grinding for a few seconds (bare hands so it isn't hot to the touch) and then dipping it in cold water. This will keep the steel cool enough to work with.
The other option is to use an old knife - as Samon suggests - but beware, it may be too soft if you can work it with hand files.
All the best
Andy
However you can go around it in a couple of ways. Yet you will have to put in more work and/or change your perceptions of how you want the knife to look.
BOTH options need a grinder or linisher as you will be there forever if not.
Option one: - use High Speed Steel (HSS)
This is the steel often used in hacksaw blades - though they are often bi-metal which is pretty useless to you.
If you find a large hacksaw blade - ie 2mm thickness and about an inch wide - you can grind a blade from it with little difficulty.
This type of steel can be taken to quite high temperatures before it affects the tempering of the steel. Hence it is easy to grind a blade.
Option two:
Use an old file and simply temper it in the oven.
Tempering is the process normal conducted after heat treatment which heats the blade to relax the steel and thus soften it slightly. Making it softer thus tougher.
By tempering the file first you make it easier to work with, and so you can grind out a blade with relative ease.
The knife maker Michael Morris uses this method.
Both methods - particularly option two require you to keep the steel cool. If you get it too hot - you make the steel too soft and it won't take a sharp edge.
This is simply a case of grinding for a few seconds (bare hands so it isn't hot to the touch) and then dipping it in cold water. This will keep the steel cool enough to work with.
The other option is to use an old knife - as Samon suggests - but beware, it may be too soft if you can work it with hand files.
All the best
Andy
Power hacksaw blades are kinda hard to find around here. Used to be you could pick up used ones for nothing from machine shops, factories, etc. Anywho, I picked up several new ones (old-not bimetal) off ebay just recently.
Yeah that meat cleaver was pretty crap and had soft steel.. One of the reasons why I haven't bothered finishing it.
I did start a new recycled knife from an old saw and I've used a grinder on that (carefully and water cooled it often) as it was too thin for a file, still need to put a wrap on the handle but it's a good bit of practice!
Crappy metal knifives like my meat cleaver make good throwers as they aren't brittle (cause they're soft)!
I did start a new recycled knife from an old saw and I've used a grinder on that (carefully and water cooled it often) as it was too thin for a file, still need to put a wrap on the handle but it's a good bit of practice!
Crappy metal knifives like my meat cleaver make good throwers as they aren't brittle (cause they're soft)!
Yeah they are hard to come by over here too, however you get them occasionally. I found a couple at the local market.
Andy
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