Please help me build my first knife

[Dave Budd]

go for the leatherman, its the softer of the two. The drill bit won't tell you a great deal since it is relatively dull. If there is scale on the surface or the piece was laser cut then the surface that you scratched will be hard anyway. Did the seller tell you what the hardness was supposed to be?

 

[Perrari]

Nice work with the file ! Very clean and crisp ! My first knife using a file was not that pretty, you should be very proud of your efforts so far !
I agree with Dave Budd it does not look heat treated (hardened). A file would barely touch it let alone let you do that in 10 mins per side.
I have read through the post, but as far as I can see it doesn't mention what spec of steel it is ? (maybe I missed it?).

Makes me think is it a heat treatable steel ?

 

[smojo]

Thanks guys. Here's a quote from the sellers original post where I saw the blanks.

Hi all I have a mix of 52100 steel knife blanks that have been professionaly laser cut and heat treated in sheffield. These are quality blanks however I do not have the time to finish them myself and so I thought I would put them up on here so that they can get finished and so I can get some of the money back that I hav invested in these(which I will most likely spend on some more custom knives

 

[Dave Budd]

Believe me, it would not file that easily if it had been heat treated! I think that either the batch was iffy from the heat treaters, in which case there may be a whole load of these blades or whole knives) out there that are rubbish, or he had some heat treated and other not and you got one from the wrong pile

Either way, I think you shold get in touch wth him and swap your blade over if you paid for a heat treated one!

f you want it checked then I do have a hardness tester and I can heat treat it if you need, but I'm not doing a run for a few weeks or so

 

[smojo]

Cheers Dave. I scratched it easily with the point of my Mora so I guess it's not been properly hardened if at all. Dunno why it had black scaling though. I have PM the guy to ask for more info but I'm not bothered. A few posts back we were talking about how buying a hardened one was going to make it more difficult and as I've filed it I can't ask to swap really. No worries, just part of the learning curve. I guess if I get it hardened anyway it should be OK.

On that note - we have a coal fire at home. Do you think I could do it myself by just heating it in the red hot coals (they get pretty damned hot) and plunging it?

 

[Paddytray]

No mate you would have to bellow in air to raise the temperature and probably burn out your fire place .
But no biggy loads of post on here on how to make a simple forge . And hardening then H.T before honing .
I can send you some refractory cement . here is a simple forge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBVa2bw3r_k
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[smojo]

OK ta - more food for thought.

 

[Paddytray]

I've been eating thought food for 2 years mate welcome to the club

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[smojo]

Right so I got a reply from the guy who sold me the blade. This is what he said. I have decided to just go ahead and finish it as he suggests and if it turns out not to hold an edge very well then I'll just put it down to experience. The knife won't have cost me much more than £15 to make so what the hell. Time to get filing again and make the handle.

The blades have been fully heat treated so they are hard but as they have also been tempered so they are also flexible they have been treated to 57/58 rockwell where as a file is treated to 60/61 rockwell and so is harder which is why yo can still file the blank. All you need to do is file and polish the bevel until you get a sharp edge and it will be ready to go.

 

[smojo]

Did some more filing on the bevel, got it down to a fairly good edge. I'm trying to get the flats nice and shiny now before fitting the handle. It's taking some doing. Tried with various sandpapers, dremel flapwheel and there's still some small black pitting from the heat treatment. I'm now using a diamond whetstone and rubbing the flat blade along it. I don't want to use anything too aggressive as I want to keep everything nice and flat and even. I'll get there, just taking a lot of elbow grease and time. I have remain patient. When you try to cut corners you tend to come unstuck. Once the handle's fitted I'll put the final edge on it with oilstones. Starting to shape up now. Photos to come later.

 

[smojo]

This is it at the moment. Bevel filed to an edge ready for final honing and polishing. Flats have been polished but still a few light scratches to get rid of. What do you guys finish the polishing with - a buffer wheel or what?

I've drilled the scales for the brass pins so soon I can glue them on. Is Araldite OK for that?

Just remembered a dream last night - I dropped it and snapped the point right off. Phew.

 

[mountainm]

Micromesh is good for polishing of you've gone down through all the grits.

 

[smojo]

OK ta.

Glued the scales on yesterday, drilled some shallow holes on the insides to take some of the glue then clamped it all up. Wondering what to finish the scales with - oil or some sort of lacquer? I have various types of oil - linseed, Danish, tung- hoping I don't need to buy any and I have polyeurathene varnish and some clear nitro cellulose lacquer. Any suggestions please.

 

[Dave Budd]

i use danish oil. lacquers and varnishes are horrible things on handles, so avoid them! Danish oil dries quicker than linseed and doesn't darken the wood, but linseed is nice on pale woods if you want more depth of colour. tung is fine as long as you don't mind waiting a month of sundays for t to dry!

 

[smojo]

Been busy. Scales glued and clamped

Clamps removed next day ready for shaping.

Trimmed brass pins off first with hacksaw and filed flat. Trimmed bulk of surplus off scales with bandsaw then sanded to shape with drum sander on pillar drill.

Contours shaped with whittling knife, files, dremel, sandpaper. Finished off with light rub over with raw linseed oil. Bevel honed with oilstone. A little more polishing to do on the blade and a leather sheath to make next. Not perfect but feeling pretty pleased for my first knife.

 

[Paddytray]

Very nice I like the wood too . Got there in the end mate

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[smojo]

Very nice I like the wood too . Got there in the end mate

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Yes thanks to all who contributed with advice and offers of help. I enjoyed the process and am pretty chuffed with the results. Made a leather sheath too, see next post.

 

[smojo]

Right then, I made a leather sheath from a piece I already had. I could have taken longer and more care with the stitching but I couldn't wait to get something made to keep it safe in and start using it. I also like handcrafted things that aren't too perfect, it gives them some character and mojo. Total cost about £15 as I had some of the stuff already - just bought the blade blank and brass rod for the pins. I'll give knife making a rest now for a while, onto my next project which is restoring an old Thermidor wickless picnic stove (paraffin). I bought it a while ago at a boot sale for a few quid, be nice to get it going.

Thanks again to all you wonderful folk for helping me. Much appreciated.

 

[Dave Budd]

well done It came good in the end! I just hope that it holds an edge...

 

[Perrari]

That looks really good ! Well done !