sorry guys been away at other towns lately, finding time here and there to work on this though.
it's nearing the end of the journey though
This is what it looks like straight out of the oven after tempering. It's a little deeper of a straw color than you would want for a smaller knife ( there's even some tiny spots of blue here and there but not much.) I'd rather have the insurance of a springy blade over a brittle one that will break if you look at it wrong, so tempering was a success.
The blade is quite straight but very slightly warped to the right. we'll fix that the second time it goes in the oven.
The second time it goes in the oven I clamp it to a slightly curved piece of steel. I clamp it so that the convex of the blade's curve is facing the convex of the steel's curve, as the steel will need to be over corrected slightly.
After I take it out of the oven it's straight to polishing again. I take the good ol' sanding block and go at it. To remove all the evidence of heat treatment. At this point I'm just going for a rough finish.
I then rough in the final edge bevel with a sanding disk on an angle grinder. Be
VERY careful not to overheat the edge at this point. The high rpm's of the grinder make it very easy to ruin your entire heat treat. I dunk it in snow every few passes and work without gloves to feel the metal. During the winter this sucks but it's worth it.
This is going to be a chopping knife so don't go for anything too acute on your edge. You want it to be able to slice but not to be so thin it chips, which is partly why we forged the bevel quite thin in the first place (less resistance to material as the blade cuts it.)
After that I run it on the belt sander a bit to even things up, then it's to the wet stone. i just have a cheap one I make do with. I got it to the point where it could cut paper but nothing special, just a pretty dull utility edge.
I find this one of the most enjoyable parts of the process, testing the blade. You really get to see how it holds up but it's still not as good as it will be when there's a handle on it, comfort-wise. I wrapped some paracord around the handle to make chopping doable.
That sapling looked tempting so in I go.
After a few chops it's down. The wood is frozen solid so it's actually quite hard to chop.
Some bending in a gnarly piece of apple
Since we have now confirmed the blade is badass enough we will start work on a handle, which is my least favorite part, at least the beginning. Polishing it up is awesome but making everything dead flat and getting the glue up right can be very annoying and takes a while. Specially when you're making your own scales like I decided.
I begin by roughing out a split piece of apple. This also tests the blade.
Further work with a rasp reveals it's a pretty nice piece of wood.
I'll post more maybe this weekend, until then I'm busy 24/7. Hopefully I can get the handle glued up this sunday. I really can't wait to chop with a nice comfortable grip, it's a lot different then with cord wrapped around lol. Thanks for checkin this out yall!
