First knife

[Deerhunter21]

i made this knife out of a file. i finally got my forge up and running! its just charcoal briquettes but it got hot enough to burn and melt metal. yes.... i burned the metal. i also burned the tip of the knife but only a little. im gonna take the tip back to get rid of all of the cracks. I had to heat treat it 3 times to get a file skating across it. i dont remember any pings from the heat treat but i can barely file the metal down so i might need to get myself a long overdue belt sander and grinder. gonna make a hidden tang knife since the tang is so thin. all and all, i really enjoyed forging it and im proud of it since it was my first one!

[Deerhunter21]

pics

slight warp in the tip but that will be removed when i remove the part of the tip with the cracks

[KHalverson]

not bad for a 1st .
in time you will learn to judge where your fire is hottest,
ya can also stick a piece of black pipe or mild steel tubing in the fire and  stick the piece you are forging inside that to protect it.
mild steel will take more heat than high carbon and burns up at a higher temp.
DO NOT PUT ANYTHING GALVANIZED IN YOUR FORGE,
Its POISON.

[bubby]

What Kevin said with one caveat, with any file or rasp always do a snap test on the tang before you even start. Just heat it to non magnetic and quench in warm oil, heat it up with a scrap piece of steel, after the quench put part of the tang in a vice and if it snapped off it got hard. You can also see the grain. If it just bends  heat it to non magnetic again and quench in warm water, if it won't snap off in a water quench it probably isn't a good choice for a cutting tool

[Deerhunter21]

hmm. i think i lost the heat treat while filing it... i dont know... maybe heated it up too much while filing but honestly, if people can use a grinder and it stay hard its probably just that it wasnt great metal. ill probably just finish it, put an edge on it, and then just keep it as my first and move to the next. probably should have done what you said bubby. i was considering it while forging it but didnt.

[Hawkdancer]

Good start!  I am not any sort of forging expert, but you've made the first step!  You may be able to rig a hair dryer as a steady draft source to get a more even temperature!  What are you going to haft it with?
Hawkdancer

[DC]

Like Bubby said. A lot/most files now are just case hardened. A little grinding and you're back to mild steel. Or whatever they use to case harden.

[KHalverson]

hmm. i think i lost the heat treat while filing it... i dont know... maybe heated it up too much while filing but honestly, if people can use a grinder and it stay hard its probably just that it wasnt great metal. ill probably just finish it, put an edge on it, and then just keep it as my first and move to the next. probably should have done what you said bubby. i was considering it while forging it but didnt.
[/quote

you didnt lose the heat  treat filing it..
if it feels soft and a sharp file cuts it easily it never got hard.
the forge scale was hard but the blade didnt harden

[Woody roberts]

After forging I grind, file into shape. Leaving the edge about 1/32 thick. They are soft as butter at this stage and easy to work. It doesn’t take a lot of heat to get them just past non magnetic.
I normalize 3 times to prevent warping. If it warps when I quench I just put it back in the fire and straighten it out.
When using mystery metal I always quench in oil first. If it don’t take I just heat it back up and quench in water.

I get a little scale from multiple trips to normalize but it’s not very deep. A good file would have to be drawn back after quenching. It will be too brittle otherwise.

That’s pretty good for a first one. You always want to save your first one to compare your 10th one to.
While this road certainly has a learning curve it’s a pretty interesting trip.

[Deerhunter21]

whew! it is hard!!! it was just gripping onto the old teeth! im working on the handle right now. i am no good at carving out spaces so im gonna need to use some epoxy and sawdust or superglue and sawdust to fill in the gaps. i dont know if i can get a pin into this tang though. might just have to scratch the metal up and rely on the epoxy. ill get some pics up tomorrow but i got it shaving sharp but the secondary bevel is pretty thick so it wont cut deep. maybe my angles just too thick... i dont know.

i took the tip that i sawed off that had all the cracks and broke it... yup, grain looks hard. and i am glad i took the tip off. so many cracks!!!

[bubby]

Know anyone with a plasma cutter? Or a torch? You can just blow a couple holes in it and clean it up after

[Deerhunter21]

no. unfortunately i dont. only place i do know is the boy scout camp where i learned how to weld and cut metal with oxy-acetylene

[bubby]

If you go to the archive page khalverson's file to knife build a long is there it shows how to anneal to be able to drill

[KHalverson]

If you go to the archive page khalverson's file to knife build a long is there it shows how to anneal to be able to drill

thats now on page 10 of this forum.
marc moved it over here.
id link to it if i knew how.


Deerhunter .
did you temper the blade after quench?

[Deerhunter21]

no i did not temper it. i dont really know how to.