Forging

[Kegan]

Okay, I am intersted in making a survival/fighting knife, roughly based on Tom Brown's Tracker knife from a piece of heavy spring steel. COuld someone give me basic instructions on how to cut and shape the metal once hot? I'm going pretty primtive here, since I don't have alot of materials on hand. My anvil will most likely be a heavy I beam, and my furnace will likely be a hand drill fire of hardwoods in a fire-brick fire place. I can do the grinding and what not to finish it up, but how do I rough it out?

Or, would it be better to jsut anneal it and cut it out with a power saw (I don't know if that beter or even possible). I'm pretty clueless .

[madcrow]

I don't think that will get it hot enough.  Hardwood charcoal (homemade) will get it hot, but you need a sourse of air going in at the bottom to help fuel the fire.  The easiest way I have seen to make the charcaol is to put the wood in a metal tub and build a fire under the tub.  It will basically scorch the wood all the way through without actuallt burning it to ashes.  A hair dryer on high, fastened to a piece of steel pipe the same diameter as the hair dryer and stuck beside the coals will work.  Store bought charcoal has alot of sulfur in it and it can ruin a blade.  As far as cutting goes, set of chisels especially for that are used to cut the steel.  I guess it would depend on the thickness of the steel.

[DanaM]

Kegan go over to PP and ask the same question on the bladesmithing section, although madcrow basically answered it already.

[huntertrapper]

ive done some blacksmithing and if you use some coal you can get your fire really hot. But ive had hardwood fires hot enough that  when i put the metal in after a while the metal turned bright red and lit green grass on fire, as for cutting it out i think you could use a cold chisel  but a good hammer is a big thing i think....good luck

[JackCrafty]

Here is a link to an excellent video series on knife making.  There are literally hundreds of sites/videos devoted to knife making but this one is "primitive" enough to be my favorite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ysKd1cswlo&feature=related

 

[Minuteman]

That feller wasted a buncha wood. Fire was way bigger than it needed to bo. You can do the same thing by gettingthe file red hot ( til it won't hold a magnet) then stick it in a bucket of vermiculite or bury it in a stack of fiberglass insulation( without the paper vapor barrier obviousl).

[Auggie]

A knife making friend of mine heats up a large block of steel to put in his cooling sand pile along with his file-blade-whatever to help in retaing heat for slow cooling.Make sense? Seems to make his knives A-ok.

[Kegan]

Well, I tried crude, primitive forging. Sorta worked, but I didn't have enough things right to make it work well.

So I took a power saw to it .

After grinding and filing, here it is roughed out. What do you think? Stil needs alot of work, but it's getting there.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[huntertrapper]

nice man....thats looks good, after you get a handle on there that will be sweet

[stickbender]

     You can ask Mechslasher, Not sure of the spelling, he seems to make some nice knives.  You can heat it with a blow torch,( Use with map gas ) to a bright cherry red, and leave it to cool to room temperature, to anneal it. And then take a band saw, or whatever you have to cut the metal to shape, and file or grind the bevel for the edge, , and drill,or punch the holes for the handle, and shape for a hilt, wether for a notch, or just up against the blade, either soldered,or pressure fit, with the handle.  Anyway, after you have shaped and filed, or ground the shape you want, and put the edge bevel on it, you can again heat it with a blow torch.  If you have drilled holes for your handle, you can hang it up with a piece of wire, and heat it up till it is bright cherry red, and quench it in either oil, cold water, or if you really want to bring the moleculer structure close together, use acetone, and dry ice, in a bucket, and just dip the blade in it.  You can repeat this a couple of times, and it will keep aligning the moleculer structure.  Then when you are ready for the final heat treating, you can quench it again, in whatever medium you want.  You can treat the whole blade, or just the edge.  You can heat the blade, and let it cool, to a dull red, and quench it, or just the edge, and then drop the whole blade in.  That way, you will have the edge harder than the rest of the knife, and it will be stronger, and have more give in stressful situations.  You can do this by dipping just the edge, or do it like the Japanese, and put clay mixed with ash, and cover the main part of the blade, and then leave the edge and about a 1/2 inch up into the blade open, or clear of clay.  Then heat it, and drop her in.  You will have a very hard edge, and a medium hard blade.  Or you can have the whole knife tempered the same.  There are a gazillion sites out there that can tell you much better than I can.  But I have used these methods with great results.  I used to heat treat pistol springs, out of thin spring steel.  Made some nice little blades with it also.  I want to make some knives, and a tomahawk, and an axe out of some good thick leaf springs.  Would like to get it from an old car or truck from the fifties.  I think it is better spring steel.  I hope this helps some.  But definately check out the websites.  You can Google them.  Also as for an anvil, you might try to get a piece of railroad rail, or see if you can get real anvil.  You can then weld a piece of 1/2 to 3/4 inch plate steel to it, and you will have an even surface, that you can remove, and replace when it gets out of shape. 

                                                                                 Stick Bender

[kayakfisher]

Well don't know how primitive it is to use to make a survival knife with. I use to use a cutting torch to rough them out then use the the torch along with a 5 gallon bucket of vegetable oil to temper them in
                                        Dennis

[Kegan]

Thanks guys. Here is the finished blade. It wasn't to my tastes, so I gave it to my brotehr. He likes it . Here's the finished blade. He'll do the handle later, and the sheath. I'll get pictures when he's done. Does several jobs well- it's a good knife .

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[65x55 swedis]

thats cool but if would have forged it hard wood might have done it. the tricky part would be to rough out the indent. but other than that you should have no problem. other than keeping your heat constant. but really cool knife

[Tracker]

Nice looking Knife Kegan! I have the same idea, for a Tracker Knife from car spring, and will be trying it once it warms up enough to be able to work the metal for more than a few seconds. Though I have not been able to get them yet, so don't know how good they are, a Knifesmith gave me the names of a couple of forging books: Wonder of Knifemaking, by Wayen Goddard, and Complete Modern Blacksmith, by Art Alexander.  Seeing yours makes me want to get started, though I think that slightly smaller would be more usable. Have a small hand crank forge, old. Am going to cut out the bottom, and put in a small brake drum to make it deeper, and grout the inside of the bowl to make the old thing last longer.