Another "hey guys look at the first knife I made" thread

[drbarnes]

Made my first knife. Its 154cm and I need to get it heat treated still. Comments, criticisms, questions, and opinions are welcome. I am going to do either micarta or walnut handles.






David

 

[armedindy]

sweeeet

 

[M67]

Too thin, too small, uneven grinds, and it'll probably be as dull as something Beef sharpened while maintaining the strength of a Gerber Bear Grylls knife.

Want any more criticisms Dave?

 

[Mosinguy]

Not bad at all in my opinion. Do the walnut grips!

 

[grunt soldier]

that looks good brother. very nice stuff! Are you keeping it in house for heat treat or sending it off?

 

[tom1025]

Looks good sir.

Now hurry and put it in the safe before it gets dirty.

 

[mbills2223]

You seem to have the most severe case of frostbite I've seen outside of the classroom.

 

[Gabriel]

That's nice.

 

[slimplmbr]

Nice looking blade Dave.

 

[Corporal D]

Outstanding for your first knife.

 

[shootersix]

horid, ugly, looks like a pos, but i'll tell you what i'll do...i take it off your hands a get rid of it for you,

cool looking blade!

 

[Fergy35]

First knife my a**. OK maybe its your first knife but you are obviously no rookie at using machine tools of some kind. Tell us more about how you made it and the tools you used. I did mine free hand on a tiny belt grinder and it sure didn't look anything near as good as that.

That is a very good looking design and a nice bit of grinding.

 

[weedsnager]

Looks good !!

 

[drbarnes]

thanks for the compliments

that looks good brother. very nice stuff! Are you keeping it in house for heat treat or sending it off?

Sending it out to Peters because.... well because they know how to do it and I dont.

First knife my a**. OK maybe its your first knife but you are obviously no rookie at using machine tools of some kind. Tell us more about how you made it and the tools you used. I did mine free hand on a tiny belt grinder and it sure didn't look anything near as good as that.

That is a very good looking design and a nice bit of grinding.

I modeled up the knife in autocad and had a local waterjet company cut the blanks out for me. I am using a 2x72 belt grinder (had to sell quite a few toys to afford it). I made a jig that holds the blade at a consistant angle , this one is done at 8* per side. I am doing the stock removal with 36 grit 3m cubitron belts then going up to 80, 120, 220, 320, 400. Hopefully thats enough before heat treating, I am not going for a flawless mirror polish. And I dont have much experience with grinders or metal work at all. I used to help my dad with wood working

 

[drbarnes]

Too thin, too small, uneven grinds, and it'll probably be as dull as something Beef sharpened while maintaining the strength of a Gerber Bear Grylls knife.

Want any more criticisms Dave?

I know - the other stuff is 1/4", I know - I have the 6", 8" 10" and khukri still to grind, I know - I cant made knives sharp to save my life. The only thing I can hope for is the heat treat keeps it from shattering like a piece of glass

what else ya got for me?

 

[Squib]

That's a nice clean design with a handle long enough to make sure you have your hand full. Is the forward inch or so of the spine sharpened! I've noticed that on a few blades lately. Please post again when you have the handles on.

 

[LANShark42]

Beautiful start! Can't wait to see the finished product!!

 

[drbarnes]

This weekend I went up to visit my best friend. Hes got keys to a lab with furnaces and access to liquid nitrogen.

So we started off by wrapping the blades in stainless foil (that stuff is expensive!) to create an airtight package to keep the amount of decarb to a minimum. We put a piece of paper towel in the wrapped packets to burn up any extra oxygen. We folded the edges twice and tapped them with a hammer to make the seal,




We fired up the furnace to 1950F (really hot!) after it was up to temperature and ready we set the blades spine down on a brick with some 1018 sample specimens to keep the blades separated. In to the furnace they go.




With the bags being air tight and the paper towel piece igniting the packets ballooned up almost immediately and none of us were expecting that.



After soaking at temperature for 45 minutes we took the packets out one at a time and placed them between the aluminum quench plates and used extra steel pieces for weights.



Amazingly after 5 minutes they were cool enough to take out of the packets. Not much decarb on the blade!




We let them sit for another 10 minutes to cool down more then into the liquid nitrogen at -275F.



It boiled and shook the little cooler pretty violently for a couple minutes then everything cooled down.



After about 3 hours in the liquid nitrogen we took them out and let them warm to room temp. Frosty.





Back at his house we were ready to temper the blades, set the oven to 500F and put the blades in for 2 hours. After the first time we let it cool to room temp slowly and then back in for another 2 hours.




Back to the lab to test the hardness.



58 Rockwell C. I was shooting for 60-61 but this was my first time heat treating, and the blades are straight. Very happy and now I just need to clean up the blades and put some handles on em

 

[MCgrease08]

Really, really cool. Thanks for sharing the process. I can't wait to see them finished.

 

[M67]

Hmm.....looks like you've had some folding/rolling experience in your day

Wearing sandles around liquid nitrogen, always classy Dave!

Really cool pics, nice to see a step by step process.

Looking pretty good, when do I get my sample blade?