Spring Steel and Coca-bolo

A no knife Blog! (hey, I still have kids you know?)

Look at what a good artist Nathan is becoming! He recently went to the Zoo and drew pictures of his favorite animals.

This first one is a little Arabian wild cat.

This guy here is a turkey.

This one is my favorite. Is that not the best elaphant ever? I mean most kids when they start drawing either do side views of front views. I love how he did an angle.



This one is a Monkey. He spelled it out in case we needed help..... He spells bout good as his dad.

This ones a Hippo.
And this one?...... Duh, its me. See the muscles?



And here my other little scrapper who is also cool as can be. His school recently had a contest for designing an anti-drug T' shirt. Brian was worried cause he doesn't think he draws well. Silvia asked him what he could draw and he said stick figures. Hey presto!! The winning shirt for the school district; over three thousand contestants and Brian is the big winner. Here he is wearing his winning shirt. "I've got better things to do than drugs"

What a couple of cool kids!!

FORGE .0

I upgraded the forge! It was still working just fine but kind of lacked in the awe inspiring power department. Luckily my Buddy at work is also a fan of awe inspiring power and when his in laws were installing a new furnace, saw that the old blower motor was right up my alley.

Here is my old blower. Its an old vacuum cleaner and has a one inch hose. Compare with a furnace blower which is used to circulate air through an entire house and has a four inch outlet! I think you will agree it is a favorable comparison.

Here is a side by side comparison with old tired motor on the bottom left. And new sweet motor dominating center stage.

I will admit I still have a few unanswered questions (it started to rain before I could fire her up) For example; how much air pressure does it take to levitate red hot coals? Is liquid nail flammable? Is my new motor to close to my 1800 F furnace? Luckily I have the gift of not worrying about troublesome questions like these.

I have always been a try-it-out-and -see kind of guy.

Cudos to the Sumerians

Wow! I just got done making a knife (huge surprise, I know) but this time I did some honest to gally blacksmithing! I had read about railroad spike knives and have been hankering to do one for a long time. I had even acquired a railroad spike but alas, I had no anvil. Well one of my buddies hooked me up with an anvil on an extended borrow basis and I thought I would give it a whirl.


Well believe it or not Blacksmithing is hard! I know, I know those of you that know me are aware of the tremendous power I can muster in my little chicken arms and are probably thinking, "you mean hard for mere mortals, surely?" ....No hard for me too.


I do not know who it was who first thought to take a piece of hot metal and pound the crap out of it with a rock or something; but it is a good thing it was not me! I would have been like, "Hey Gilgamesh, you know that idea I had about pounding that hot metal with a big ass rock? Yah, it didn't work." Who knows, I could have set mankind back thousands of years!



Luckily when I started this project, I knew that it was possible in theory to shape hot metal with a big hammer. So I didn't let all my early doubts and draw backs phase me to bad. Still if any of you thought hot steel is kind of taffy like, well taffy like it aint! It is more like real tough hard supper, supper, supper hot stuff that you can flatten by just the tinniest of margins even with a humongous hammer and a mighty swing. Even this marginal malleability last only for about ten swings and then you have to throw it back on the forge again.


Well I think the old time forgers probably shaped there blades almost entirely with their hammers (suckers!) I have modern technology on my side luckily and as soon as I had a vaguely blade like shape (and when I say vaguely blade like, I mean it was longer that it was wide and thinner on one side then on the other) I pulled it of the anvil and angle grinded the crap out of it!!

Yessir, I bet that chunk of steel thought it was pretty tough until my buddy Ryobi taught him a thing or two. Well anyway here is the finished project for your review.



This shows it right out of a Temper cycle. The colors are an oxide that forms at heat. The colors can tell you how hot it got and approximately how hard it will be. This is "brownish purple" which means about 500 degrees and a rockwell hardness of about 60. They (various sources) say 62 is good for little knives but to brittle for big knives and for big ones you should shoot for 58. This knife being mediumish I shot for 60. Or rather it turned out about 60 and I was satisfied.



Here it is all cleaned up.

Here is a closer look at the handle.

And here it is with a better looking model. You would be surprised how expensive good looking models are for your merchandise. Luckily I am sleeping with his mother so I got him for some ice cream!

I didn't torch myself but look anyway!

So it seems I have to set myself on fire to get some comments on my blog. A handy trick I will keep in mind should it be needed in the future. However I have made some knives that I am pretty proud of and I thought I'd let you all take a look.

This knife is made of a ferrier file and pieces of Oak venear that I dyed diffrent colors and then glued together. I gave it to Pat for his B-day. I made one other knife like this too but it was thinner and shaped a bit diffrent. It turned out pretty good too but I didn't get any pictures before I gave it away.

This pair of knives are made out of the same ferrier rasp and one has elkhorn and one buck horn. I gave one to one of my buddies who is on the Sniper team with me and one to a nice dispatcher. Almost a shame to break them up.

This little guy is almost an after thought to a larger knife I am making. He is just the last couple of inches from the rasp after the larger rough was cut. It has a Birds eye Maple burl handle and I only hope the bigger knife turns out as well.

Aint she cute?

I might have gone too far.

My new hobby which is tons of fun for me has been quite the hassle for Silvia. I thought that the cost was going to kill her and therefore it. I mean when I started I was buying fifteen dollar files every knife + abrasives + wood +Stain+ miscellaneous expenses+ more miscellaneous expenses.

Since those first couple knives though, I have kept the over head down by trading finished knives for raw materials. (I still pay a lot) but its not ridiculous like before.


I next thought that the time I spent on it would get her goat and kill my hobby. I was kidding myself of course. I think she is glad to get me out of her house making a mess and into the garage making a mess.



I might have finally gone to far though....... I set myself on fire. Don't be to surprised I foresaw the possibility in one of my earlier posts I think. Setting yourself on fire is about as scary as I thought it might be. (you don't even think of stop, drop and roll) Let me walk you through the thought process.........



"Wow my side sure is hot? Wait a second that is WAY to hot! WHOA my shirt is on fire! I need to beat out the flames! OUCH!! beating out the flames pushes the fire onto my side. I need to grab my shirt and pull it away from my body! OWWWW that hurts my hands!! I need to take my shirt OFF! No! bad idea dragging my burning shirt across my face and hair. Maybe I should yell for Silvia! No she'll make fun of me (funny the things you think of) oh good its starting to go out, oh good its out........Silvia is going to be mad.



Now this all took about three seconds to happen and five minutes to type which shows how fast your brain can go. Let me show you a pic montage of the actual events!!







Look at all that safety equipment! How could this have happened??



Now this isn't the first time that I have been hurt. I'm kindof a klutz and knives are sharp. Here is my first picture worthy ouch. I was sharpening a knife and whacked the back of my knuckle. It wasn't very deep but it bled like a son of a gun. Anyway no big deal.

Here is my next ouch. This one was bad and I didn't have time to grab a camera until after the Doc cleaned it up. I was drilling a hole through a knife handle and the drill caught and spun the knife like a razor sharp helicopter blade right through my thumb!! Gross huh? The Doc said that it missed the tendon and something called a joint capsule. The Doc said either one of those things would have been bad news.

Oh well I guess you got to go some kind of way, better a red hot shard of metal to the base of the skull then dying of old age, right?

Just kidding, I'm actually getting a lot better and safer at this. Unfortunately the learning curve is kind of dangerous. I now have a drill press so I don't have to hand drill any more plus I clamp stuff down, I no longer sharpen knives while sleep deprived, and I guess I'll probably be a little more cognisant of flying sparks from now on. Well I have had my blog break and now it is back to the grind, which isn't just a figure of speech.

1 Comment?!!

Ok faithfull readers, I have stumbled across the coolest hobby ever and I only get one comment? (thanks Shay) I have literally given blood, sweat, tears, countless burns, and 12 stiches too my awesome hobby and I need a little positive affermation! Now, I know it isn't all your guys' fault I must shoulder some of the blame cause some of my previous knifes weren't cool enough, but that is no longer the case. This next batch is totally comment worthy, so lets not drop the ball this time.














This one the hilt is made from four alternating layers of brass and alluminum and as I sand them away on the curve it makes the stripe pattern. It was very very hard and made me say bad words.













This one my buddy asked for. he wanted to be able to say, "now thats a knife!" in an Australlian accent.












This one is almost to pretty to use. Mia got in on the action.

More knives anyone?

Here is another skinner. Same design as the little one but this one is a little bigger and has a purple heart and leapord wood handle.

Doing my part to deforest South America. But for real dont worry if they made toothpicks at of these exotic woods they would be a quarter a piece.

Haven't made a double edge since my second knife, thought I'd try again.

This just goes to show that the design doesn't always exactly match the conception.

Cold Hard Steel!

It seems most people's blogs are about their lives and feelings and families whereas my blog tends to be on whatever hobby I am currently fixated on. In keeping with that I present my newest and probably most dangerous hobby, knife making! Ta da!

Here is my first attempt. I made it from a file with an oak handle and brass pins. Files are good cause they are very good quality steel and are already vaguely knife shaped. They are bad because you can't file or drill a file cause they are too hard. So the first thing you need to do is... make fire! Are you seeing where this is appealing to me as a hobby?

So you make your fire and heat the steel up to about 800 F and then let it cool slowly and you have effectively de-tempered your steel and made it soft enough to work with. What good is a soft knife, you ask? I'm glad you brought that up. Time to make another fire! And this time a hot one! To put the temper back on you have to heat the steel back up to between 1500 and 1800 F and then quench it in oil. You know it is 1500 F because steel looses it magnatism at that temperature.

Now 1800 F is lung-searingly hot. I can not even describe how hot, although lung-searing is fairly descriptive so maybe I can. The first time I tempered a knife I used my Webber Grill and an air compressor, which I don't think was designed to take that kind of heat because, well because it kind of sagged. Melting a BBQ is no mean feat I assure you! So after that first try I built a forge.

I made my forge out of a brake drum from a school bus, what was left from my melted BBQ, some plumbing pipe, an old army cot, and vacuum cleaner which Silvia had no further use of.

an 1800 F piece of steel is hot enough to flash boil a gallon of dirty motor oil and immediately set it on fire.

After my first knif which a colleague of mine dubbed "the Yellowstone steak knife" I went with something a little more militant with my next attempt.

Not very practical, huh? Well I was still working the kinks out! My next couple of knives were made from welding bar stock because I was tired of spending fifteen bucks for a file and I thought that if I tempered the bar stock it would be OK. After I did a little more reading turns out that this is probably not the case and I made about four knives that prob won't hold an edge very good. Sorry if you are one of the people I gave one of those knives to. Please understand that at the time I gave you the knife it was the very best knife I had made at the time I gave it to you. Although I think I'm getting better with each one I make. In any case none of those knives were the type that would most likely be used on a daily basis anyway and having a durable edge is probably not the highest priority anyhow.

My next three knives I made from some rasps that farriers use to trim horse hooves. I really like using them because they are wider than machinist files so you can incorporate a hand guard in the design, they are good quality, and because I know a way awesome dispatcher who is dating a farrier and can get me them for free once they are dull! If you look, you can see the tell tale file marks (little lines and triangles) on the blade of some of these. I can work them completely out of the metal if I want to but I kind of like them sometimes.

Do you see the lines at the back edge of the blade?

Yes those are fossils I inlaid into the knife handle.

Here is my Latest Knife. I made it from an old skill saw blade. The handle is oak and elk horn with brass pins and I didn't stain or varnish the handle, just sanded it really fine (600 grit) and put some tung oil on it. I think it turned out pretty good.

So there you have it my latest faze. Im still having tons of fun with it and am just giving the knives away when I am done. (except the first two cause they are goofy and not gift worthy) I will probaly stop when it becomes work, I burn myself..or the house down, or Silvia looses patience with my spending. (I just ordered thirty dollars worth of exotic wood online) In the mean time Ill enjoy it while I can.