Monday, May 10, 2010

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.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

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.