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jpfabricator

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I want to try my hand at knifemaking, but dont know where to start, steelwise. What is a good steel to start with. I want to make a skinning knife for my deerhunting hobbie.
 
Like most things...it depends.

Starting from a bar of steel and grinding out a blade:

Good starter carbon steels can be heat treated with a torch and bucket of ATF with respectable results. Upgrade to O1 tool steel and that method will get you very good results...call it 90% of what the steel is capable of.

Good starter stainless steels like 440C need to be soaked at high temperature in an oxygen deficient atmosphere. Plan on sending your first few out to professional heat treatment shops.

OR, you can buy a pre-shaped and heat treated blade and add your own finish, handle, sheath, etc. Cheap ones can be had from knifemaking stores, better ones can be had from a handful of professionals who sideline in supplying professional grade blade blanks. About half of my blades are from this category...and I started on the knifemaking journey 10 years ago.

Or, if you really like to jump in deep, you can order a bag of iron rich sand, dig some coal, cook it into coke, build a smelter, smelt a bloom of steel, forge it out into bars, evaluate which blooms are high and which are low carbon, layer them, forge and fold a few times...etc. etc. etc. and poof, you have a thousand layers of steel for a sword! Okay, maybe that is not a starter project.

The gist of what I'm saying is the sky is the limit, but I would recommend starting simple and seeing if you like it.

Texas Knife Supply
Jantz Supply
Alpha Knife Supply
Midwest Knifemaker Supply
There are a bunch.

Very helpful link:
http://www.engnath.com/manframe.htm

Very helpful guy, and my preferred source for high end knife blanks in shapes I don't grind:
http://www.customknife.com/
 
If you haven't already, take a look at "Knifemaking Tuesdays" on YouTube. A guy named John Grimsmo has been posting videos weekly for just over a year now. When he first started, he was just screwing around with a design. Now he has made several batches of knives, and is doing well. He tends to show all his mistakes, which is awesome. He does all his stuff with CNC other than the finishing. There are also quite a few other knifemakers that have howtos on youtube, and take you through step-by step. Those videos are what got me thinking "hey, I could do that!".

A fixed blade knife is probably a good first choice. Much simpler than a folder. Plain carbon steels are probable easiest to start with. Stainless/chrome steels will require a furnace with accurate temp control, or you will have to farm out the heat treat. With carbon steel you can harden and heat treat easily. O1 is nice, and readily available. 5160 and 1095 are also commonly used. Alpha Knife Supply sells small pieces of blade steel in various thicknesses, so you can grab a small piece of whatever you need.

I have only made 2 knives so far. My first one was a carving knife. I ground the blade on a benchgrinder (a really bad idea...). Despite the rough beginnings, it turned out well. The second knife (and a half dozen prototypes) was a slip-joint I made for my dad. That one was all CNC machined. Both those knives were made from D2, which is trickier to heat treat, but holds an edge really well.
 
The easiest steel to handle for a beginner is 01. It is easily heat treated with minimal equipment,and not as likely to warp or crack in heat treatment,as W1 is.

Automatic transmission fluid is a good quench as mentioned. You can just get a few gallons of vegetable oil from the grocery store,but the ATF fluid won't spoil and get smelly.

Get some bricks-fire bricks are the best. Make a "corner" to lay your knife in. Trapping the heat in a corner helps a great deal when trying to get a knife orange hot. In a pinch,2 MAPP gas torches will heat up a decent size blade. A weed burner really puts out a lot of heat,by the way,and will easily get large knives orange hot. If you are using a trailer bottle of gas,and your weed burner mysteriously cuts off,it is because you need a special valve to screw into the trailer bottle's hole,with a left hand thread. There is a valve in the trailer bottle that shuts it down as a safety measure if it thinks too much gas is escaping. THIS is useful info to know. Go to a welding supply place and he might be able to tell you what kind of screw in valve you need. You might get by without the special valve iuf you run the weed burner oily about 10 minutes or so.

I grind out my knives with a Wilton Square Wheel belt grinder. They cost money,though. Grizzly sells a 2" x 72" belt knife grinder for a lot less,though I prefer the belt to be guarded all the way around to prevent breathing the dust. My grinder has a dedicated Delta vacuum with a big drum and a cloth bag. NEVER,EVER try to mix wood and metal dust and sparks. You will suddenly have a burning jet engine on your hands. HEED this advice. Vacuum ONLY metal for the grinder.

A good hardness is easily obtained by heating to orange and quenching. Don't quench into a real cold quench. It can crack the steel. After hardening,treat the blade like it is glass. It will easily break. Carefully sand away the surface till you can see the bright metal. Then,slowly,applying the torch mostly along the BACK of the knife,well AWAY from the tip(which can suddenly overheat),let the light,then darker brown color creep towards the cutting edge and tip. When the cutting edge is medium brown,quench the blade. Go too far,and you will have to start over and re harden the blade. It would be best if you first normalized the blade. Google it. If you want a more flexible blade,you can heat it to blue,which is a spring temper. It is softer,but not brittle,and will still hold a decent edge.
 
I want to try my hand at knifemaking, but dont know where to start, steelwise. What is a good steel to start with. I want to make a skinning knife for my deerhunting hobbie.


Close to Austin TX? I have a friend who just made a super looking Bowie Knife. PM me and I'll send you a link to him. Maybe he can give you class or tell you on the phone where he learned how.

Rich
 
A 4" long blade is about the limit for a functional hunting knife for skinning and gutting. A bowie knife size knife is in reality a fighting knife . Also used by early hunters to be long enough to reach a bear's heart if it was the last resort.
 
I don't remeber the name but the Childress book is good.
 
1095, lawn mower blade, annealed file, automotive leaf spring, automotive coil spring, circular saw blade, 2-man crosscut saw blade, etc., etc., and ... etc.

Which technique are you using to make this knife?

A good way to begin is to take a piece of steel that's a little bit bigger than your knife, anneal it, and remove everything that's not your knife. Then harden it and temper it, put a handle on it, then make a sheath. Presto! Your knife.

Look at books by Wayne Goddard if you have a chance.
 
I know, life has a funny way of stoping endeavors.

Sent from my SM-S320VL using Tapatalk
 
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