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Main Boards => Hunting Knives and Crafters => Topic started by: canders on January 11, 2010, 09:26:00 PM
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After being inspired by the fantastic craftsmen on this website and others i decided to try my hand at both bow making (boardbow) and knife making. Im sure neither will be of any quality but atleast i can say i made them and hopefully they will lead to better work on later projects.
I found this rusty old file in a barn where we hunt and decided to give it a new life. This file is heavily rusted and pitted but i was going to try and go for a rustic an maybe forged look by leaving some of the pits in it. Ive anealed it per the other file topics ive found on here and hopefully will cut it out tomorrow once i get off shift. Let me know if you see any problems or errors so far on my part with my current plan ( i know there are a few.. im sure of it). Ill keep posting pics of my progress and please throw in your .02 if you dont mind.
Thanks
Chad
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/11110007.jpg)
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Looks good so far. By annealing it, heating to nonmagnetic and slowly cooling back to ambient temp, it should be soft now. Soft as in being able to cut it with normal tooling not soft like playdo! One thing to check now has it warped? If you layed it on it's side while heating to nonmetalic it can twist or warp. Now you should be able to cut it with a hacksaw, metal bandsaw etc or a dremel tool with a metal cutting wheel. Good luck keep us posted.
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It has warped...Does that mean its useless because i figured id just drop it in the vise and straighten her up? Also since it warped during anealing will it do it again during heat treat and temper? So do i continue or find new materials? Sorry for the questions but thanks ahead of time for the answers.
Chad
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No it's not worthless now! It just means you learn from your mistakes. Heck I ought to be a genious by now by that thought process though. How did you anneal, by putting in a fire pit, wood stove etc? How I do it is by a one brick gas forge, actually a two brick forge, and stand it on it's edge. Anyhow yes you can put it in a vise and twist pound etc to get flat because it is "soft" or pliable now. It's just alot easier to keep it flat from the begining. All is not lost you've just got another bridge to hurdle. No problem. Keep us posted.
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Thanks LC for the knowledge and i guess that was my first of thousands of mistakes while making knives... :D Im going to grind on her some tomorrow and will update with pics and im sure ill need a ton more help so thanks in advance.
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My only advice is to leave your narrowest section a little fat. As you sand your handle down to meet your profile you can bring it to final shape. I am very new to this and one of the biggest lessons I am learning is to plan the sand/grind. Leave areas a little fat so that as you fit and finish you are slowly bringing the knife to dimension.
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Ok here are some more pics of the rough out with a a grinder. I like the shape so far and i think this little file with end up making a good knife as long as i dont mess her up too bad in the process. The shape feels good in hand and i think the rust and pitted petina will look good and i plan on leaving some if it for the rugged look. The red oak its sitting on is what ill be using for scales. Ill be using hand files and a dremel from here on in, I dont want to get to happy with the dewalt grinder because im fairly sure i could mess up the shape in a hurry if i got careless. Once again let me know if you see any problems and have any suggestions.
Thanks
Chad
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/11210001.jpg)
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/11210002.jpg)
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/11210004-1.jpg)
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Starting to look like a knife! Going good.
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From where I,m sittin knife and bow startin to look good!
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Thanks, prarieboy for the compliments and yup thats my meager attempt at a bow on the floor as well. Im waiting to borrow my neighbors table saw to cut it to the right width. Ill post some pics of it when i get further along with it.
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canders, You are doing fine...BUT you need to reduce your picture size to 640 pix...tippit
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Yep! looks good to me! waiting to see more!
Steve
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Potomac Forge
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IN GOD WE TRUST
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Canders,How did you heat the blade to get it ready for grinding.I want to do this but dont have the knowlege or tools.Keeping close tabs on this thread.
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Rick I use my charcol barbecue put enuff bricks under the file and over the file so it gets cherry red and cools slow. Works for me and I get to cook somthing good while I'm playin around!next morning I have an annealed file.
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Rick i also used a BBQ pit and charcoal as well but take LC's advice earlier in this thread and heat it on its side (the thin part) and let it cool on its side as well so it wont warp like mine did but you can flatten her back out.
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Here are some more pics....I used a bench grinder to get both the distal taper and the edge close to where i wanted. But if you use a bench grinder take it slow, very slow and easy because mine will remove a lot of material off a file quickly and I almost lost enough to be worried during the quench about it shattering.Once i had the shape close i used hand files and dremel to get it to the sanding point. If you are following this to learn about making knives out of files please beware this is my first attempt and i am a complete rookie but im sure you could atleast learn from my mistakes :D As always any advice or criticism is welcome..ps im working on resizing the older pics (sorry Tippit)..update pics now reduced. Sorry for any inconvienence.
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/39d0fc01.jpg)
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/ffd7bcdf.jpg)
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Here are a few sanding pics along with what seems to work as a sanding board/knife clamp. Its about a 18" long piece of left over red oak with a c-clamp. I can get get a nice flat sand with my block and it is very stable in my lap. I also found a red sharpie comes in handy when you use it to find low spots which there is a large one you can see in one of the pics. It now finally looks like a knife (made by a very unskilled but eager craftsman...lol)
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/11710015.jpg)
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/11710016.jpg)
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Well Canders, I went to the antique shop & found a file.I felt like a kid in a candy store.Went home & started a fire in my fire pit.Annealed it & am filing on it know.I will post a picture...Wondering how to get my 22 degrees angle when filing the blade.That will be my next step.Any help will be appreciated.My picture sequence got messed up.
(http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv166/renos53/000_0332.jpg)
(http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv166/renos53/000_0326.jpg)
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(http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv166/renos53/000_0327.jpg)
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Rick, i used my bench grinder to get to what feels like a good angle, to be honest I have no idea if it's the proper 22deg or not. I used the grinder to get close and then I did the best I could to keep the angle constant with hand files. I've seen a few posts around where guys built jigs for their files to make sure their angles were right. I'm sorry I don't have any real answers because like you I got inspired from the guys on this website and others so I'm totally new to knife making. I hope this helps atleast somewhatI
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OK Thanks,This is gona be a tough one for me.I'll post a picture later & see what you think....
[IMG]http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv166/renos53
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(http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv166/renos53/000_0337.jpg)
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Rick it looks as though you are off to a great start. Here are some pics of my heat treating setup. I used our chimeneya some rebar and a hair dryer. I used a welding magnet and a canola oil for quench. Everything went well with the heat treat and quench. I normalized it twice before quenching. I also tempered it twice in my oven at 375. After quench it seemed to harden well because a file would just sing right off of it. I messed up and tried to fix a slight bend that occurred and the
tip broke of with just a very small amount of pressure. I wonder if I did something wrong other than putting pressure on it. I did however grind her down to the similar shape so that I could atleast finish my first one. Any advice or critisism is welcome.
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/11810008.jpg)
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/11810010.jpg)
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/11810011.jpg)
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/11810012.jpg)
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(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/a1ecea3d.jpg)
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Oh man,I feel your pain.I'm glad you could redo it.I like the hair dryer thing.Looks like you had a real hot fire.How long did it take before you hit nonmagnetic.I will try the hair dryer thing next time...
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Rick it didnt take very long..maybe 15 mins. once the coals settled down and really got cooking. What shape of knife would you classify this one, maybe a small skinner? I really need to brush up on what different blade shapes and grinds are called. Here is a pic after the break and new grind. Thanks again guys for any help and advice.
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/8ae93cec.jpg)
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Good job.I'm in the same shoes you are.I just started making them about a month ago.I cant even sharpen one yet.I'm either going to study up on sharpening knives or try & make a scabbard.Post a pic when your done....If you need any help when you start your Board bow let me know.I'll post a pic of my last board bow.
(http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv166/renos53/000_0348.jpg)
(http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv166/renos53/000_0347.jpg)
(http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv166/renos53/000_0345.jpg)
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The last 4 bows I made...Top Yew-name Crickett--2nd Osage name-Osage Hunter---3rd Red Oak name
-snake eyes----4th-Red Oak no name yet...
(http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv166/renos53/000_0349.jpg)
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Those are some great looking bows. Im on shift today at the station so in between calls ill be working on my knife so i hope to get her resanded and get the redoak scales on today if im lucky. As soon as i finish this knife ill be back on my bow to get that done and then move on to the next ones....
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Well I finally finished my first knife and sheath. It still needs some polishing on the blade and i really need to learn some skills on the old sharpening stone but overall im happy with it for a first attempt. It has red oak scales and 4 coats of low gloss tung oil. It feels good in hand but i really wish i had the skills to make it razor sharp, its close but not as sharp as id like it to be. The sheath is real thick leather from a full side and rawhide lacing. Let me know what yall think any comments or suggestions would be great.
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/2e8715cb.jpg)
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/27c547c1.jpg)
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Looks good! You've got to remember getting enough metal removed to get somewhat of a 22-25 degree angle requires removing ALOT of metal usually. Doing it only with stones takes a long long time. If you have a belt sander running 120 grit it takes alot of sweat equity out of it! You can do it this free hand till you feel a burr the entire length of the blade then do the opposite side to you get another burr! You should be able to stone,buff or ceramic rod it from that point. If not run a magic marker down the edge and then hit it with your stone again. It will tell you if you need more angle when running over the belt sander. After a couple knives you'll have it down. Admit your already planning your next one!
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Excellent recovery from that break. I've had a few break on me and I usually just give up on them
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Thanks for the complements guys. LC, you are totally right im not only planning my 2nd but the 3rd 4th and 5th...lol. Im hooked and i hope i can progress and get better so that my knives will be as good looking and useful as some of the rest of the artists on this forum. Here is the template for #2 and its probably going to be my swap knife(ferrier rasp) so let me know what yall think.
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff267/anderskfd/297c2df8.jpg)
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Wow! Good looking work!
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Great job canders.I thought you gave up on it...I just finished my 3rd.Gota take a break...fingers & wife cant take much more...I burned up her hair dryer yesterday putting some zip back into a file knife....I like your #2 I want to see a pic when your done..
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Hey Canders Knives(and bows) are lookin good!
I do see somthing that kinda bothers this ol guy! I would not recomend quenching in a glass or plastic container.Flare ups happen!!! Plastic burns(BEEN THERE DUNN THAT) and glass breaks. Just thinkin out loud. C-Ya Bob
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I'm going to take your advice and switch to a metal container for my quench oil it was just the only thing I had handy at the moment. I will definently keep posting pics as I get them finished and again as always thanks for the advice and comments.