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Main Boards => Hunting Knives and Crafters => Topic started by: tippit on September 09, 2010, 10:49:00 AM
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Lately I've been trying to pound out a few bigger blades to use around camp or in the kitchen. Here's one I started yesterday.
Just forged without any profile grinding yet.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/tippit/Knives/CampKnife012.jpg)
Profiled and ground for quenching. Need to drill handle. Not sure if I like the handle profile...so I'll let it sit for now.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/tippit/Knives/CampKnife007.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/tippit/Knives/CampKnife008.jpg)
5160 thirteen inches AOL with eight inch blade. If it quenches fine, I'll add curly maple scales and post a finished picture later...Doc
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Looks awesome Doc ...but then you knew that. <><
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Looks good Jeff. I like the hadle profile, But it may look/feel bigger when finished.
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That's going to look great with curly maple on it! Are ya going to try some silver wire???
Doc, I'm attempting a ST-24! Wish me luck!
Steve
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Potomac Forge
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Chuck,
Yea, I'm thinking of slimming the handle down a bit but staying with the same profile...Doc
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I posted this so ya'll kinda know what I go through when I forge up a blade. I don't have any set patterns and every blade just seems to emerge out of the hammered steel.
This knife just didn't have a pleasing flow for me so I slimmed the handle down and took the roundness out of the edge in the recaso area. Also reduced the recurve edge to help slim up the lines.
Now to decide if I want two large pins with +/- a lanyard hole. Finally drilling holes, off to a couple more normalizations, and quenching...Doc
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/tippit/Knives/CampKnife013.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/tippit/Knives/CampKnife017.jpg)
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It sure looks good Jeff. :thumbsup: Lin
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Looking real good.Little touches make a big diff.
NICE.
Chuck
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Just got done quenching and it came through without any tweaking needed. Now in the tempering oven. I drilled for two large 1/4" pin holes and a 1/4" lanyard hole...still may or may not use the lanyard hole but it's there if needed.
Once it has an edge, I'll see if it works as a camp knife...chopping & cutting up trash like plastic & aluminum bottles plus a few some bear steaks :)
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Looks like that would chop up some onions just fine!!
I can smell those bear steaks right now..........
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Looks like it will be a very fast handling blade, i would vote yes on the lanyard hole, if for no other reason it makes a good "hanger" when your between jobs.
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I tempered the blade at 400 for 2 hours. It came out dark bronze with a hint of purple on the edge as the edge was almost finished. I re-ground the blade a bit more and put a convex edge on it. Then just quick sharpening with worn out 400 grit belt on my grinder.
Now she had to earn the right to get dolled up with a nice handle. With a piece of old para-cord and tag end lanyard, she chopped through the better part of a 2x6 actually breaking the last piece off. Not bad for a blade from a piece of stock 5160 1 1/4"x1/4"...not really a heavy chopper. Then I pruned some small tree branches with clean cuts. Finally completely cut through a filled plastic water bottle.
I usually don't put my blades through this type of test since they tend to be small hunting blades. If they field dress & skin a bear or deer, I'm very happy. Ever since I got to spend a day forging with Jason Knight MS and making a Big Chopper, I needed to see if I could do this on my own with a blade I'd probably use for general camp chores. The edge even though it wasn't hand honed to scary sharp preformed great! Plus there were NO dings, chips, or rolled edges. She came through all this just as sharp as before the test.
Definately earn a nice handle...might even up grade to some black & white ebony I have on hand for a special blade!
Hope ya'll enjoyed my process of how I come up with a blade. Doesn't compare to ABS standards...but ya'll should be proud of a Knife that You make and meets Your standards. ABS just gives us all goals to to continually stretch for...heck even Lin, Karl, Doug etc are still striving to get better.
Enough about my blades...I'm gonna sit back and enjoy everyone else's work...Doc
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/tippit/Knives/CampKnife018.jpg)
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Good job, there is no substitute or better "truth" seeker than actually cutting with one hard.
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Very cool Doc. Ya got me in the mood for this myself. But I used a Big thick rsap.<><
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nice profile... great looking knife.