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The Newbies Arena Are you new to knife making? Here is all the help you will need.

 
 
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Old 02-16-2014, 08:57 AM
Ray Rogers's Avatar
Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Wauconda, WA
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Thumbs up BEFORE You Heat Treat Your First Knife

The one thing most makers do wrong on their first knife is to put all that work into making it beautiful before they have ever tried to heat treat anything. After they do their heat treat they feel so invested in that first knife they won't use it for anything that might damage it so they really don't know if the HT worked or not. That's bass-ackwards!

The proper testing procedure is to test your blades, i.e., your heat treat process, before you finish them into knives. Make a test blade but skip any super fine finish work, put a plain handle on it and sharpen it up. Then, use the living bejeezus out of it. Shave 2x4's until you have a pile of shavings the size of a house cat, slice lots of cardboard (the clay content is very hard on a knife edge) to see how it holds an edge. Use a wooden mallet or baton (a heavy stick) to hammer the blade through other pieces of wood lengthwise (with the grain). Slice hemp rope. Cut anything and everything that would qualify as abusing a knife because somebody will use your knife that way some day. Do all of this bare handed, no gloves. Why? Because if you get a blister your handle design needs work. After all this is done, put on a face sheild, lock the first inch or two of the blade in a vise between two pieces of hardwood, put a pipe over the handle, and slowly bend the blade until it snaps. Pay attention to how far it bent before it broke....tells you how tough your blade is. Examine the grain, should be very fine and light gray - if not your heat treat needs work.

If all that is good then proceed to make a knife with the exact same HT with the exact same steel and finish it with confidence that you have, in fact, made a knife and not simply something shiny that resembles a knife. When you change the type of steel or even get a new batch of the same steel this whole process starts over ....


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