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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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  #1  
Old 04-12-2015, 11:01 PM
themostunholy themostunholy is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: New York City
Posts: 2
Red face New to the world of knife making

Hello everyone,

I want to introduce myself, and say thank you to all of you for providing the wealth of information this site possesses. I have a few questions at the end.

I recently discovered the world of knife making, and it's blown me away. I haven't built any knives yet, but today I fired up the cheap little 1x30 Harbor Freight belt sander I own and played with a piece of 01 for the first time. It was really amazing to see how the steel shapes after reading about it for the past few weeks.

There was something magical about the way it felt to grind steel; I think it?s safe to say I?m hooked.

I?ve built many things in the past, mostly furniture, but I?ve helped design machined products for companies I work for. Never out of steel, however.

I live in a tiny little apartment in NYC, and I work on the roof to avoid filling my apartment with shards of whatever I?m working on. I hail from Southern Vermont originally, but I?ve lived here for work for about 3 years.

Because I?m just playing around with this, I don?t want to invest in the equipment to heat treat? yet. I already had the sander, an angle grinder, files, respirator? All the primary equipment was on hand, so I just picked up a piece of spare steel from a friend to play around with.

From my reading here, it looks like 440c is what I?ll pick up for my first actual build (thank you Ray Rogers for very explicitly stating in another thread that this is a good starter steel when sent out for HT).

Which brings me to the secondary point of this post:

Is Texas Knifemakers Supply the company I should contact for HT once I?ve ground a few blades? Would anyone recommend another company? What?s the minimum number of blades I can get treated at one time?

Additionally, any good resources you recommend I check out that are local to NYC and outlying areas?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and I look forward to sharing my future work with the community!

Kind regards,

Sean

PS: I want to thank Stephen Vanderkol for posting this link: http://knifemaking.altervista.org/index_libri_en.html

This really got me started with my research. I read through about 4 of these books cover to cover, and that combined with this forum has established a good theoretical groundwork. Thank you Steve!
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  #2  
Old 04-13-2015, 08:27 AM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Wauconda, WA
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Welcome aboard, Sean! Yeah, sounds like you're hooked.

Texas Knifemakers is a good place to send your 440C blades because they are affordable and because you only need to send one blade. Most commercial treaters will want 20 blades or so in a batch. At this early stage of your career I suggest that you send a single blade and then complete that knife start to finish. You'll learn so much from doing that any other blades you might have made at the same time will seem obsolete. I made a dozen or so blades in my first batch and some of them sre still laying around my shop 20 years later, no point in finishing them...


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Old 04-14-2015, 04:58 PM
themostunholy themostunholy is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: New York City
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Thank you for the confirmation on TKS Ray. It's nice to know they don't have a minimum; that was the main reason for wanting to make a few before I sent them out.

Very sage advice on getting one blade to completion before I move on; I will take that to heart!
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Old 04-15-2015, 07:15 AM
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Crex Crex is offline
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Welcome Sean.
Now, take a deep breath and let it out slowly. The race is just beginning. Pace yourself (sounds like you already are) and get ready for the long haul on this addiction.
Most of all have fun and be safe.


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