Steel too short to make a knife out of.

[floridafred]

What do you do with the little pieces of steel that are left over. I had an end of a bar of 01 tool steel a little over 4 inches long. Much too short to make a knife out of.



After whittling on it for a while this is what I came up with. Now everybody wants one.



I don't have enough little pieces so I will have to waste the big pieces making these little knives.



By the way, Thanks Anso for the sheath tutorial.

[D. R. Mondt]

That's a nice little knife. I have a terrible time throwing anything away. I am always trying to make something out of my scrap.

Nice job!

[Crex]

Nice save Fred. A little functional blade like that will see more work than a bigger blade almost anywhere detail work is being done.
What did you do with the cut-offs from that one? Unless it's dust, it's not to small to make a blade from in my shop (some of these guys around here would probably use the dust in making mosaic stuff).
Actually, you can take 4" of O1 to the forge and draw it out to a 6"+ utility blade in just a couple of heats then HT right there at the forge. Or...weld a stick tang to the piece and make an even larger blade.
What you did is a good thing and not waste good steel. Who can find fault with that? Good job!
Is that a leather coated kydex sheath? (don't see any stitching)

Carl Rx

[floridafred]

Thanks guys.
Yes, the sheath is Alligator embossed leather over kydex.

I have found that small knives get used and big knives collect dust. At least in my house. My favorite fishing knife had a 3 inch blade and it cleaned everything up to a 65 pound Wahoo.

While this knife may have been an afterthought I've already got six more profiled.

Just found a 4 inch section of 3/4 01. Much to small to make a knife out of. I wonder......

[Ansoknives]

What to do with small pieces of steel??..thats easy.....make small knives as you did....but 4".....thats a LARGE piece... This one was made from a 2" piece

I am glad the tutorial was usefull
!

[floridafred]

I guess I can make two knives from that 4 inch scrap.

[Terry Primos]

Originally posted by Crex
... Actually, you can take 4" of O1 to the forge and draw it out to a 6"+ utility blade in just a couple of heats ...
Carl Rx

That's one of the beautiful things about forging blades. Since you are not removing stock, but rather redistributing the mass from one area to another, you are not limited to the physical dimensions of the original piece.

When digging through one of my cabinets looking for "something", I found a little cut-off from a billet made back in 1998. The piece was about 3 1/2" long, 7/8" wide, and maybe 1/2" thick.

I forged out this blade from that scrap piece.



The blade length ended up being about 4 1/4" I believe, and if memory serves me correctly, the tang was drawn out about another 4 1/4".

Here was the result of that little scrap piece.

[GANNMADE]

I TO AM ONE THAT SAVES SCRAPES AND MAKE SMALL KNIVES.
ALL THESE LOOK GREAT YA'LL DO GREAT WORK AND SHAME ME
BACK TO MY SHELL

[floridafred]

Terry, that is one great looking piece of scrap!

You anvil knockers have the advantage in your ability to stretch a short piece of steel. You could probably melt down my filings and make a sword too.

[DiamondG Knives]

that reminds me once of a response I got when i was asking for "scrap" pieces of brass at the local metal shop.
I was quickly told " we dont have any scrap metal here, just metal of varios sizes!"