Latest knife and sheath.

[metal99]

Hey everyone, it's been a while since I got much knife work done. I finally had the time to finish this one up. This is my third knife so far and second sheath. I put the cross in the spine because my friend that wants the knife is very Christian.

It's a chopper here are the specs.

O1 tool steel
OAL is 12-5/8"
Blade length is 8-3/8"
Black canvas micarta scales
Hollow stainless pins
File work up the spine.
Cold gun blueing finish and an antiqued patina on the bevels.

The sheath is 100% hand made by myself.

[Josh LeGoueff]

Great knife!! I really like the handle. The cross is a nice touch.

[hondo76]

That looks awesome!!!!!!

[metal99]

Thanks everyone

I kinda like the cross actually. Not really a religious guy but it does look cool. It was pretty tough to get it right. Lots of patience with the small square needle file.

[Bowman]

Looks really good! Knife and sheath look clean and well finished. It is evident that you put as much care into the sheath as the knife.

[Atstrickland]

Very nice !

[metal99]

Originally Posted by Bowman

Looks really good! Knife and sheath look clean and well finished. It is evident that you put as much care into the sheath as the knife.

I am starting to think that I almost ALMOST like leather work more then knife making, almost. The knife was fairly simple to make but my friend just had to have a blueing finish put on it. It's blotchy and streaky but after over ten attempts I just had to call it good enough. I hate saying its good enough but without a hot blueing setup it will always be blotchy. Cold blueing is barely good enough for small touch ups.



Atstrickland, thank you.

[NJStricker]

You should look into the rust bluing formulas from Brownells. A little more complicated than cold bluing, but you don't have the caustic chemicals like hot bluing. You will need a way to boil the metal in distilled water, but for a knife-sized object that should be relatively easy than trying to do a rifle or shotgun barrel.

[metal99]

I was reading about rust blueing and it seems pretty interesting. I do like the look of a blued knife so maybe after I get a house with a garage I will look into it some more. I live in an apparent so there's a limit to what I can do here lol. My forge, anvil, belt sander and drill press are all at my parents place. I really have to plan my knife making around that.

[Anthony Chaney]

Some where in my notes, I have a recipe for a good black finish on carbon steel. I know it involves Muratic Acid and I think Vinegar, but I can't remember the ratio off the top of my head. Ken Beatty used to use it and gave me the recipe a long, long time ago.

[metal99]

Really, that sounds interesting. I was also looking at parkerizing but once again that's a little much to do in my apartment haha

[AUBE]

Very nice!

In risk of sounding like a nagging mother....for those of you thinking of getting into hot bluing please be careful. Thats some nasty stuff. I developed a small hole in my glove when working with the bluing salts and a granule got in my glove...started melting through my finger like acid. That was at room temp. There have been people that messed up when adjusting the water level and had the salts explode(violent boil) and spray themselves with it.

The parkerizing formula I have sounds safer...a mixture of phosphoric acid and manganese if I remember correctly. I bought the chems but never got around to trying it. I don't know about trying it in an apartment but you could always get one of those little portable burners and take it outside.

Again very nice job on the knife and sheath.

[Ray Rogers]

Very nice, clean work, creative and tasteful. Does it work as good as it looks?

[metal99]

Ray I was waiting for that question! Lol well here's my story.

I see this with almost every new knife maker. When I first bought my knife making steel I got O1 and 1095. I decided to go with those two steels because with all the reading I did it seemed like a good idea. There are lots of sites out there that say O1 is good for beginners and to stick with 10xx series carbon steels over .6% carbon. Then I joined this forum and a couple others just to find out I was misled.

Anyway, here I am with O1, a coal forge and some canola oil wondering what on earth I am going to do to heat treat this thing. So I did a couple tests. I know that O1 doesn't have to be quenched nearly as fast as 1095 but the soak time is a killer. I built a nice deep fire in the forge and got everything coked up so I had a clean fire. Then I warmed up the knife and covered it with borax to prevent it all from turning to scale. I found the color I wanted and kept moving the blade back and forth in and out up and down trying to maintain that color. It felt like I had it in there for an hour but all I could do was about 10-12 minutes then I pulled it out and air cooled it to normalize it. I re boraxed it and did that again but I didn't bring it up to above critical and one more time just below critical. After the normalizing was done I re built my fire and threw some more borax on the blade. Soaked it for just over ten minutes and quenched in canola warmed up to.. Well warm to the hand but not hot.

The little test pieces I did this same way are very strong. After tempering them I can't bust them. They are super springy and yet still hard enough to dull a file.

I understand that the heat treatment on this blade won't be up to O1's potential but the tests are showing good results so far.

As far as the feel of the knife goes, it's great. Very comfortable to hold and swings nicely.

[metal99]

Originally Posted by AUBE

Very nice!

In risk of sounding like a nagging mother....for those of you thinking of getting into hot bluing please be careful. Thats some nasty stuff. I developed a small hole in my glove when working with the bluing salts and a granule got in my glove...started melting through my finger like acid. That was at room temp. There have been people that messed up when adjusting the water level and had the salts explode(violent boil) and spray themselves with it.

The parkerizing formula I have sounds safer...a mixture of phosphoric acid and manganese if I remember correctly. I bought the chems but never got around to trying it. I don't know about trying it in an apartment but you could always get one of those little portable burners and take it outside.

Again very nice job on the knife and sheath.

Thanks for the info AUBE and the complements.