A Forger's First Stock Removal

[John Frankl]

Hello All,

I learned to make knives by forging, and have yet to make one by stock removal alone.

I am pretty comfortable with all the steps, but don't know a couple or more small but important things.

1. Where can I order some large rivets both with holes in them and without (like the ones you see on some Tom Krein's lanyard holes or Busse's)?

2. What is a typical thickness and grit finish prior to sending blades out for heat treat? I've always done all my own HT, bu this time I will be working with S30V and S3V and sending them to Paul Bos.

Thanks a bunch,

John

 

[Matthew Gregory]

I did a few blades in S30V a couple months ago, so let me give you my crummy two cents...

If your intention is to take the blade to X grit for finish, take it to X grit before sending it to Paul. IF I had done so, I'd likely have saved myself $35 or so in belts. S30 V does not give up scratches. Ever. You can beg, you can scream, you can get angry, you can try applying logic, cold compresses, quantum physics, whatever.
It doesn't care.
It's sole goal in life is to keep the scratches it has.
It has proven this to me, and it has won. I did a double hollow ground blade about 8.5" long that was left at 120 grit before HT (as per Tom Krein, who is much cooler than I am, and obviously has some otherworldly arrangement with high wear resistance steels that I wasn't aware of prior to heeding his advice) and I walked away from it "for a while" three months ago at 400 grit. I'm not sure I can be convinced to return to it at gunpoint.
The flats (ricasso are, etc.) that I brought to 400 grit prior to HT cleaned up in two passes, as if to point out to me in bas relief how much of a fool I was for thinking I could conquer it after giving it such an advantage.

Hope this helps!

 

[silver_pilate]

From what I've read with other guys' posts, I may be doing more work than necessary, but I take it to 400 grit sandpaper by hand before heat treat. I could probably stop at 220, but it doesn't take me too much to go to 400 as the steel is still in an annealed state. After heat treat, I remove scale and do any final grinding with 400 grit on the grinder, and refinish the hand work to 400 or 600 grit.

You can probably get by easier using blue dychem on the blade after each progressive grit to make sure you get the deeper marks out before you move on to the next grit. That's why I finish by hand, because I want to see if I've got all the deeper scratches out before I heat treat.

As for edge thickness, I go to around a little less than the thickness of a dime (maybe 2/3 to 1/2 the thickness). Have to check with calipers to be sure the size.

And for the rivets, if I understand correctly, you're talking about pins/rivets to hold full tang handle scales on and lanyard/throng tubing correct? If not, then ignore the following. If so, just order some 1/4" (or whatever size) stainless rod and tubing and cut to the size you want. Oversize the holes in the tang slightly and make the holes in the handle scales fit snug (but not tight). I just use epoxy to hold it all together. You can flair the tubing into the handle scales as well. I know there have been some tutorials in the past on how to do it, so maybe a search might help if you want to do that.

--nathan

 

[JTknives]

i sometimes leave the blade at 60 grit as my belt grinder does not care if the blade is hardened or not. as for edge thickness. on hollow grind i take down to .035 befor heatreating. no worpedge yet.

 

[flatgrinder]

Hello All,

I learned to make knives by forging, and have yet to make one by stock removal alone.

I am pretty comfortable with all the steps, but don't know a couple or more small but important things.

1. Where can I order some large rivets both with holes in them and without (like the ones you see on some Tom Krein's lanyard holes or Busse's)?

2. What is a typical thickness and grit finish prior to sending blades out for heat treat? I've always done all my own HT, bu this time I will be working with S30V and S3V and sending them to Paul Bos.

Thanks a bunch,

John

1. Use 1/4" steel tubing, check out this tutorial (written by my favorite knifemaker) :

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=471416

2. Finish the blades to 99%. ie. grind them down to finish thickness, and to 400 grit. Clean up should be easy. Paul Bos does such a good job that they will look almost as good as you sent them in when he's finished with HT.

 

[fitzo]

John, I agree with Matt's assessment of S30V. These vanadium containing steels are a bear to work post-HT, especially in finer grits. When hand-sanding, papers load quickly, and just seem to float over the surface doing nothing but scrape over the vanadium carbides. Silicon carbide belts like Klingspors are a good choice if you elect not to take it to a higher finish pre-HT. Some people (Kit C.) have even used diamond belts to work the stuff, but at $120 a belt it's a little prohibitive.

I tossed a ATS34 7" fighter in with a student's batch sent to Paul Bos a few years back. It had a 10thou edge. Came back straight and ripple free. Back before I got my first furnace I typically sent them in at 20thou.