A list of questions from a newb....

M

Matthew-06

Joined
Oct 4, 2009
Messages
9
I'm planning to start making my first knife this week but getting started seems to be the hardest part. The set up I have put together is a humble amount of tools which include; a vise, two metal files, a sad looking coffee can forge, an anvil, grinder, a drill, and a few hand tools(hammers, pliers etc.) here are a few questions I have
1) I was at the local Home depot and saw that they sell metal blanks for welding and general purpose does anyone know what type of metal it is and if it is ok for knife making?
2) How do you add gimping? would the grinder work?
3) What liquid do you use for quenching? I have seen motor oil, peanut oil, water etc. which is the best?
4)If the home depot steel is ok to use does it need to be annealed? If I wind up having to order blanks online do I need t anneal those as well or are they shipped ready to shape?

ANY advice is much appreciated
 
Unless they are labeled might be difficult to easily determine what type of steel they are. I would guess they are iron or pretty cheap steel. Either way I would rather "know" what steel I would be using to make my knife. These can be used to practice if you with (you have to start somewhere). As far as quenching that depends on the steel. Some use oil others water, others just air it all depends.
I would order some blanks offline or find a local steel shop they sell scrap for cheap and they will tell you what it is.
 
The answer is, read a LOT more before you even begin worrying about buying steel. Start with the "sticky" threads listed at the very top of this sub-forum.

All of your questions have already been answered hundreds of times.
 
Hey Matthew-06,

Seeing this is your first post, I'd say welcome to BF, but I see you joined nearly a year ago. Never-the-less, as it is your first post, and therefore your introductory post to the community. I will say it, welcome!

I must confess I am surprised to see such rudimentary questions from someone who has been around for nearly a year. Perhaps you have not been online reading here much? As has been stated these questions come up so often and have been answered so much and have so many dedicated stickies addressing them, I often wonder when they are asked yet again, is the person just pulling our legs? I then wonder, perhaps the person is very young and has not learned how to do his own research yet?

It has often been said, it is better to err on the side of giving a person the benefit of the doubt though, so once again I say welcome, and....

  1. Home Depot Steel: The metal you're asking about is mild steel and not adequate for a blade as it cannot be heat treated. By-the-way, knife folks usually refer to steel as bars, sheet, plate or stock. The term blank(s) is usually reserved for pre-cut or preformed knife shapes.
  2. Gimping: I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this. There are various textures and methods. Many are done on commercially produced assembly line knives via machining processes. There are checkering textures (like on gun stocks and grips) that can be done with checkering hand tools. There are textures that can be done with router bits and/or small cut off and abrasive wheels like jigged bone, etc.
  3. Quenching: There are quite literally volumes written about this, hundreds of threads about it and probably as many practices and opinions. Suffice it to say you'll need to match up your quenchent with your steel type and your heat treat process. There are many makers who wouldn't use anything except bonafide quenching oils matched up for their steels' hardening needs. As you say, there are also many folks who use peanut, canola or mineral oil. Almost every one agrees on having to do lots of trial and error, R & D type experimenting to develop a hands-on working understanding and methodology. Again, reading the stickies and searching the threads will turn up gads of info.
  4. Annealing: No on the Home Depot steel. From your post, I gathered you'll be forging. Annealing will not be an issue until you have completed forging, prior to grinding and filing. The softer, more relaxed and even grain your steel can be the better. Heating the steel above critical (past nonmagnetic) and slowly cooling it (such as in vermiculite over night) is an age old practice when working with basic equipment such as you have. The stickies and searching on normalizing and annealing will bring up lots of info.
As for steel, 1075, 1080 or 1084 is often recommended to get going with. You could check in with Admiral Steel. They have 1075/1080. Or email Kelly Cupples, octihunter@charter.net, to ask him for his latest steel price list. Then there's Aldo Bruno, njsteelbaron@gmail.com. He sells 1084.

It is usually requested, and would serve you, to put more info in your profile (User CP) as to your location. You may just find someone in your area who would be willing to help you move forward.

All the best, Phil
 
Last edited:
Buy a book, that will get you started.
Your most important asset will be knollege
(and a radio for hand sanding)
 
Thanks for the information all of it was quite useful. I have ordered some stock and am waiting for it to arrive. Also...
since this is my first post I thought I would add a little something,
Firstly Thank you for the welcome Phil dwyer. Though I have been a member here on bladefourms for around a year I have just recently started to really have my interest in knives peak. That being said I also want to add a disclaimer for any further post:
I do realize that all the information I could ever desire or even hope to attain is somewhere out there, be it in a book or a web page etc. And I have, believe it or not, read a fair share of material before coming here to ask any questions, but understanding terms I have never heard before in a context entirely new to me does get confusing, I apologize if my questions seem stupid but to me they were valid questions to ask people who are far more wise than myself. Over all I hope to learn as much as I can from the great minds that are on bladeforums.
 
Gimping is a term for file work on the spine. Usually referring to ridges placed to provide thumb traction in cutting.
 
My apologies for sounding so heavy handed with my earlier post. I was putting my foot in my mouth all day that day. I know what you mean about trying to come to terms with terminology and all the sectarian aspects of the knife making culture. It can be a real challenge, but a fun one. Enjoy! And, keep us posted.

All the best, Phil
 
For starters I would recomend the "How to make Knives" book by Loveless and Barney. They tell you how to make a knife with stock removal, with forging, and with files. I learned how to make knives from this book 30 years ago, and since then have sold over 1300 knives.
Your questions are not stupid, everyone starting out has similar questions.
Living in Tucson, you should be able to find other knifemakers that will help.
 
Have you seen this ?

The Standard Reply to Newbies v6

The answer to a 13 year old student is different than to a 40 year old engineer, and you may have a helpful neighbour. We can often recommend a local supplier, but that depends on where you are.
Fill out your profile with your location (Country and State at least), age, education, employment.

Look at the stickies at the top, many are expired, but not all.

The basic process in the simplest terms
http://www.hossom.com/jonesy/

This is a very detailed set of instructions by Stacy Apalt.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=694673


Books

A list of books and videos on the KnifeDogs Forum
http://www.knifedogs.com/showthread.php?t=5285

BladeForums - E-books or book previews
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=603203

I like:
David Boye-Step by Step Knifemaking
Tim McCreight-Custom Knifemaking: 10 Projects from a Master Craftsman
These are clear and well organized, widely available and inexpensive too.

Knife Design:
On the google books thread, you can find
LLoyd Harding drawings
and
the Loveless book with large variety of proven classic styles.

Forging Books:
Lorelei Sims-The Backyard Blacksmith
A good modern book with great photos for forging in general - no knifemaking.

Jim Hrisoulas- has 3 books on forging knives, Check for the cheaper paperback editions.
The Complete Bladesmith: Forging Your Way To Perfection
The Pattern-Welded Blade: Artistry In Iron
The Master Bladesmith: Advanced Studies In Steel


The $50 knife shop
It is popular, but it confused me for a long time.
Forging is NOT necessary, you can just file and grind everything away to create a knife (stock removal)

The goop quench is total Bull, commercially made quench oils are cheap and easily available. Even a grocery store canola oil works much better.

Junkyard steels require the skills of an experienced smith to identify the steel and heat treat it properly.
You can buy proper steel like 1084 very cheaply.
(Mentioned in the new edition)

I like cable damascus, but that is an advanced project for an experienced smith and has no place in a beginners book.

The home built grinders are the best thing, but there is now a huge amount of info on home built 2x72 belt grinders on the web.
The revised edition of this book should have included this.


Videos

Heat Treating Basics Video-downloadable
http://www.archive.org/download/gov.ntis.ava08799vnb1/ava08799vnb1_512kb.mp4

Many specific how to knifemaking videos are available.
Some are better than others, but all better than nothing.

The best overall Knifemaking video I have seen is
“Steve Johnson-Making a Sub-Hilt Fighter”

The best video on Leather Sheath making I have seen is
“Custom Knife Sheaths -Chuck Burrows - Wild Rose”

You can see some titles and their reviews at this rental company,
Rental wait times are measured in months.
You can reviews and buy some of the good ones much faster than renting.
http://smartflix.com/store/category/9/Knifemaking

Green Pete's Free Video
Making a Mora style bushcraft knife with simple stock removal using hand tools and a neo tribal / unplugged heat treat.
"Green Pete" posted it for free distribution.
It is available here for those who can use torrent files. + plus more too.

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4995247/Greenpete_s__Knifemaking_Basics_-_Make_a_Mora_Bushcraft_Knife
You can also find it on YouTube broken into 4 parts.


Steel
The “welding steel” at Home Depot/Lowes… is useless for knives.
If you want to ship out for heat treating, you can use ATS34 or 440C, plus many others.

If you want to heat treat yourself, find some 1070, 1080, 1084,
1084 FG sold by Aldo Bruno is formulated just for knifemaking.

You can find lists of suppliers here
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=699736

Aldo’s website inventory is unreliable, call instead.
http://njsteelbaron.com/


Heat Treating
You do not have to buy a lot of equipment to start with.
You can send out for heat treating, 10 or 15 $ per blade
http://www.buckknives.com/resources/pdf/Paul_Bos_Brochure.pdf
This is a PDF brochure which gives good general info

http://www.petersheattreat.com/
http://www.texasknife.com/vcom/about_us.php
http://www.knifemaker.ca/(Canadian)
and others


Grinder / Tools

Hand Tools
You can do it all by hand with files and abrasive paper.
The Green Pete video does it this way.

Photo of a nice bevel filing jig .
http://www.flemingknives.com/imagesPrime/FileStation/KPicB007.jpg

Entry Level Grinders
Many makers start with the Sears Craftsman 2x42 belt grinder.

DIY 2 x 72” belt grinders

KMG Clone
Free Plans
http://www.dfoggknives.com/PDF/GrinderPlans.pdf

NWG No Weld Grinder
http://www.usaknifemaker.com/plans-for-the-no-weld-grinder-sander-nearly-50-pages-p-723.html

EERF Grinder (EERF =“Free” backwards)
Free plans
http://wilmontgrinders.com/EERFGrinder.aspx
http://blindhogg.com/blueprints.html

Buy the kit
http://polarbearforge.com/grinder_kit.html
 
Last edited:
I also apologize for sounding rude. 12345678910's post above contains a lot of very useful and informative links, in terms that almost anyone can understand.

You don't have to be an engineer or metallurgist to understand this stuff.

Having said all that, I'll repeat that all the information you need, and much more that you may never need, is available on this very forum. If more folks read the stickies the mods have carefully and thoughtfully placed at the very top of this sub-forum, instead of clicking "new thread" willy-nilly, these type of threads would never get started and result in people being offended.

Just sayin'.
 
The steel sold at hardware stores is low carbon, not suitable to make a real knife. Do you NEED good steel when making your 1st knife? In my case it would have been a waste of money, but I've seen pictures of other peoples' 1st knives and I'm amazed at the quality of work and design they have. My first knives were hideous, as I figured they would be because they were going to show me all the problems I was going to encounter and would have to find ways to avoid or fix.

The way to learn to make knives is to... make knives, duuuhhh. Just jump in and make SOMETHING, hideous as it was in my case. You're going to make the best knife you can of course, but don't expect perfection right away. Like the tennis shoe ads say, "Just do IT". Plan to HAVE FUN laughing at mistakes you make and celebrate the learning that you'll do along the way.

LonePine
AKA Paul Meske, Wisconsin
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top