Beginners' Mistakes

J

jawilder

Joined
Jun 27, 2006
Messages
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I have about 40 knives under my belt so far. Certainly nothing to brag about, but I have learned much since I forged my first blade. One mistake that is now slapping me in the face is my past HT procedure. I thought I did everything right... heat in forge until non magnetic, quench, temper, etc... But now that I have my HT oven built, I have noticed that the blades I am pulling out is NO WHERE NEAR the color of the ones I HT using a forge.

I have learned that the blade should be dull red rather than BRIGHT ORANGE. It worries me about all the knives I gave away/sold with shoddy heat treat. They all got hard but most likely have HUGE grain growth. Oh well, live and learn.

What other common mistakes have you made that a beginner could learn from?
Jason
 
The worst mistake a beginner can make is to announce that every blade he did up to that point is crap.:eek:

Ha!... I'm messin'...:p:thumbup:

Thinner is "inner". My edges were too fat going into the quench and too fat after I was finished. I still have my first blades that I thought were awesome cutters... they have the geometry of a splitting maul. Go thinner and thinner until you ruin some blades, testing as you go. You will be shocked at how thin you can go, increasing cutting ability, without losing any durability.

I remember taking blades down to .060" before the final bevel.... now even my heavy choppers are taken to less than .005" prior to final sharpening.... and folks go even thinner than that!
 
My beginner's mistake was to start making knives with expensive materials. I don't regret that decision at all. But I do acknowledge it as a mistake.
 
Spending too much time trying to come up with a "New" design at the same time you are learning the basics.
 
* Don't start with a file....

* Go for P-ground stock. It's hard enough to finish the first couple without misinterpreting difficulties produced by dimensional variation in the stock.

* AVOID 'GOOP' quenchant! If you want a cheap oil quench go to the grocery store for canola. I lost 3 early blades that I would have been proud of, and keep them around as reminders.

-Daizee
 
Not becoming a paying member of Bladeforums.com and finding all the awesome people that make up this monster of a internet community 6 months earlier than i did. I prolly could have a busted out a few more knives with the time ive spent here but man i have 5 confirmed friends, and use parks 50 now!!:D GHaile
 
I started out with materials above my skill level. Damascus. I also didn't know what I was doing with the heat treat.
 
I'm not sure it's common since I haven't seen tons written about it, but creating a dip/mark/line (analagous to the 2" grinder dip) during hand sanding with the sanding block. That one took a lot of swear words to figure out.
 
Too thick of edges. Wanting to do everything by machine, not enough handwork, sanding and finishing. Excessive grain growth due to too high forging heats and no thermal cycling to correct. Tempering too hot. Work hardening while drilling (still happens, just less.)

I had lots. I still F-up plenty.
 
Paul, I'm not sure what you are talking about.

Salem, I think when most people start with hand tools, they believe they won't have to pick another one up after they get a grinder. And after they get the grinder they are too stubborn to turn it off and pick a file back up.
 
Something that I see from a lot of beginners is a lot of time spent thinking and drawing and dreaming and not enough time spent actually GRINDING. We would all agree that it's fun to think about knives and design them but I've seen some guys spend hours on handle scales and then when they grind the blade its not symmetrical, lines are wavy etc.

The base of any knife is it's blade. Work on getting clean blades and then pretty it up with scales after.
 
You get what I' talking about exactly, JA. A nice basic knife can be made with the grinder alone, but anything with much detail suffers from a lack of handwork. I've stopped slack belting altogether, I shape things with a wheel to 400 grit and then hand sand to blend.

Paul, I'm familiar with that phenomenon- the trailing edge of the block creates a recurring scratch/j-hook pattern where it changes direction when you hit the plunge and return. Right? Another subtlety of hand sanding you inevitably have to teach yourself to get past...
 
not using a drill press.

I am still a complete noob but if you said pick one tool and give the rest away it would be the drill press. Someday when I have a real grinder this may change.

Suffering from "Bobby Shortcut McGhee" Syndrome. My old shop teacher in HS used to call me this and it still applys....just about everytime I think I can skip a step it bites me in the ass.
 
Trying to HT using a propane torch and my fireplace:o. Leaving edges to thick. Buying a $1500.00($1724.00 w/ shipping) 24" Paragon kiln w/ out having a place to plug it into, now it is collecting dust because I now rent:mad:. Ruining HT with to much grinding. And finally...trying to make a huge Bowie knife with unannealed 440C using nothing but a Dremel w/ cutoff wheels!!!
 
tryppyr said:
No offense, but that's the funniest one yet! Thanks for sharing. :)
Click to expand...

Oh I agree:foot:. No offense taken. I'm not strong enough to crack the back of my head as hard as I wanted to!:D I burned out 3 dremels with that one...3!!!
The stupid things we do when were young and new to something:foot::foot::foot:
 
Thanks for all the advice. I'm just starting out. I decided to start with old truck leaf springs I got for free. I have got the cut and grind down. I haven't decided to coat or to reheat treat.
 
Salem Straub said:
Paul, I'm familiar with that phenomenon- the trailing edge of the block creates a recurring scratch/j-hook pattern where it changes direction when you hit the plunge and return. Right? Another subtlety of hand sanding you inevitably have to teach yourself to get past...
Click to expand...

That's the one! The most maddening part of it for me was it wouldn't show up (or at least I wouldn't notice it) until the final grits. I would literally sand for hours, and not be able to understand why I couldn't get rid of that line...
 
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