COTS Project Thread

Square_peg said:
I did something similar a few years ago. I'm by no means a bladesmith but I came out with a serviceable skinner/utility knife.

Watch your heat treat. Normalize at least once before hardening. If it stays straight when you normalize and you give it a good even heat it will likely stay straight when you quench. Temper at least twice in the oven and consider softening the back of the blade even further with a torch. Just watch your temper colors closely and don't let the heat travel too far from the spine.

I wish I'd put more shape in the handle. The guard and rivets are home made of solid brass.

Knife4.jpg
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For this (if i can remember correctly because it sat around for months after it was a forged blank) I did 3 normalize cycles and then heated it a final time and let it cool with the forge. I did all my grinding in that state then heated it to cherry and quenched it in oil. Blade came out of the quench perfectly straight, even with a pretty thin grind. Then a quick pass on the belt sander to see shiny steel again and slowly heated the spine with a torch until I had an even straw color throughout, cooled in oil. Another swipe on the belt sander and another heat to straw and another cool in oil. I could feel flex when I started grinding the edge on my stones and it ground similarly to any other typical basic carbon steel I've sharpened. File skated on it. I'll do some edge retention testing once it's all finished. Yesterday I got all my leather glued on, the pommel fit and peened in place. All that's left now is to shape the handle - I'm getting excited about it now. Sheath will be a Kydex-leather hybrid.
 
I didn't tell anyone what you guys said and the people at work looked at that pic and also said smores and pancakes. Haha! It does look good enough to eat.
 
cityofthesouth said:
I didn't tell anyone what you guys said and the people at work looked at that pic and also said smores and pancakes. Haha! It does look good enough to eat.
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That's Awesome hands down!

Sounds like you may be on to cornering the market for knives with snacks while hunting and camping;):thumbsup:

Seriously, I look forward to seeing it as you close in on completion.
 
cityofthesouth said:
And at last, the final product .... or at least I think it's final. I dunno. Couple other ideas floating around but I like it as it is.
ForgedKnife_StackedLeather by city_ofthe_south, on Flickr
ForgedKnife_Spine2 by city_ofthe_south, on Flickr
ForgedKnife_Spine by city_ofthe_south, on Flickr
ForgedKnife_Pommel by city_ofthe_south, on Flickr
ForgedKnife_Guard by city_ofthe_south, on Flickr
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Absolutely awesome!
I don't know where to begin.
To be able to use that and have the joy to sharpen...just damn!

Thank you for sharing that.
 
cityofthesouth said:
And at last, the final product .... or at least I think it's final. I dunno. Couple other ideas floating around but I like it as it is.
ForgedKnife_StackedLeather by city_ofthe_south, on Flickr
ForgedKnife_Spine2 by city_ofthe_south, on Flickr
ForgedKnife_Spine by city_ofthe_south, on Flickr
ForgedKnife_Pommel by city_ofthe_south, on Flickr
ForgedKnife_Guard by city_ofthe_south, on Flickr
Click to expand...

Beautiful :thumbsup:
I thought of waffles and pancake batter when I saw the before pic.

Btw I didn't want to steal the thread, but green beatle on YouTube made a knife this year with a real bacon as a handle material and this made me think of it.
It was the all American knife with an American flag Damascus blade and bacon in resin as a handle material.
 
One of the founding members of my deer camp carried a belt knife that his dad (rancher in Montana) made specifically for him when he became a teenager. Like yours it had simple lines. It was made from a file instead of a leaf spring and had a brass guard and elk antler scales. When Dave died 8 years ago at age 80 there was a line-up of younger folks (relatives and hunters) that really wanted that knife. Were they going to use it or were they going to hide it in a 'keepsake' drawer? I don't know what happened to it but in my mind's eye I can still picture Dave effortlessly dressing a deer or cleaning a pickerel in between honing the blade on his weathered Arkansas stone.
Beautiful job COTS you've created an heirloom!
 
I understand that man. Life happens right. I just enjoy this thread of yours and thought I would touch base! Look forward to seeing more of your handy work!
 
Brian Rust said:
I understand that man. Life happens right. I just enjoy this thread of yours and thought I would touch base! Look forward to seeing more of your handy work!
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I appreciate that. I've actually bugged JB a couple times when I see something juicy, and snooped around ebay off and on because I still have the itch for an axe project .... I'm just looking for THE ONE you know what I mean?
 
I dunno if you guys get this feeling but you know I tend to circle around on my projects. I'll get heavily into one for awhile and set another down, and eventually come back around. In the cycle I've been off axes for a little while. During that time one has been sitting around staring at me. So with little motivation to begin with and some time away from the practice, ANOTHER cracked PLUMB just really leaves an extra sour taste. If it were mine it would have been thrown into a corner never to be bothered with again. In fact, I think I would have deemed it unworthy of the handle and pulled it. I think it will be really hard for me to look at a PLUMB (especially one that's been beat on) with anything but skepticism and disdain even if it's not wholly deserved or justified. I have a strong interest in a wide variety of hand crafts. I see what people before me accomplished with so much less and it makes me feel like I should be much better, much smarter, more clever. And I think I've learned a lot of things and I take tremendous joy from creating a thing with my hands. But an interesting experience I have repeatedly encountered, and I am sure many of you have as well, and I've talked about it here before, is that sinking feeling when you've put hours upon and hours of effort into something only to have it essentially ruined. I often focus on the feeling of accomplishment from creating virtually anything because I like to convince people to try making things. In my view, humans thrive on creation and many people just don't. Not only do they believe that they are "not creative" but I think often they've been taught that they are not, and that it's not useful even if they might be. But something gets unlocked when "not creative" people make something and they realize they can. In many ways it takes nothing more than a collection of skills which can all be learned and a good helping of experience to see a project through to a completed thing worth being proud of. But there is a risk/reward aspect that I tend to forget about. The greater the potential for reward, usually the greater the pain of failure. That's where the quit comes in. It's well past my bed time and I'm rambling because you guys won't stone me for it, but the bottom line is that I got out the welder, did my best and will see this thing through to the end. And I won't like it but I will do it.

In any case, this pic is just to let you guys know I am still at it. I put extra effort into achieving a particular look and feel with this handle, which to add further annoyance to the project, actually came out almost exactly as I planned it. Finished pics coming soon, it's welded and hung, just needs sharpened. I tried making stop cuts and chiseling this handle to speed up the process of reducing a tree to a toothpick which worked out ok. I know I start with too much wood but when you have a twisted mess and you are trying to find a straight line through it ... it's just more work than it's worth really. And this Locust loves to check, not just from the end grain.
PlumbBlish1 by city_ofthe_south, on Flickr

You can see right from the start I've got the swell out ahead of the tongue and that is the incorrect way to make an axe handle.
 
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