Leather round knife

J

Jclonts82

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Mar 19, 2018
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Figured this might be the best place for this question.

I will be making a leather cutting “round knife” for a co-worker’s husband.

I need to get an idea of toughness vs hardness. Ive never used one, or seen one used, so hoping for some input.

Are these blades primarily straight slicing tools? Do you ever use them for sharp cornering that will torque the cutting edge? Ever do a gouge and pry motion? If straight cutting and gentle curves, I can make the blade more hard, hold an edge longer. If more intricate work, then i need to bring the hardness down a touch for some toughness.

I’m looking for typical usages to gauge my temper and hardness goals with the heat treat, any input will be greatly appreciated
Thanks
 
Check this thread. Should answer a lot of questions for you:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/a-round-knife-wip.1540597/

I make mine out of AEB-L in the .040 range as far as stock thickness goes. I run them at 63 RC. I've never had an edge break or crack. They are used for cutting all kinds of curves, straight lines, corners etc. And I use em hard, for hours at a time:

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I work in batches so cut a lot of leather:

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Fantastic, That is what I figured from my research, but wanted to ask those that use em! I'm going to make one with D2 that I do a deep cryo (ln2) treatment on, and surprise her with another made with Damascus. I'm probably also going to go a little thicker, more in the 1/8" range because the gal's husband is a little rough with things. They are both cowboys and just bought a 10,000 acre ranch in NM... at 25 years old... lol.

I was planning on aiming for 61-63 range. I will go with around 63 for killer edge retention.

Horsewright Horsewright what angle do you prefer the cutting edge bevel, and geometry, I would imagine fairly acute 15-17 degrees and a flat grind/wedge?
 
Do you already have the stock for the steel?

I have D2, and Aebl, and many other steels. It much rather sharpen up AEBL and maintain it than D2.

AEBL is inexpensive, tough, and very easy to sharpen. If you already have the D2, and know how to hear treat it, I use a D2 blade often for cutting leather, and it is pretty stainless and holds a good edge. Just takes me a bit more work to resharpen.
 
I do have the steel.

I have a flat bar that I can simply stock removal shape it. But I also have a 4' long round thats 3" diameter that I will cut off a puck and try forging, annealing, then finish grinding on first. I have a pretty good heat treat routine down for D2, 72 hrs in liquid nitrogen grows crazy small secondary carbides that attribute to extreme wear resistance. I Made a skinner for someone with the condition that he give me fair and honest feedback. He has skinned 1 elk and 2 deer and it will still dry shave. (I only asked that he try to avoid bones, lol)
 
1/8" stock is way too thick. It just won't cut well. That would be like using an axe to slice tomatoes. AEB-L is a much better steel for this application because it doesn't have the wear resistance of D2. You want to be able to touch it up easily by stropping or on a buffer as most leather shops do.
Geometry is pretty much covered in that link. I love damascus and have made thousands of knives from it. I wouldn't make a roundknife from it. What makes it cool actually inhibits cutting leather (topography). Ya want that blade smooth.
 
Dave, I like the look of that one with the antler handle and different angles on each side.
 
Like Dave said, 1/8" is way too thick. AEB-L is a great steel for this application , and .041 is about the ideal thickness tapered to zero. It is super easy to get the blades too thick and if you do it is an exercise in futility because it will never do the job intended well.

Paul
 
Allright. Good to know! I will definitely go thinner. I read in that MOST helpful thread answers to most of the questions I had. The rest I will figure out on the way.

As for the damascus, I’m not going to etch the last 1/4 inch at the cutting edge. That way there is no drag from the topo. Makes touchup a little more difficult though if you want to keep the pattern though.

I agree that its not really practical, however I love making things in Damascus so much, I pretty much cant help it. I just wanna do it anyways. They will probably just hang it on the wall to look pretty, and I’m OK with that.
 
leatherman said:
Dave, I like the look of that one with the antler handle and different angles on each side.
Click to expand...


Thanks Dwayne. Thats an old one just wore down some from use and sharpening. Its one of my favorites though. I keep three roundknives out on the workbench at all times. That way I can grab one from wherever I am around the workbench. When I first started making roundknives I asked Paul about asymmetrical like those over symmetrical. Asymmetrical was his preference and soon became mine too.
 
Well I finished the one in D2, forged it from the large round. My coworker was able to sneak out her husbands favorite round knife so I could copy its size and shape. She wanted to use antler for the handle and supplied me the piece to use.
Overall it came out great. Its right at .048 thickness, I was aiming to hit .041 as suggested, but hardened and cryo’ed D2 is murder on belts, so close enough.

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I sharpened and cleaned up his existing knife and compared it to the one I made, the D2 did take about 25-30% longer to sharpen, but it wasn’t too bad. Because of the crazy carbides in it, i tempered it down to right at 60 Rockwell so its a good trade off I think.


Next time I will order ABEL and give that a try.
Thanks for the help everyone!
 
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