Well let me start off by saying I had gone to the ABS's school in June and had an excellent time. I had to take a two and a half month recess so that I could save some money to put some stuff in my shop and for school. So lately I just got back to making knives (or so thats what I like to call it). One of the teachers that my dad works with gave me a hand full of an inch and a half wide hacksaw blades and wanted to make him a knife out of it. My first thought were that it would be to brittle but after quickly grinding out two fillet knives they seem to be ok. I could bend them a little over 45 degrees with without them snapping. Alright, so on to the sad part. I had spent about 7 hrs total on this little pocket knife and even put a mirror finish on it by hand. It was the best looking knife I've done. so I get to the handle and I buy a cobalt drill bit thinking it would drill threw. I get to my drill press and start drilling but the bit isn't even scratching it so I put a little more pressure and SNAP. The damn thing broke right in half at the start of the handle. There it is, my best work so far in two peaces on the table (I almost could have cried). So today i talked to a machinist friend of my dads and he said the metal was 76RW and he'd drill the pin holes for me (to bad i got nothing for him to drill).
side note: I've never done any forge welding but i thought about welding some scrap 5160 around the saw blade so that it would be going down one side of the knife and in the middle.
side note: I've never done any forge welding but i thought about welding some scrap 5160 around the saw blade so that it would be going down one side of the knife and in the middle.