failure, regrouping and leads to a question..

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OkieCowboy

Well-Known Member
I know ya'll are going to get tired of my dumb questions any day now..but here goes...

so far my knife work has started out by reworking and rescaling vintage kitchen knives and some older hunting knives.. then started ordering blanks and putting scales on them etc...have actually done pretty good there.. but in effort to progress from "handle maker" to "knife maker" i bought some steel stock...Gonna make some knives... limited tools and resources..christmas is coming, going to be the perfect gifts.. no forge or anything fancy like that..but i did get a drill press at the pawn shop for a really good price..and even got some new hack saw blades... (now please keep in mind, I really have no background in working with steel like this)

so I am going to do some stock removal knife making...I chuck up a bit....and quickly melt it down trying to drill a hole..I can assume...A. cheap or wrong bit ... B. needs a liquid or cooling agent? c. both?

regardless...is there a link or a video that you guys advise watching that covers ALL the basics? I thought i had a good grasp of this...never occurred to me that the bit would fail... (i wasn't applying much pressure at all..my drill is set on the slowest speed..like 1000 rpms.. there was very little smoke...just a tiny wisp..and then what i thought was a curly q of steel forming turned out to be the cutting edge of the drill bit and the steel turned blue in that spot...it happened pretty fast.....

so is there a stock removal method for idiots?

and regarding the christmas gift thing... are there other members here that sell blanks?
 
What steel did you get and from where? If it is known steel from one of the knife supply places it should be soft and drill no problem.
 
Even if you purchased "knife" steel from any of the common vendors, its not going to come fully annealed. Generally knife steel is delivered in what is called "Spherodized annealed" state....in other words about half way annealed. This is done simply in the interest of time and money on the steel producers behalf. My guess is that you started to drill the hole, got just below the steel's surface, and then it got hard......that's spreodized annealed.

Without any type of "heating" equipment, your best bet is going to be either cobolt or carbide bits (as long as you purchase "made in USA" brands). Most folks are accustom to drilling wood, and just try to "punch" the bit through....with knife steel you need to change the way to operated the drill press......I recommend what I call "tap" drilling....meaning that you put just enough pressure on the bit to cut a little, then lift it off, then do that again and again until you have the hole complete. A few drops of cutting oil every 3rd or 4th "tap" will go a long way towards ease of cutting and increased drill bit life.
 
Justin it was 1095 steel.. i think it came from jantz or USAknifemaker...I think however the bit however came from the old country (china) it was a mystery bit I had picked up at a garage sale...

being disabled and on a tight budget and starting out with no tools what so ever...and needing EVERYTHING, you try to cut costs where ya can..and this is what happens... somethings you just can't go cheap on i guess.
 
Ed now that is more like exactly what i did...not alot of pressure, but it was just steady pressure..no backing off..
Great info..thank you.. is there any household products what will work as "cutting oil" or do I just need to shelf the project until i get to go shopping again?

EdCaffreyMS said:
Even if you purchased "knife" steel from any of the common vendors, its not going to come fully annealed. Generally knife steel is delivered in what is called "Spherodized annealed" state....in other words about half way annealed. This is done simply in the interest of time and money on the steel producers behalf. My guess is that you started to drill the hole, got just below the steel's surface, and then it got hard......that's spreodized annealed.

Without any type of "heating" equipment, your best bet is going to be either cobolt or carbide bits (as long as you purchase "made in USA" brands). Most folks are accustom to drilling wood, and just try to "punch" the bit through....with knife steel you need to change the way to operated the drill press......I recommend what I call "tap" drilling....meaning that you put just enough pressure on the bit to cut a little, then lift it off, then do that again and again until you have the hole complete. A few drops of cutting oil every 3rd or 4th "tap" will go a long way towards ease of cutting and increased drill bit life.
Click to expand...
 
Actual commercial grade cutting oil is the best bet, BUT, in a pinch I've used just about any type of "oil"...... Mineral oil, SAE 30, WD-40........my actual favorite is water soluable oil used in machining.....a gallon jug makes about 10 gallons of cutting "oil". Chances are pretty good that the bit you described had much to do with the problem(s)......while you might not be able to tell much difference between and import and "made in USA" bit by looking at it.....when it comes to cutting ability there is a HUGE difference. Some folks might laugh at me, but I have been a fan of the Drill Doctor sharpeners for a number of years......I've actually worn out 4 of those machines! In the process they have saved me literally thousands of $ in drill bits.
 
Okie, if you ever come down to Edmond/OKC area, send me a pm and you are welcome to use some of my tools. Grinder, furnace, carbide bits, ect.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Okie, Im just as much on a shoe strand budget for this hobby as you. What I have discovered and been advised is to acquire the quality basics, good files, and an abundance of sand paper. As for the drilling the steel Ed has it pretty much covered, A good carbide bit is a great investment and slow and interrupted drilling is how you drill hardened steel. I have an abundance of old planer blades I am working with to get the hang of grinding a blade to shape and how my hands should hold the blade to.get.a clean bevel. Practice practice practice. Lol
 
I found carbide bits at my local tool store. Not big box store. Small lil tool store and I got my 6 bucks worth out of it.
 
(we get our 1095 from Aldo and it's good steel.)

1095 is notorious for having half to darn near full on hard spots. (I have purchased it from three different vendors and it's been the same with all of it.)We never use a band saw to cut it here, we use a chop saw because it killed too many band saw blades.

Most of the time you can drill it with out a problem but sometimes you hit one of those hard spots and get stuck. One solution is to take an old bit, chuck it upside down in the drill press, run the flat spot at on full speed with a fair amount of pressure to heat up that local spot and anneal it. I've done this a few times and it takes a lot of pressure and speed to get that little drill spot soft but it can be done in a pinch.
 
steel that is marked "Spherodized annealed" has been processed so it is easy to work and machine. here is more info http://knifedogs.com/showthread.php?25042-Annealing
go to ebay and look for drills made of M35 or M42 or cobalt high speed steel. if using a drill press, set the speed to 500 rpm(or the slowest available) and use slow steady pressure. when your feed(down pressure) and speed are right, you will have long curls of steel coming from the hole. most any oil will work, water in a pinch, you are cooling the drill bit.
 
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EdCaffreyMS said:
Actual commercial grade cutting oil is the best bet, BUT, in a pinch I've used just about any type of "oil"...... Mineral oil, SAE 30, WD-40........my actual favorite is water soluable oil used in machining.....a gallon jug makes about 10 gallons of cutting "oil". Chances are pretty good that the bit you described had much to do with the problem(s)......while you might not be able to tell much difference between and import and "made in USA" bit by looking at it.....when it comes to cutting ability there is a HUGE difference. Some folks might laugh at me, but I have been a fan of the Drill Doctor sharpeners for a number of years......I've actually worn out 4 of those machines! In the process they have saved me literally thousands of $ in drill bits.
Click to expand...

Ed, would you explain how it is that spheroidized annealed PG 01 is so soft that one can carve slivers from it with a pocket knife, and how it is that it drills and files like butter if it is not fully annealed, and how is it precision ground if not fully annealed? Spheroidized annealing is the only way to make hypereutectic steels soft enough to machine. I will admit that it work hardens easily if not drilled with care, but I use cobalt bits with no coolant and have no problems in drilling. I found that using coolants or cutting oils just make for another mess to clean up.
 
In the last 3 decades I've grown pretty sure of my process and I research the $@&%$ out of everything I don't fully understand and yet still wind up with perceptions that leave more questions. I think we're all guilty of that to some point. I'm also under the impression that a shreoidized anneal is pretty much dead soft (from my experience) BUT with clusters of hard carbides dispersed willy nilly in the matrix which in turn gives us the hard spots. I've still not found a definitive, easy to understand explanation of some of these terms. I love this subject and am always ready to learn more. Here's some info that's pretty general but someone may make new revelations that we can all understand.

If you look at the chart, a process anneal isn't possible with the carbon content we work with....making the speroidized anneal (next up) our bottom line as far as softness. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'm thinking the chart would be complete with a rockwell scale going up the right side to compare with.

http://www.efunda.com/processes/heat_treat/softening/annealing.cfm

Rudy
 
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