Oh Well,, Maybe next time! lol

I've made a few knives. Nothing fancy. I tried my hand at forge welding. As they say,,, If at first you don't succeed. My first try turned out,,, OK. I did not hammer the twists out far enough. I think??? OK,,, now I have to say SORRY. I'm not very good at this stuff. You will have to make the photos larger. I don't know how to do that. If you look at the blade side you will find a few black lines at the edge. I think that is from the twist. Not sure. Maybe I did not clean it good enough?? That was a test. Just stuff I had around the garage. It is made of 5160 & 15n20. The next one is what will be a good blade. Maybe. I hope. ;-) I ordered more steel. It will be made from 1080 & 15n20.

My brother in-law wants a fillet knife. He does not know I am making it. My biggest concern is heat treating. They are "SO" thin. I am afraid it will turn out like a pretzel. If anyone can take a look at the photos and tell me what I did to get the lines in them I would really appreciate it. A little help with heat treating would be great too. Do you think a rose bud on my torch would be the best way to harden the edge or should I dip it??? Thank you in advance for your time.

If that's your first shot at forge welding, I'd say your doing great! I can't see any delaminations or cold shuts anywhere.

When you asked about the lines, I'm assuming you mean the light colored lines behind the plunge cuts in one photo, and near the middle of the blade/spine area in the other..... I'm fairly certain that those are sanding scratches that you missed. Those dark spots at the spine/in the twist are fairly common when twisting anything other then a round bar....it's simply that there is so much stress built up during twisting, that those laminates more often then not come apart. There are basically two ways around that..... 1. prior to twisting, forge the bar as round as possible. 2. Ensure that you oversize your billets so you have room to grind out those delaminations on the corners of a twisted bar (assuming the bar is anything other then round when you twist it.)

I can see how forging the bar round would help with the twist. The lines on the backbone I left there because I thought they looked cool. The black lines I am talking about are on the edge side.There are three of them. You can see them in the photo. Like I said I think It is from the twist. Next time I will forge the billet round before I start the twist. Thank you Ed.

Ed's right, nice job.
After blowing up the pics, it does look like those black lines along the edge are the valleys in your twist. It seems to me that they follow the diagonal lines of the blade. I'd be more concerned about a thin line crossing the diagonals. Like suggested, go round before twisting, square edges induce tremendous stresses to the laminations. When you twist a square edge billet, I'd consider the outer 1/4" as waste, if not more. You're actually burrying the valleys of the twist into the billet depending on how tightly it's twisted. If that blade was full quenched, you're also lucky it didn't crack. Each one of those divots in the spine is/could be a stress riser.


To blow up your pics, left click the pic until it won't grow anymore.


As far as the fillet knife... profile whatever thickness blank you'll be using and do all your grinding after heat treat. I do a fair amount of HT for other makers also and won't take a flat ground thin blade anymore...they warp or edge ribbon down the whole length of the blade. I've had better luck with the hollow ground blades in 3/32" or better (all stainless). If you use your rosebud, (not on stainless) don't heat the sides. You'll warp your blade, thin steel will move towards the heat source. Do all your heating from the spine and well away from the tip.


You'll be hooked sooner or later.


Rudy

Hey I think it looks good.

The black lines are from the etching and that area not being polished out after the etch, (or at least that IMHO) Dang nice for first attempt and I like the blade shape as well! Where is the pics of the handle??? LOL

C Craft said:

The black lines are from the etching and that area not being polished out after the etch, (or at least that IMHO) Dang nice for first attempt and I like the blade shape as well! Where is the pics of the handle??? LOL

Click to expand...

The handle will never be anything but something to hold onto with my tongs. I've started my 2nd blade. Time will tell.