2nd hand forged knife in the books

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ChrisW2374

Active Member
Finally finished my 2nd forged knife. Used 1080 for the blade iron wood scales g10 liner and pins and copper lanyard hole. I did some things better than the last one but still a lot of room for improvement but overall I'm pretty happy with the end result. This is the first time I've done a liner on the handle.
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ChrisW2374 said:
Just anything you see i could maybe do better next time.
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Great job on making a decent knife. You want critique.. OK. Well from looking at the pic its a bit rough in a few places.

Looks like you made some mistakes on the pin hole drilling as it looks like some glue has had to fill around those holes. If you dont have a pillar drill yet, would be a darn good investment and mark out the holes with a punch first to get the drill centred before you start.

The handle is pretty rough and needs better sanding, and ideally before you put it on the blade. If you don't have a belt sander its pretty good though. If you don't have a belt grinder buy one.

The blade looks really thick down towards the cutting edge, with a very sudden bevel to get the edge. OK maybe you want a chunky really tough knife, and if so thats fine, you make the knife for what you want it for. But it would be easier to sharpen and look better with longer bevels that come up say a third of the way up the blade. The flat of the blade doesnt look flat it looks concave in the middle. Also if the design was to have the blade wilting forward from the handle then ok, it's your design, but, it does look a bit odd, and a straighter spine to blade might look more standard. I think it might be that you rounded the top of the knife at the spine, that gives it that concave look. I personally prefer chunky solid spines with just a little of the edges taken off. I think you were going for a false edge, but it you want to put these in they have to be really exact and solid lines to make them features rather than making the blade look curved.

The polishing and finish is what you need to work on to get it looking 100% better. I think a file guide and a lot more sanding and you will have a great knife.

This is what I mean by the bevel:

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This is what I mean by a flase edge on the top. Your flat needs to be really flat, and your bevels really exact angles.
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Thank you SM I do have a drill press but still had some issues with alignment of my pins. As for all the other advice thank you i really appreciate it. I do plan on getting a file guide in the near future and i do have a belt grinder it's not a great one it's homemade by somebody else it has some issues.
 
ChrisW2374 said:
Thank you SM I do have a drill press but still had some issues with alignment of my pins. As for all the other advice thank you i really appreciate it. I do plan on getting a file guide in the near future and i do have a belt grinder it's not a great one it's homemade by somebody else it has some issues.
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A lot of this is subjective... if you wanted to design an arabian style concave knife you got darn close. The main thing is that final 10% on the darn sanding (we all hate it)

This guy is an amazing teacher.

It seems he learned off Salem straub :
 
As far as the blade goes it's a little hard to say because of the lighting. It looks a bit like you have a apple seed grind on the blade but that could be the light. Smurf Masher makes good blades but he does stock removal which is a little different, and I'm not going to get into whether forging or stock removal is better.

As far as the handle goes, tape the side of the bottom scale when you drill it. It would help prevent you from tearing out the wood as you drill out the pin holes.

Just isolate where you want to make improvement and concentrate on that with your next blade.

Doug
 
Doug Lester said:
As far as the blade goes it's a little hard to say because of the lighting. It looks a bit like you have a apple seed grind on the blade but that could be the light. Smurf Masher makes good blades but he does stock removal which is a little different, and I'm not going to get into whether forging or stock removal is better.

As far as the handle goes, tape the side of the bottom scale when you drill it. It would help prevent you from tearing out the wood as you drill out the pin holes.

Just isolate where you want to make improvement and concentrate on that with your next blade.

Doug
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Oh it was meant to be grinder free work? Doh, well in that case if it's entirely hand forged then, yeah that's bloody brill.
 
ChrisW2374 said:
Just anything you see i could maybe do better next time.
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I'm better at forging than I am at knife making. Got any pictures of the UNFINISHED knife?

Are you having any trouble during the actual forging process?

You said HAND forged. Thats what I do. No press, no powerhammer.

Any problem with workholding? Drawing out material? Cold shuts? "Fishmouthing" as you forge the end of the blade? "Mushrooming"?

What sorts of hammers are you using? Type of anvil? How are the edges dressed? Do you have a crowned face or a flat face on the anvil?



Sent from my Champion Forge using Tapatalk
 
52 Ford said:
I'm better at forging than I am at knife making. Got any pictures of the UNFINISHED knife?

Are you having any trouble during the actual forging process?

You said HAND forged. Thats what I do. No press, no powerhammer.

Any problem with workholding? Drawing out material? Cold shuts? "Fishmouthing" as you forge the end of the blade? "Mushrooming"?

What sorts of hammers are you using? Type of anvil? How are the edges dressed? Do you have a crowned face or a flat face on the anvil?



Sent from my Champion Forge using Tapatalk
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I did have some trouble with some fishmouthing especially on the tang. The only hammer i have is a cross peen my anvil is not in the best shape it has a depression in the center and the edges are not sharp and have some small chips etc. I have since forge out another knife and did a much better job hammering the point in still need to work on reducing the tang area etc.
 
ChrisW2374 said:
No it's not grinder free I just mean forged it to the basic shape. My skills aren't good enough to do anything grinder free.
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I know it is contentious, but I respect more, knives forged to shape with minimal grinding compared to carved out of flat steel with a bandsaw. This is why I plan to include integral bolsters so you know I had to forge it.

It's a tricky one.. As the end result is a knife either way. So does it really matter how much sweat you put into it, if the end result is a sharp well polished blade? I just think you miss part of the process if no forging is involved, but then, if you are working with mono steel.. Why would you Forge? I think people still want knives that have been forged and beaten into shape for purely nostalgic romantic reasons beyond normal end result logic.

I think my personal view is if you want to do a knife that needs forging to get that result, (Damascus, San mai, integral hilts, bolsters) then Forge. Else if a moni steel blade, buy good steel and grind it to shape.
 
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