Old lineman, new knife maker.

Chris Railey said:
Welcome. My step-father was a lineman for Georgia Power most of his career so respect to you. Also, congratulations on completing your treatments sir. Its too hot to forge much in the summer so you are getting ramped up at a good time. I am not familiar with Al’s presses but there is a place in NC that makes turnkey presses for around $4300 and within the next 15 years I intend to score one. I will post the name when I find it.
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Thanks, It has been a great career as a lineman but I'm ready for a change. Need to put in another year or two for insurance purposes.
 
I think the one I'm working on now may turn out a little better. The last 2 I made in a couple of weekends with my grandkids and didn't get to do much finish sanding on them. I'm trying to just insert the thumbnail photo but ended up with these.
 
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opaul said:
Welcome. That last knife post looks really nice.
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Thank You very much. I drew it out on a piece of 1095 with a marker and started grinding. I kept grinding til it felt good in my hand, it turned out different than my drawing but for the better I think. I need to heat treat it now. All I've been doing is heating in my forge til non magnetic then quenching in oil. I then temper in my wife's oven at about 425 degrees for an hour, let cool and do again. The handles are kirinite. Do you think I need to oil or wax them?
 
I’ve used kirinite and I sanded to 800 grit and then buffed them to a shine. I wouldn’t put oil on them.
 
opaul said:
I’ve used kirinite and I sanded to 800 grit and then buffed them to a shine. I wouldn’t put oil on them.
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Thanks. What do you think of my heat treating? Do I need to be normalizing? I've watched forged in fire some and never hear anything about tempering. Do you think they just don't have time to do it, or show it?
 
I use a lot of 1084. I typically normalize my blades twice before I do the quenching. I temper at 400 degrees for an hour, two times.
The tempering is not shown as part of the FIF but they do temper the blades and sometimes the host can be heard saying putting handles on your tempered blades. Don't know what they do a short segment on tempering. I think fans of the show would like to see what and how they accomplish this.
BTW, I'm a 41 year veteran of an electric company, but not as a lineman.
 
opaul said:
I use a lot of 1084. I typically normalize my blades twice before I do the quenching. I temper at 400 degrees for an hour, two times.
The tempering is not shown as part of the FIF but they do temper the blades and sometimes the host can be heard saying putting handles on your tempered blades. Don't know what they do a short segment on tempering. I think fans of the show would like to see what and how they accomplish this.
BTW, I'm a 41 year veteran of an electric company, but not as a lineman.
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Thanks for all your advice. The power company world sure is changing with all the renewable energy. I was in the Raleigh area a few years back for some training for ABB, metering and some other things. Sure was a beautiful area. Hope all the water is going down and things are better for all the people after the hurricane.
 
Good looking knives. Are you machine stitching the sheaths? If so...which brand? I recently bought a Cowboy machine and it has been a bit of learning curve (like everything has been in knife making...lol).
 
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