Tooln's 1st knife

Tooln

Tooln

Well-Known Member
I've been working on my first knife. It's 1095 & not going to be anything fancy. I plan on an oak handle and a layer of kydex. Since this is all new and my space is limited, I'm making a firebrick forge. I have an old toaster oven for tempering that I'm putting a temp control on so I can run a PID loop. So far I've made myself a jig for grinding & a magnetic holder. I've just a little more work into the profile. Then once my stuff gets here for the forge and controller put them together and away I go. Any suggestions or criticism is welcome.


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I like the profile, you are also off to a much better start on your grinds than I had. The only suggestion I have is if you intend to use kydex in your handle you may wish to reconsider. Kydex has a reputation for refusing to be glued effectively. Keep posting pics as you go, good luck.
 
Chris Railey said:
I like the profile, you are also off to a much better start on your grinds than I had. The only suggestion I have is if you intend to use kydex in your handle you may wish to reconsider. Kydex has a reputation for refusing to be glued effectively. Keep posting pics as you go, good luck.
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The only reason I was going to use kydex is I have a piece laying around. The oak I have is 1/4" thick and I was going to use the kydex as a spacer. I felt the handle maybe to thin otherwise. Thanks for the heads up. Maybe I'll pick up some thicker oak or something else to use as a spacer. Or maybe just try a test glue. Since what I have was just laying around.
 
You can use another piece of wood to build your thickness up, a contrasting piece may even look good, I used to do that a lot when I was building longbows. We called them overlays.
 
Profile is looking good, make sure you drill your holes before heat treat and add plenty of other holes to lighten the tang. 1/4" is not a bad thickness if you just want to skip the kydex. How thick is your metal stock?
 
Justin Presson said:
Profile is looking good, make sure you drill your holes before heat treat and add plenty of other holes to lighten the tang. 1/4" is not a bad thickness if you just want to skip the kydex. How thick is your metal stock?
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My metal is 3/16 and my oak is 1/4. I plan on holes to lighten (before heat treat) and also give the epoxy surface area. I could get by with just the oak but wanted to gain just a little thickness for finishing.
 
Well I voided all warranties today on the toaster oven. Well not that it had any because it was a used one that I bought. I got my temperature controller hooked up and I can now run a PID loop to hold temperature. The only thing I don't like about this controller is it displays in centigrade and not Fahrenheit so I need to do the conversion which is no big dealing. Did a test run up to 400 and held it there within 10°. I'm going to insulate the toaster oven a little bit better just to be more economical. Getting closer to completion.
 

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Chris Railey said:
I like the profile, you are also off to a much better start on your grinds than I had. The only suggestion I have is if you intend to use kydex in your handle you may wish to reconsider. Kydex has a reputation for refusing to be glued effectively. Keep posting pics as you go, good luck.
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I'm glad you said that Chris. I was wondering how Kydex would do as a liner!
 
As others have mentioned your profile looks good. I don't know enough about Kydex to know if it would work for a liner, but my gut feeling is it could be problematic.
 
So I'm getting ready to heat treat/quench my first blade and it's from 1095. I have 2 questions. First how long do you leave the blade in the oil ((I'm using canola)? Second how soon after quenching can you file test? Does the blade need to cool or can it be done as soon as you come out of the oil? Thanks for any help.
 
IMO the best way is to leave it in the oil using a slicing motion until its cool enough to handle. After that you can file test. It may take several strokes to remove decarb and stuff before you hit hardened steel.
 
Yesterday I ran across an old pizza stone I haven't used in a few years. I cut it to fit inside the toaster oven. This should help keep a more even temperature.
 
Tooln said:
pizza stone I haven't used in a few years. I cut it to fit inside the toaster oven. This should help keep a more even temperature.
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Certainly give that a try. I found adding internal mass to my toaster oven didn't make that much difference. In fact it actually made things worse since it screwed up the PID settings and I had to reprogram it. So, I stopped adding bricks and stuff to add mass. I believe adding a blanket of Kawool around the oven will benefit temperature stabilization more than anything else. It's all about your PID recognizing the amount of energy going into the over in versus thermal loss, coupled with the rate of change. At least that's my experience.
 
My rule is no less than the thickness of a dime at the edge. Usually a little thicker than a dime but thats just me.
 
I've at about a dime's thickness maybe just a little thinner. Thanks guys. Hoping to do it tomorrow. Was planning on today but the grand kids threw that plan out.
 
Wouldn't you know grandkids changed the plans. The wife wasn't even off the phone and I was setting up. Finished my first heat treat and the blade has been in the tempering oven for 15 minutes now. Heat treat went well & the blade is hard. It was cool watching the steel turn colors and go into the non magnetic state.
 
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