USAKnifemakers Stage 1 knife kit Tutorial

[Josh Dabney]

We have completed Stage 2 of our build with the second tempering cycle so let's take a look at our blade and talk a little about what we see and why we see it.

Whenever we're talking about heat and steel there are two main factors that have an effect on the steel TIME & TEMPERATURE

On our second tempering cycle we have not raised the temperature from our first cycle. However, our blade is going to look quite different after the second temper due to the TIME our blade has been exposed to the 400 degree heat. Because of this we're going to see a much bolder coloring of our steel which is to be expected.

Our gold coloring had deepened a little and may appear brownish in spots on our blade. This is perfectly normal.

You'll also notice that we've developed some areas of purple-ish hue on the blade. Again this is normal for a temper at this heat and isn't a worry to us.

You may be wondering what causes the differing coloration on our tempered blade and the answer is simply contaminates on the surface of the steel. What exactly is "contaminating" our steel ?

-Crud from the quench. I did a quickie clean up but there is still residue from the oil present on the blade

-Decarb. This happens when steel is exposed to very high heat like we reached in the hardening stage. In laymans terms- the carbon on the surface of the steel attaches to oxygen in the air and actually seperates from the steel itself leaving behind "decarb" or a thin layer of steel that has lost it's carbon. This is on the surface only and not to worry about. The point here is that we do have some decarb here and it will affect how our blade oxidizes in the temper.

-Oil from our hands. I don't know about you but I just can't resist playing with my blade once it cools down from the first temper. I never bother to clean the blade between tempers and due to this the natural oils from your skin are left on the blade for the second tempering cycle. This definately has an effect on the colors present after the second temper and we can clearly see evidence of this in the purple finger prints on the blade

One more time, None of this is alarming to me and this blade looks exactly as I expect it to with our heat treating completed.

It is now official that we have made our first knife blade.

Congratulations on completing Stage 2 of our Knifemaking process !!!!

-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

I understand that for the new maker this may seem like alot of information to digest. While this level of detail is informative it can easily take on the appearance of being more complicated than it actually is.

Now that we have completed Stage 2 let's re-cap what we've done to our blade-

1. We heated the blade slightly passed non-magnetic

2. We quenched in oil

3. We tempered twice at 400 degrees

It really is this simple.

-Josh

 

[Handmade]

When tempering. After two hours do you remove the blade from the oven to cool or quench it? Or do you simply turn the oven off and allow to cool slowly?

 

[Josh Dabney]

Handmade,

I just take the blade out and let it air cool on the stovetop. It only takes about 10 minutes or less for it to return to room tempature.

However, To answer your question more fully. Any of the techniques you've mentioned would be acceptable. Quenching in water at this low tempature will not harm the blade in any way. The only important thing really is that blade comes back down to room tempature between the tempers.

One more thing I'd actually like to mention about tempering that's commonly misunderstood is getting to the temper after quenching.

We want to temper as soon as it's convenient after quenching the blade. We do NOT need to rush to get into the tempering cycle after quenching although we also don't want to wait days to do it either. It won't harm anything if it's an hour or two after quenching. There are exceptions to this rule but they're beyond the scope of this tutorial.

The most important thing to remember about the time between the quench and temper is to handle the blade very carefully and DO NOT DROP IT ! The blade is very brittle before being tempered so handle it with care.

Thank You for your question !

-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

Welcome to Stage 3 of our knifemaking process. We'll have alot going on in this stage so let's review what's on our plate and talk about a couple things before we get started.

STAGE 3. Finishing

-Thin the edge to final thickness.

The first step is going to be to get our blade thinned down which will prove to be challenging in comparison to our initial shaping of the blade. Now that we're dealing with hardened steel the blade is going to be far more resistant to our efforts here and we may possibly wear a file out in the process. We will be following nearly the same routine we used in the initial forming and shaping of our bevels.

You're probably asking yourself- If this is going to be so much more difficult than the Pre-Heat Treat Stage why didn't we thin the edge then ?

Excellent Question that has a twofold answer.

1. Overheating the steel during the hardening step is the major risk to ending up with sub-par performance of our finished knife. The thinner we get the edge before hardening the more likely it is that we will overheat the steel and suffer the negative consequenses of that mistake. Beacause of this it is wise to leave it on the thick side for hardening and give ourselves the best chances for success with our heat treat.

2. Warp. It is likey that we'll experience a mild amount of warp from the hardening process. We don't anticipate a wild amount of warp here but if we take our edge very near to finished dimensions pre-heat treat then we'll have vey limited recourse for correcting this. The goal is for our edge to end up perfectly straight and perfectly centered on the thickness of the blade.

Ultimately it is worth the extra elbow grease in our quest to make the best possible knife we can !!!!

-Clean up the blade from the heat treat.

Thinning the blade is going to be a rough operation so again we'll do the last bit of blending and refining with hand sanding. We'll do this just like we did before it'll just take longer and use more abrasives.

-Fininsh sand.

Once we get our blade finished out to this point we'll perforem our "final finish" . Here we'll remove all the unsightly scratches that lead up to this point and create our hand satin finish

-Mark the blade with a makers mark.

When you reach this point with your own knife build you are now a Knifemaker and an Artist. What's That... An Artist you say ? Of course. Artists make things. Some make music and others poetry or painting. You've simple chosen a knife as your medium to express your artistic vision and as such you should mark your work with your name.

-Etch.

Etching our blade can show us some neat things about our heat treat job so we'll do it here.

-Install and finish the handle scales.

Pretty self explanatory but we'll prepare the scales for assembly, then assemble, then shape and finish the handle to complete the constuction of our knife. All that will be left to do is sharpen the blade after our sheath is made.

-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

Here is my beginning point for finishing work. My edge is pretty thick at this point. By my estimation I'm roughly in the .050 to .060 range on my thickness here judging by the fact that I'm just a bit thinner than 1/16" or .0625.

I'm going to follow the same procedure as the initial shaping. Start with the plunge

Before touching the bevels I flip the blade and do the plunge on the other side. I want to keep my filework out of the area above the plunge in the circle. I want to avoid deep gouges in this area as much as possible.

My goal with the plunges is to get my edge thinned down and centered to give myself a visual reference as too where I want to be with my edge down the length of the blade. I'm shooting for about .020 or a little less for my edge thickness at this point.

A pair of Calipers is great investment for a knifemaker and will get used ALOT in the knifeshop. However we can use anything of a known thickness for comparison purposes. Here I've counted 6 Post-IT-Notes and peeled them off the stack in a group.

Our Post-IT-Note paper is 3 1/2 thousandths thick so with some simple math we see that the 6 pieces together equal 21 thousandths -give or take- Knowing this will be plenty close enough for our purpose. We're making a knife here NOT an artifical heart valve

Now I'm ready to "locate" my final edge and determine it's thickness and placement on the thickness of the blade. It's not important at this stage where the top of my short bevel is. I just want it large enough that I've got good control of how much steel I'm removing. File the first side down to where you think it's very close

Now flip the blade over and do the same for the other side

Now I've got the edge approximately roughed in I need to give it a good inspection and see what I've got. Here's my Post-IT-Notes for a comparison of edge thickness. I'm a little thinner than the stack which is just about perfect. A final edge thickness BEFORE convexing the edge of .015 is what I would consider ideal. Give or take a little and you'll be fine so don't sweat the EXACT measurement too much.

Our goal is that the edge is a consistant thickness and centered so we want to inspect our edge from all angles. Sight down the edge from the tip side and the plunge side and also looking directly at the edge. We want to identify any thick areas and determine which side of the blade needs material removed which could be left, right, or both. My inspection revealed that I'm still fat from the start of the belly to the tip so I mark that with my sharpie so I know where I need to thin the edge.

I'm also still a little fat right in front of the plunge on this side

I can be very difficult to see exactly what your doing while making the needed adjustments on the edge. With everything shiny it all appears to blend together so coloring the edge only with the sharpie will help alot

With my adjustments made I've got the final placement of my edge determined so I'm ready to move to thinning out the bevels. This is the area that I'll be removing with my rough file work. I've got a clearly defined area so I can go to town on bringing my bevel down meet my edge thickness.

I'm starting at the plunge and working towards the tip

All this work has really taken it's toll on my El-Cheapo Harbor Freight files. They would barely scratch the steel attempting to draw file but I did get a good way before switching files. I did switch to my newest and sharpest file which is a Nicholson half-round file to get to this point.

I'm again doing just what I did before. I work my blade a bit with some 120 grit paper to locate the super deep file marks

Then proceed with my fine cut trinagle file to remove the worst and blend out the top of my rough filed area.

Now I'm moving on to working strictly with my 120 grit paper. Work in small sections at a time until your at 120 grit them move on. This sanding is still a rough operation so scrub the heck out of it, use lots of pressure, and change your paper often.

Once you get an area clean move on

Of course I've got a giant gouge from my file work right in the top of the plunge area. Be expecting some nice little suprises like this on your blade and be prepared for alot of work to sand that out. Persistance will pay-off in the finished product. Ain't Knifemaking fun !!!

Be ready to get RUDE on this scratch ! Here you can see I'm digging right in there with the corner of my sanding block. The paper will only cut for a couple seconds but this focused area of pressure will help us remove some steel aggressively.

If your using your block like this only move your paper far enough to get some fresh grit.

When the plunges are really stubborn it helps to wrap your paper around the chainsaw file to get at them. I've done that here and worked my blade out to 120 grit.

Here we ago again with the illistrations. Here we are at Heat treat. We've got our bevel in but our edge is still thick

Here's where we are now with our edge and bevels thinned out ( I've only done one side of the blade at this point but this is where we're headed)

Supersized view of our edge after thinning to demonstrate how to make a convexed edge

Remember this edge is a little less than .020 to begin with so we're just lightly taking off the corner with the file to save us some hand sanding

The final step is to use our sandpaper to then take the corners off the file cut and blend the covex smoothly from the flat of the bevel down to the edge

Now here we are forming our convex edge taking our light file cut

Now color the lower part of the blade and blend it all out with sandpaper. Now I've got this side of the blade right where I want it at 120 grit so I'll be going after the other side of the blade next.

-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

My appologies for the slow progress I've got relatives in town from out of state so finding time for what's important has been a struggle at best :3:

The underlying rule of knifemaking that trumps all others is that there are no rules. Don't be afraid to experiment with what you've got to work with.

I've discovered that using the round side of my half-round file for bulk removal works really well for my gross steel removal.

Go as far as you think then pull your blade and inspect for areas that need more attension. I'm still on the fat side towards the tip of the blade where I didn't have comfortable access with the file with the blade clamped in this position.

Re-position for better access to the belly area and go to town

The half-round file got me thinking.... That worked pretty well so maybe I'll try out my chainsaw file for lightly cleaning up my rough filework. This really worked very well to straighten up the rough stuff. I did not use a straight line motion for this task but more of a 45 degree motion. A light touch is all thats needed here.

I know I've still got some deep file marks "under the surface" so I went with some 80 grit paper this time to see where I'm at.

At this point I've already determined exactly where my final edge is so I did the bulk of the work on convexing with my rough file.

I tried to get a pic of my edge at this point but it's so small the camera wouldn't focus on it. With my rough sanding operation on this side of the blade I want to bring my convex down to just a few thousandths of an inch. As I hand sand up through my grits I'll bring my convex right down to a zero edge. A "zero edge" is when one side of the convex meets the other side and there is no "flat" left at the edge.

While we're talking about convex edges let's take a look at some common examples and the terminology associated with each.

The Axe grind- Technically a convex edge this grind is far too fat to be used on knives and is reserved for axes, hatchets and other heavy duty chopping or splitting tools.

The Appleseed grind (also known by some as a Moran grind or a Full Convex grind) This grind is convex over it's entire height and there is no flat part of the bevel.

The Thick Convex Edge- This may be my own terminology but the performace between thick and thin edges is vast in both cutting performance and maintanence. Thick or thin is determined by how thin the blade is ground PRIOR to convexing. I personnally consider anything 20 thousandths or or over to be a thick convex. In applications where a thick convex is appropriate I generally like about 20 thousandths before convexing the edge.

The Thin Convex Edge- I consider 15 thousanths down to 10 thousandths a thin convex edge. This is what I like for blades that ARE NOT large chopping knives (thick convex) or Super fine kitchen knives (extra thin and sub-10 thousandths)

The Thin Convex edge is what I'm shooting for here and what you should be shooting for with your blade also. Each maker will form their own opinion based on their own experiences so many may disagree with my recommendations on blade geometry.

-Josh

 

[LiamLynch]

Nice tutorial, no I can start a blade without having to buy a bunch of tools.

 

[BossDog]

Nice tutorial, no I can start a blade without having to buy a bunch of tools.

That is exactly what we are looking for...You can make knives on your own terms with out a full shop of tools. Your entire shop can fit inside a 5 gallon bucket....

 

[Josh Dabney]

Liam,

As BossDog said, This tutorial is tailored to someone who's right in the spot you're in now.

In general our tools reduce the amount of MANUAL labor that we put into our tasks. The tools that most of us use on an everyday basis are highly satisfying to own and use but in no way whatsoever are they REQUIRED to make a knife from scratch.

We have already overcome the biggest obsticles to making your own blades and you can do it also. The fact that you recognize this means the tutorial must be working as intended so I thank you for the confirmation of that

At the end of the tutorial I'll talk some more on tool choices and my recommendations for getting the most "bang for your buck" in buying tools for the beginner who wishes to continue making knives. Keep following along.

-Josh

 

[LiamLynch]

I'm very much subscribed to this thread, it's awesome that there is a tutorial for a forge as well.

 

[Josh Dabney]

Finally got a bit of shop time today

Lets talk about sandpaper. All sandpaper is NOT created equally.

Please don't waste your time money and sweat with Harbor Frieght sandpaper !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is cheap but also nearly worthless.

That said you can source your paper locally or order some. I'm a BIG fan of Rhynowet Redline paper available from Supergrit towards the bottom of the page here-
http://www.supergrit.com/products/products_sheets-brownredao.asp

If you wish to shop locally I like the 3M paper. It comes in 3 or 10 sheet quantities from lowes but you need to look for it in the Paint section NOT the tool section. I happen to run out of 80 and 120 Rhynowet so I grabbed some from Lowes. This is good paper but quite expensive compared to ordering.

Get used to seeing this ! Everything at 80 grit but this one deep scratch. Getting this out is what we call "chasing scratches" It's a bummer but happens often so get to work and get this sucker out of there

I'm ready to attack these marks in the plunge area. What I DON'T want to do is just "dig a hole" to remove these. I'll begin with short strokes from the first line into the plunge.

Once I start getting these file marks out I'll widen my sanding strokes back to the squiggly line and eventually from the plunge all the way to the outside line to bring my bevel down to the level of the plunge.

Having removed all file marks is a pretty big milestone for making this blade so take 5 and stretch out.

Dont forget when you change grit... change the direction of your sanding stroke

From here on out we'll be VERY CAREFUL with our blade. As I'm sanding with 120 grit I'm bringing my convex right to a zero edge. This edge isn't a razor but it will gladly slice you if you're careless while working on it. From this point on we'll be treating this blade as if it were all ready shaving sharp.

I'm sanding my convex in stages beginning with bringing the very edge down to zero

Once your edge is at zero sand the convex up to where it meets the flat

Then sand the flat right down to the convex. This is about what my geometry is like

When I finish up with a grit I take quick even trip over the whole blade just to even up my finish to prepare for the next grit. Probably not mandatory but it makes me feel better

This is my 120 grit paper that I used on this side of the blade. That's all it took roughly 2/3 of a sheet

Now I'm up to 220 grit with the exception of inside the sharpie marks. I've still got some light 120 marks in this area but I'll focus on getting this area clean while sanding out the ricasso.

I was at 220 grit before heat treating so it's pretty quick to get my ricasso sanded to 220

Step up to 400 and sand the ricasso at an angle to remove all traces of the 220

400 is going to be my final grit. I've ensured my 400 finish by sanding at an angle so now I just need to sand the ricasso at 400 in line with the blade

Now I've got this entire side scrubbed up to a dirty 400 grit finish. It's a dirty finish due to the "starts and stops" "hesitation marks" and "J hooks" that are a result of a scrubbed sanding job.

Everything on my blade is 400 grit but here are a couple examples of "start and stops" sometimes it's difficult to catch these marks in pics but these showed up well this time.

Now I need to lay my final finish to get rid of the dirty finish and get to a clean 400. I prefer a padded sanding block for this so I made 5 wraps of masking tape around my block so it has a little "give" to it.

-Josh

 

[Mark Behnke]

This is an amazingly well done tutorial Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

Final Finishing Video-

[video=youtube_share;YAdHE7iJFZI]http://youtu.be/YAdHE7iJFZI[/video]

-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

With the first side of the blade finished up to 400 grit I don't want scratch it while finishing out the other side. Double layer of tape on the blade plus a single on my sanding board.

Working our zero edge we must be careful of our fingers. It's not a big deal to slice through the sandpaper a bit but we don't want that to be our fingers !!!

Do what we just did on the first side up to 400

Now I finished out the spine to 400 on the blade portion of the knife. I'm not worried about the handle side until my scales are attatched

Don't forget about the bottom of the ricasso

Now that we've got our blade final finished we do not want rust forming on the blade. I usually use Ballistol for this purpose but WD-40 will work fine for perventing rust between work sessions. There's probably already a can of WD or something laying around your house.

That brings me to a close for the day but I'm thinking about our next step already which will be etching a makers mark.

-Josh

 

[Pelallito]

Awesome WIP. Thanks for taking the time and effort to do this!
Fred

 

[Josh Dabney]

I've cleaned off my work area and collected everything needed for etching the makers mark on my blade.
-Acetone
-Vinegar
-Salt
-Container
-DC power source
-Nail polish
-Sharpie
-Blade
-Screw with tape wrapped around it
-Q-Tips
-Ruler

We'll start by painting a nice large area with a thin coat of nail polish. This clear but anything will work

The nail polish needs to be fully cured so while we're waiting we can mix up our Electolite solution.
Water, Vineagar and Salt then mix until the salt is dissolved

If you are patient you can wait for the polish to dry. I cured it with a heat gun on low setting. Now I've made some layout lines in sharpie

Now plan out your mark. I was concerned about having issues going too small but in retrospect could've easily gone quite a bit smaller which would be an improvement over what I've got. A fella would would be smart to practice his mark on something other than a blade to determine size and style etc.... I just went for it.

Now I'm using the screw as a scribe to scratch my stencil right out of the nail polish. It's pretty easy to do using a back and forth scratching motion. No need for hard pressure we just need to remove the polish and get to bare steel although it's not a big deal if we scratch up the steel as it will be etched anyways.

Complete scratching in your mark

Here's my power source set up to etch. This is an old cell phone charger which is 110 volt input and 5 volts DC output. To convert for etching cut off the end that plugs into the phone then seperate the two wires. Now strip the ends of both wires and attach aligator clips so we now have two "leads with clips" on one side and a plug on the other. There is no on/off switch so when it's plugged it's hot and when it's unplugged it not. Very simple. There also is no AC current so we will not be "darkening" our etch but ending up with a ghost etch.

Verifying the DC output of my charger for your comfort and mine. 4.99 volts as advertised

No old cell phone charger laying around ???? No problem, just substitute a 9v battery for your DC power supply

Yup, 9V as advertised.

One lead is positive and one is negative and it does matter which lead is connected to the blade and which to the Q-Tip. I've shined up a little area on the tang for a test.

You can see a little whitish halo but this is NOT an etch. This is what it looks like when the leads are backwards.

Now reverse the leads and try again.

All black and nasty looking. now we've got our leads correct and can etch the mark

This is the first etch on my "stencil" Notice it's all black looking inside the stencil which is what we're after.

To etch- fully saturate one side of the Q-Tip in your solution than dab it a paper towel to dry it out somewhat. Attatch the alligator clip and press against your stencil and hold for 15 seconds. No need to time it just count to 15 and then move on

Now move over so the Q-Tips placement barely overlaps the previous etch and hold 15 seconds. Repeat until your entire stencil area has been covered

Now blot the area dry with a scrap of paper towel and repeat the whole etching process a second time

The second go round

Clean all the nail polish off with Acetone. (Just FYI nail polish remover is acetone and whoever you "borrowed" the polish from probably has remover also) The Acetone removes the polish quite easily. Now we get a first look at our mark which is not darkened just cruddy for etching

I'm using some Gojo hand cleaner te get down into the etch and clean it out. Squirt some on the blade

Now just scrub it into the mark with your thumb to clean the crud out

Overbearing, tacky, and Flinstone-ish ? Sure but it's mine If someone wanted to purchase stencils they would get a FAR better result than this but that of course is not mandatory for marking your blade.

This completes the maker's mark step so we can move on to preparing for etching our blade. I clean my blade twice before etching. Once with Acetone and then with Windex

I'm going to etch in vinegar and I want the blade suspended in the vinegar so put these bolts and wingnuts in the tang to hold the blade up off the floor of my container

I'm using the same bread pan I quenched in for my etching tank. Just fill it enough to cover the blade completely.

Here she is after 1 hour in the vinegar. At this point I took the blade out and rinsed it with water and put it back for some more time in the vinegar

To be continued....


-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

Here she is still in the vinegar after an additional 2 hours.

A very quicky job of polishing off the oxides off the blade with some Gojo and an paper towel and we can see that I got a natural hamon of sorts running down the spine of the blade. With a 400 grit finish this is not going to show real clearly but it is nevertheless there and visible

-Josh

 

[Josh Dabney]

Beacuse I've got some differential hardening in my blade lets talk a little about that and where we go from here.

I don't think it's too important to dealve too deeply into this subject but will share my thoughts and experiences.

A 400 grit finish is a nice "working finish" for a knife intended to be used and not merely a collector piece or "safe queen". 400 grit is rough enough for a reasonable refurbish in the future if desired. Much beyond 400 and you'll have a real chore on your hands attempting to remove any scratches or blemishes from use. Also the finer the finish the more prone the blade will be to showing wear from use. It won't be any more difficult to scratch up the blade but those scratches will stick out like a sore thumb on a highly polished blade.

That all said though if you desire to polish your blade just continue the hand sanding routine up through the grits to your desired finish. A good grit progression is as follows-
80 (if needed)
120
220
400
600
800
1200
1500

Follow the polishing up by etching in vinegar just like we did here to bring out any details in the differentially hardened areas. After etching polishing the blade with Gojo will remove the oxides from the blade and reveal the details you may or may not have in your blade.

I'm going to be sticking with my 400 grit finish and moving on to handle work.

-Josh

 

[Derrick Phillips]

My thanks for all the details

from a beginner