Mike Stafford
Member
- Messages
- 2,359
- Location
- Coastal plain of North Carolina
I have long been a fan of knives and have a modest collection that I have accumulated over many years. When I say modest, I mean modest in that I have a few dozen knives in my collection. Many are knives of sentimental value more than anything. I have a few limited-edition knives but most are knives from relatives and friends who contributed because they knew I had a collection.
Over the years that I attended and taught classes at John C. Campbell Folk School I had the opportunity to visit the blacksmith shops many times and see the process of forging steel. Unfortunately, I never bit the bullet and took a class. I wish I had. I always wanted to make a knife from a railroad spike. This was a frequent project that I admired during show and tell at week’s end.
When I first stumbled upon the TV show Forged in Fire I was absolutely intrigued. Watching these craftsmen take lumps of steel and turn them into useable tools fascinated me. I wanted desperately to make a knife from scratch but with my limitations at this point it would be impossible for me to pound away at some steel on an anvil for a week.
I had bought knife blanks in the past that were pre-shaped and pre-ground and only required the attachment of scales and touch up sharpening. That was not knife making to me. So, I lived vicariously watching the show and various videos on YouTube.
It was on YouTube that I stumbled across several really detailed instructional videos on how to make perfectly acceptable knives from old circular saw blades. And guess which pack rat happens to have a big stack of old saw blades? This pack rat, that’s who. I have probably 30 or more old 10” and 12” blades and even a couple of 14” saw blades. Most of these blades are from the days before carbide teeth. At first, I was concerned about the thickness of the plate used for the body of these saw blades but after measuring I discovered that most were thicker than the kitchen knives I had in use. The plate on my saw blades ran from slightly over .100” to .131
So, I started really watching these videos, taking notes and accumulating the tools I might need to start making a blade or two. Gradually I bought some cutting wheels, additional grinding wheels, sanding disks and backup pad for my 4 ½” portable grinder, files, belts more suitable for removing metal for my 1x42 grinder. I had an old 6”x48” belt sander and I figured I could use it to clean up the steel and perhaps even grind the blade bevels. Well, that old sander had another idea and it started smoking shortly after firing it up for the first time in more than 20 years. I decided that it would be best to find something that would not burn down the shop.
I was able to get a few bricks for a makeshift forge to heat treat my knife blanks, and a hair dryer to act as a “hurry up” to raise the temperature of the charcoal I was going to use in my forge. I also bought a new paint can in which to store my quenching oil which came from a 5 gallon can of used motor oil I had saved from mower oil changes. Like I said, I don’t throw away anything. Last but not least I bought a toaster oven for $22 from Walmart. Nothing but the best for my knife making endeavors.
Altogether I had perhaps $100 in my knife making equipment.
I was ready to make a knife from a saw blade. The things I didn’t know reared their ugly heads throughout my misadventures but I persisted.
One of the videos I watched was the making of a “deboxing” knife from a saw blade. I decided to try and make one because of its shape. It had double edges, one straight and one convex which would require me to create 4 bevels. (Trust me that was a problem!) And it had a lot of concave cutouts in the handle that I thought would be challenging to figure out a way to cut. I drew a reasonable facsimile of this “deboxing” knife and glued it to some card stock. I cut the pattern out and used it to trace around to get the design onto my saw blade. Now all that I had to do was cut the blank out.
First of all, I have never used a cutting wheel on my grinder. That was a completely new experience and skill set. When the craftsmen in the videos cut out their blades, they made it look easy. Like everything else there is a learning curve associated with any skill.
After mounting the blade vertically in a vise, I managed to cut out the blade and remove most of the waste from the areas around the blade edges. (Under the vise I placed a bucket of water to catch all the sparks and grinding dust. This I learned from the videos.) Then I had to nibble away the waste steel in the concave areas of the handle. Well, that was an adventure and when I was done there were lots of jagged edges that had to be smoothed.
To clean those edges up I built a fixture from some 2X and plywood scrap I had to mount my 4 ½” grinder so that the grinding wheel would be vertical. I used some large hose clamps screwed to the plywood to hold the grinder in place. I locked my grinder in place and mounted the fixture in a vise. I turned on the grinder and locked the switch and proceeded to nibble away the waste to the line I had drawn on the blank. This worked incredibly well as I could nibble away the rough edges right down to my pattern lines in a very controlled manner. Once I had nibbled as much as I wanted, I used a drum sander mounted in my Foredom handpiece to just polish the concave curves smooth.
With the blank shaped it was now time to grind the bevels. I used dividers to scratch out equal bevels on both the convex and straight sides of the blade. Grinding those bevels was an entirely different matter as I had never done anything quite like that either. I was relegated to using my 1X42 strip sander. I don’t think I could have picked anything more difficult to use but I did a fair job and I figured I could clean up the irregularities when I polished the blade.
Now it was time to heat treat the blade. That turned out to be a fiasco. I should never have ground the bevels before heat treating this thin steel. It took no time at all to burn up the edges in my super-hot charcoal fire.
So, I had to repeat the entire process with a new blank, cutting it out, smoothing the edges, etc. etc. etc.
This time the heat treating went much better but I learned to pay very close attention as steel this thin reaches the critical temperature (cherry red) very quickly. I checked the steel frequently with a magnet because when the steel was no longer magnetic I had reached 1345° F. Once that was verified, I let the steel get a little bit hotter i.e. more red and quenched it in used motor oil. The critical temperature is 1475° F but I didn’t have any way of measuring that.
(By the way, I cannot believe how hot that charcoal fire got with the flames being fanned by my hair dryer. Supposedly the charcoal contained by these bricks and fanned with the hair dryer can reach 2500° F. It hurt to look at the fire and heavy gloves were needed to protect my hands from the intense heat when I used vise grips to take the blank out of the fire.)
Once the steel was cool, I used a file to see if it was hardened. The file skated (more or less) on the blade section of the blank. I did not put the handle section in the fire completely so it was hard but not as hard as the blade.
Next came the tempering process. According to the experts the steel coming out of the fire is too brittle and it must be tempered. To do this I used my $22 toaster oven and heated up the blade to 400° F and held it at that temperature for an hour. I repeated that process a second time. (By the way, it is a good idea to clean off all the used motor oil very thoroughly before tempering. It really stinks at 400 degrees.)
With my hardened and tempered blade blank in hand I then used dividers to scratch equal bevel lines on all faces of the edges. To make the lines more visible I used a felt tip marker to paint the blade so that the scratches would show up.
Then I started grinding the bevels. This was a painfully slow process with only 1” wide belt but you gotta do with what you have.
After I was satisfied with the bevels, I polished the blades using wet dry silicon carbide paper starting at 80 grit and going through 600. The polishing process made the bevels less distinct as you will see in the photos.
With the bevels formed I wrapped the blade with painter’s tape and moved on to handling the knife. I thoroughly cleaned the steel with mineral spirits and alcohol before attaching the wooden scales. I drilled holes for brass pins, shaped the scales and glued it all together with epoxy. I used a ton of small clamps.
Once the glue was cured (I let it stay clamped for 2 days) I removed the clamps and cleaned up and shaped the wood to where it was comfortable in hand. Then I removed the tape from the blade and sharpened both edges of the blade with my Worksharp.
As you can see in the picture, I ended up with an ugly knife but I learned so much from creating something this convoluted in shape. It was a lot of hard work but I enjoyed learning some new skills. I improved with each knife I made. I made 12 in all which I will post. I beg for your indulgence as I share this experience with you. I hope you guys don’t laugh too much.
I give you my “deboxing” knife, about 8 ½” long, double beveled and it works perfectly for opening those Amazon boxes that seem to find their way into my shop. The steel seems to hold its edge pretty well and it certainly is sharp. I will keep this first knife in my shop.
Thanks for reading this long and boring treatise.
Over the years that I attended and taught classes at John C. Campbell Folk School I had the opportunity to visit the blacksmith shops many times and see the process of forging steel. Unfortunately, I never bit the bullet and took a class. I wish I had. I always wanted to make a knife from a railroad spike. This was a frequent project that I admired during show and tell at week’s end.
When I first stumbled upon the TV show Forged in Fire I was absolutely intrigued. Watching these craftsmen take lumps of steel and turn them into useable tools fascinated me. I wanted desperately to make a knife from scratch but with my limitations at this point it would be impossible for me to pound away at some steel on an anvil for a week.
I had bought knife blanks in the past that were pre-shaped and pre-ground and only required the attachment of scales and touch up sharpening. That was not knife making to me. So, I lived vicariously watching the show and various videos on YouTube.
It was on YouTube that I stumbled across several really detailed instructional videos on how to make perfectly acceptable knives from old circular saw blades. And guess which pack rat happens to have a big stack of old saw blades? This pack rat, that’s who. I have probably 30 or more old 10” and 12” blades and even a couple of 14” saw blades. Most of these blades are from the days before carbide teeth. At first, I was concerned about the thickness of the plate used for the body of these saw blades but after measuring I discovered that most were thicker than the kitchen knives I had in use. The plate on my saw blades ran from slightly over .100” to .131
So, I started really watching these videos, taking notes and accumulating the tools I might need to start making a blade or two. Gradually I bought some cutting wheels, additional grinding wheels, sanding disks and backup pad for my 4 ½” portable grinder, files, belts more suitable for removing metal for my 1x42 grinder. I had an old 6”x48” belt sander and I figured I could use it to clean up the steel and perhaps even grind the blade bevels. Well, that old sander had another idea and it started smoking shortly after firing it up for the first time in more than 20 years. I decided that it would be best to find something that would not burn down the shop.
I was able to get a few bricks for a makeshift forge to heat treat my knife blanks, and a hair dryer to act as a “hurry up” to raise the temperature of the charcoal I was going to use in my forge. I also bought a new paint can in which to store my quenching oil which came from a 5 gallon can of used motor oil I had saved from mower oil changes. Like I said, I don’t throw away anything. Last but not least I bought a toaster oven for $22 from Walmart. Nothing but the best for my knife making endeavors.
Altogether I had perhaps $100 in my knife making equipment.
I was ready to make a knife from a saw blade. The things I didn’t know reared their ugly heads throughout my misadventures but I persisted.
One of the videos I watched was the making of a “deboxing” knife from a saw blade. I decided to try and make one because of its shape. It had double edges, one straight and one convex which would require me to create 4 bevels. (Trust me that was a problem!) And it had a lot of concave cutouts in the handle that I thought would be challenging to figure out a way to cut. I drew a reasonable facsimile of this “deboxing” knife and glued it to some card stock. I cut the pattern out and used it to trace around to get the design onto my saw blade. Now all that I had to do was cut the blank out.
First of all, I have never used a cutting wheel on my grinder. That was a completely new experience and skill set. When the craftsmen in the videos cut out their blades, they made it look easy. Like everything else there is a learning curve associated with any skill.
After mounting the blade vertically in a vise, I managed to cut out the blade and remove most of the waste from the areas around the blade edges. (Under the vise I placed a bucket of water to catch all the sparks and grinding dust. This I learned from the videos.) Then I had to nibble away the waste steel in the concave areas of the handle. Well, that was an adventure and when I was done there were lots of jagged edges that had to be smoothed.
To clean those edges up I built a fixture from some 2X and plywood scrap I had to mount my 4 ½” grinder so that the grinding wheel would be vertical. I used some large hose clamps screwed to the plywood to hold the grinder in place. I locked my grinder in place and mounted the fixture in a vise. I turned on the grinder and locked the switch and proceeded to nibble away the waste to the line I had drawn on the blank. This worked incredibly well as I could nibble away the rough edges right down to my pattern lines in a very controlled manner. Once I had nibbled as much as I wanted, I used a drum sander mounted in my Foredom handpiece to just polish the concave curves smooth.
With the blank shaped it was now time to grind the bevels. I used dividers to scratch out equal bevels on both the convex and straight sides of the blade. Grinding those bevels was an entirely different matter as I had never done anything quite like that either. I was relegated to using my 1X42 strip sander. I don’t think I could have picked anything more difficult to use but I did a fair job and I figured I could clean up the irregularities when I polished the blade.
Now it was time to heat treat the blade. That turned out to be a fiasco. I should never have ground the bevels before heat treating this thin steel. It took no time at all to burn up the edges in my super-hot charcoal fire.
So, I had to repeat the entire process with a new blank, cutting it out, smoothing the edges, etc. etc. etc.
This time the heat treating went much better but I learned to pay very close attention as steel this thin reaches the critical temperature (cherry red) very quickly. I checked the steel frequently with a magnet because when the steel was no longer magnetic I had reached 1345° F. Once that was verified, I let the steel get a little bit hotter i.e. more red and quenched it in used motor oil. The critical temperature is 1475° F but I didn’t have any way of measuring that.
(By the way, I cannot believe how hot that charcoal fire got with the flames being fanned by my hair dryer. Supposedly the charcoal contained by these bricks and fanned with the hair dryer can reach 2500° F. It hurt to look at the fire and heavy gloves were needed to protect my hands from the intense heat when I used vise grips to take the blank out of the fire.)
Once the steel was cool, I used a file to see if it was hardened. The file skated (more or less) on the blade section of the blank. I did not put the handle section in the fire completely so it was hard but not as hard as the blade.
Next came the tempering process. According to the experts the steel coming out of the fire is too brittle and it must be tempered. To do this I used my $22 toaster oven and heated up the blade to 400° F and held it at that temperature for an hour. I repeated that process a second time. (By the way, it is a good idea to clean off all the used motor oil very thoroughly before tempering. It really stinks at 400 degrees.)
With my hardened and tempered blade blank in hand I then used dividers to scratch equal bevel lines on all faces of the edges. To make the lines more visible I used a felt tip marker to paint the blade so that the scratches would show up.
Then I started grinding the bevels. This was a painfully slow process with only 1” wide belt but you gotta do with what you have.
After I was satisfied with the bevels, I polished the blades using wet dry silicon carbide paper starting at 80 grit and going through 600. The polishing process made the bevels less distinct as you will see in the photos.
With the bevels formed I wrapped the blade with painter’s tape and moved on to handling the knife. I thoroughly cleaned the steel with mineral spirits and alcohol before attaching the wooden scales. I drilled holes for brass pins, shaped the scales and glued it all together with epoxy. I used a ton of small clamps.
Once the glue was cured (I let it stay clamped for 2 days) I removed the clamps and cleaned up and shaped the wood to where it was comfortable in hand. Then I removed the tape from the blade and sharpened both edges of the blade with my Worksharp.
As you can see in the picture, I ended up with an ugly knife but I learned so much from creating something this convoluted in shape. It was a lot of hard work but I enjoyed learning some new skills. I improved with each knife I made. I made 12 in all which I will post. I beg for your indulgence as I share this experience with you. I hope you guys don’t laugh too much.
I give you my “deboxing” knife, about 8 ½” long, double beveled and it works perfectly for opening those Amazon boxes that seem to find their way into my shop. The steel seems to hold its edge pretty well and it certainly is sharp. I will keep this first knife in my shop.
Thanks for reading this long and boring treatise.
And thanks for documenting your process do well 
