davesharps

Oh and bonus question. How much time do you spend on the belt grinder doing cleanup work?

Hey guys and gals! I've been trying my hand at a stick tang knife and am starting with a 6x1x1/4in piece of 5160. The overall shape will be pretty basic with the addition of a nice finger choil. Would the order of operations be, 1 establish shoulders for the tang, 2 taper tang, 3 establish choil, 4 establish tip, 5 create bevels? Or is there a different way to do this? More importantly, what are the ideal dimensions for a tang, the edge, and the shoulders? Also what's the bare minimum you can get away with?

Hey! I wanted to make a weighty knife for hacking up stuff around the campsite, butchering, and general food prep. So I grabbed some 1/4" 5160, mosaic pins, and desert ironwood and made this guy! It'll be going to a friend if mine as a gift, but I think I'm finally at a point where I'd be comfortable with selling my work. I also just got access to some awesome shop equipment, so expect to see some more work from me in the coming weeks! Cheers! Dave

Hey y'all! I'm thinking about picking up some more quenchant but I'm not sure what the best way to contain it would be.I was thinking of using blackpipe but I don't know how watertight you could get it while also keeping it heat resistant. Additionally, does anyone know of some good storage methods for etchant (ferric chloride)? Would PVC with a sealant work? Thanks! Dave

sorry that for some reason it posted this thread twice

To preface i want it known that yes i am aware of parks 50 being the ideal quenchent for simple steels however im trying to get a few knives done before next week as they are for a school project so im on a time constraint as far as getting a batch of parks 50 and also my budget will not allow that at the moment. So i am moving my attention towards oils available in grocery stores i know canola oil is a favorite among many however next to a bottle of canola i noticed a bottle of this grape seed oil. i sloshed both around to see how they compare in terms of viscosity and it appears that grape seed oil is much thiner and was close to what i remember parks looking like (i had a 5 gal thing of it but it was very sadly tossed in a move still calling myself stupid for that one but oh well to late now) Looking on the back of the bottle it said that it was ok to work with up to 425 degrees which is fairly close to the working range of canola. Would grapeseed oil work better than canola as it is a thinner liquid? my thinking is that thinner fluids allow for a faster extraction of heat because the molecules are much more free to move around but that might be complete bs.

lol was just designing a bird house

wow...how?

i am not at alll saying that 3d printing would be a way to make final blades, wayyy too many issues with metalurgy there. but i was thinking design a mock up knife, forge the blade to exact dimensions then print out a handle all in one piece, perhaps instead of hand making the fittings, or doing a combination of the two. Think about replacing any wood sections of the handle with abs, or perhaps just the hilt and i think doing a sheath would be great! just think about how much thinner it could be, and you could even use it to accent pieces or make plastic fittings. All just food for thought.

thats crazy to me that a complete hammer head can be made in one heat, maybe i havent forged enough with fun toys like power hammers but that absurd.

also what kind of cnc work did you do? I am literally sitting in a cnc fabrication class at this very moment

i think it has ample ground for experementing, from my perspective bladesmithing is all about the steel aspect of things, and given the fact that for the vast majority of history black smiths and blade smiths were at the forefront of their days techology why not carry that forword. Merge the historical with the super new and push this art into new places, i mean why not make a guard that is impossible to craft by hand, or something else, idk.

you just blew my mind, are you suggesting laying your blade on the bed, and then have it print and weld to the blade at the same time? as in place in a tray hit print and when you return you now have a detailed print welded to the blade?

there is a 3d printer called form one that just came out, costs around 2 grand and can get this high resulution http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0183/2285/files/slideshow-1-4.jpg?2161 , and im pretty sure you can do a lost wax cast of the actual printed plastic, what im curious about is using it to print off a handle, its a wierd and cool look that is fairly durable (abs plastic is what they use for leggos) also this is from another 3d printer called the makerbot replicator 2 http://i1152.photobucket.com/albums/p495/neutron257/CEE46E2F-8D8B-499B-9A1D-CEF38004C14C-31081-0000039FD2ABBDA5_zpsd97bc516.jpg again its in the 2 grand range, which is dirt cheap compaired to 5 years ago where 10-100 grand was the cheapest and you wouldnt even come close to the same resulution and the machines were the size of a refrigerator. Also you can ship designs to shapeways and get them printed in metal (costs a bit but saves you the trouble of casting) as far as the dificulty of it to learn, there are many different programs to use some less annoying than others and just like anything else, depends on how much time you put into it and how quickly you learn. 3d printers from my understanding use .stl files, so any program that can save as that should work. I personally use solidworks and that works amazingly, ive only printed one thing out so far but from my experience it was quick and painless. (took like a day but it was a school printer where they group print jobs together)

Hey so im in school for industrial design and ive gotten to play around with a 3d printer a little bit but i was wondering, has anyone here utilized this new technology for their blades? is this too high tech and crazy to even bother with? here is a brief video on 3d printing for those who are not sure about what it is Anyway let me know what you think. Also as a side note how do you become an apprentice member of the abs? or is that a discussion for another place?