Alex Middleton

So far I'm happy with them. Time will tell as to how well they hold up. The nice thing about ordering from a place like PTS is the large selection of profiles and cuts and being able to order exactly what you want without having to buy an entire set. Plus, now that i have an account setup, I can have my orders set for in store pickup and I can swing by the local store on my way home from work. No shipping costs! I have to say, even though Alan has posted countless times about the benefits of drawfiling, I was still surprised at how quickly i was able to even out my inadequacies from the belt grinder. I easily saved myself 2-3 hours of tedious hand sanding.

I got 8 Simonds files, in a range of sizes and cuts from the 14" flat bastard to a 6" half round fine cut. I didnt get everything I wanted, but hopefully enough to cover most everything for now. I also bought a cheaper 12 pc. set of bastard cut needle files. Someday I'll get a good set of Swiss pattern files, but holy hell can they get expensive. At least these ones are straight and have all of the teeth on them. That's more than I can say for the ones from HF! Lol

I got my order of files from Production Tool today. What a difference quality tools make over the Harbor Freight junk I had before. Instead of taking hours to flatten out imperfections from the grinder using hard backed sandpaper, 10 minutes drawfiling with a 14" bastard and everything is flat and true. Talk about a game changer!

Great job!

I like this one a lot. Any special method to the texturing on the brass? Or just a ton of light blows with a small ballpein?

Nicely done Connor!

It worked! I spent a few minutes cleaning up forge scale and getting a really rough start on the bevels, the I couldn't wait anymore and dunked it in the HCl for 15 minutes. Lo and behold, there's definitely some contrast between the layers. I'm not sure if I'm going to finish this one out or not. It was supposed to end up as a chef's knife, but I didn't draw the bevels down far enough. I guess i could maybe reprofile it into something else. Either way, I'm totally geeked that the forge welds actually worked!

Cheater! Just kidding. There's always more than one way to get the job done. Being a Solidworks designer with a past history of CAM programming I can appreciate the amount of work that you put in to designing and machining that out. A couple of tips for your next one; Do the bulk of your hand sanding, out to 400 grit or so, before hardening. It's way easier to sand on "soft" metal. As long as everything stays straight during heat treat you'll be way farther ahead. Along with that, use a hard backer for your sandpaper. I have something similar to this (https://www.amazon.com/3M-05519-Sanding-Block-Rubber/dp/B002MDHECA) that I epoxied a piece of steel to. It will help to keep your edges and your transition lines nice and crisp and I think it helps to speed things up as well. Welcome to the madness!

I'm in. Shooting for a lockback folder. 1. Conner Michaux 2. Bruno 3. Brian Dougherty 4. Alex Middleton

Thanks for the heads up Brian. I did this one to see if I could successfully pull off a forge weld (my first one ever). The billet seemed to be right and tight so I forged it out into a blade shaped object. Getting any contrast at all between the layers will be an added bonus. I didn't get a chance for any shop time yesterday (my sister-in-law decided that her birthday party was more important than my hobbies) but hopefully I'll be able to get on the grinder sometime this week and see if anything shows up. Something tells me that moving away from salvaged metal and ordering some 1084 and 15n20 is in my near future.

I'd be all for that as well. I'm going to try a folder too, but it would be nice to have something to fall back on and still participate with if time/skill level/patience don't allow me to complete it.

Thanks for the help guys. I just forged out my first multilayer knife, I'm going to be rough grinding on it tomorrow and I'm pretty excited to see if the layers will show up at all. Given that it is just pallet banding layered with 1095 shim stock, there probably won't be any contrast, but you never know until you try! Dave, thanks for the detailed response. If I see any contrast with the HCl I'll pick up some ferric and use your method when I finish the blade.

Awesome Zeb!

I know that most of you guys use Ferric Chloride for etching patterns. Will HCl work as well, or is it too aggressive? Also, roughly how long should you leave it in the acid when etching?

I got lucky and found a 2"x2"x12" block at Woodcraft early last year. I glance at it whenever I go in there because i really like using it. Sometimes they have it, sometimes they don't.