Anyone play with making knives or hatchets??

[2004LB7]

Look up "cold brine quench" for mild steel, it may help a little bit on what you have.

You won't see any meaningful hardness with mild steel. Carbon content ideally should be at least 0.70%

Salt water (brine) quench works for the lower carbon steels with something like 0.40% or more

Mild steel only has about 0.25% carbon. Even if you could cool it fast enough, there is not enough carbon to make the right grain structure for the steel to harden

 

[2004LB7]

Wonder how a piece of A2 tool steel or O1 tool steel would work if you hardened it? We make some parts here out of those 2 materials, some we send out for case hardening and some we do ourselves with a torch, a fire brick and oil or air depending on if it's A or O. You got me wanting to make one now, lol.

O1 is a good steel. Can be made tough for large blades pr harder for small ones.

A2 is good for smaller blades but is a little bit brittle for the larger stuff at any hardness useful enough for holding an edge. Also rusts a little too easily

 

[Mike L.]

I gave Rick a piece of my mind today.:toetap::hug:

 

[RickDLance]

Yes you did and I enjoyed it!!:hug:

I love taking a break from the diesel stuff every now and then to talk about something else.

 

[RickDLance]

Got me a nice chunk of D2 in. Damn this stuff is pricey. Now I see why leaf springs are so popular for this.

 

[2004LB7]

How do yoou plan on heat treating your D2? I send out the more difficult to heat treat steels but heat treat 5160 at home

 

[RickDLance]

We use a company in Kansas City for our bending dies. I think that I am going to be picky about just having the cutting surface treated. Not sure if they can do that or not.

My theory is that by leaving the rest soft it will be a little more forgiving on the hand when used. The whole thing hardened may mandate a handle to absorb the vibrations.

 

[2004LB7]

I think handle vibrations come more from the shape and design more then the hardness of the steel.

Look up point of percussion and nodal points and harmonics of swords.

Axe shaps are quite easy on handle vibration as the weight on the end dampens the vibration some.

Shorter blades and less overall length help with it too

 

[2004LB7]

finished up another machete today then broke a nice half moon chunk out of it while cutting some branches in my backyard.

may cut it down to a smaller one. i drew some lines on the last photo. not sure how visible they are. this is what i am thinking

I really liked this one as it was light with a full flat grind with a small secondary bevel so it cut nicely without being to tiring. i am sure it was a little on the hard side after tempering it and should have bumped the temp up a little more but went with it anyways. well you live and learn

time to make another

 

[oscyjack]

I just discovered that show it's cool

 

[2004LB7]

Show? forged in fire?

well i cut it down, but it didn't last long. more large chips breaking out of the cutting edge. I know now that it was a heat treatment issue and not a one off flaw in the steel. so i stuck it into a large branch and broke the end off to get a better look at the grain of the steel. looks a little to grainy to me. probably too high quench temp. was quenching it at 1550* which should be fine. well now i have some test pieces i can re-harden and check the grain on

 

[catmenace]

I saw this guy making a knife out of a saw blade as be.ow link:

https://www.facebook.com/KnifeManiacs/videos/vb.200977063663666/294059824355389/?type=2&theater

 

[jlawles2]

1550º is where you get hardness (and unfortunately brittleness), you need to temper it to get the ductility back into it. May have to do a localized hardening to get the edge where you want it.

 

[2004LB7]

i did temper it. 375* for 1 hour 4 times then. the edge was still to brittle and chipped on the brass rod test. tempered it again at 400* for 2 hours twice. cutting edge flexed and didn't chip.

this was made out of leaf spring so i assumed it was 5160 but may be something like 1080 or 1084 steel. For 5160 steel 1525* is supposed to be the correct temp for hardening. grain growth is not supposed to happen until 1600 and above so 1550* should be ok.

i did a triple quench, 1575/1550/1550 to try and refine the grain. did this on my last one that was from a known good piece of 5160 and it was tough and held a good edge.

now if this was actually 1080 steel then 1550* is on the upper end of the hardening range so maybe that is why it didn't reduce the grain. since i still have the pieces i will try some additional hardening at lower temps and brake them to see what the grain looks like. if it reduces at lower temps than it is likely 1080

 

[2004LB7]

More than a year ago I had one break on me while straightening it after quenching but took too long and it snapped right at the handle. grain was nice and small. took the main blade piece and cut it down, reground it to a large camp knife. reprofiled it with lots of dunks in water to keep it cool so i wouldn't have to re-heat treat it. that thing turned out to be one tough son of a b!t(h. batoning through logs, throwing it into wood, chopping, etc. and it has held up nicely.

here are some photos, same knife as one above

 

[2004LB7]

I remade it :happy2:

this one i think will stand up to much more abuse

attached photos

 

[2004LB7]

Going to bump this back up again to show my latest project

Made from CPM-3V. Really tough even at 60Hrc

Have to ship them out to Peter's Heat treatment because my oven doesn't get hot enough (1950* minimum needed) to properly harden it

Got it cut out, profiled and bevels gound in. Made two smaller knifes from the extra length and offcuts

I am going to use micarta for the large chopper but I'm not sure if I want to do the same for the knifes or use some wood. I dont have a good selection of good wood near me so if I do it would have to be something simple like hickory or fruitless mulberry which I can cut from my front yard trees during pruning. Still debating. What do you think?

I'll update again when I get them back from heat treatment and throw the handles on and finish them up

 

[RickDLance]

Very nice! On the wood I think it wood be cool to use the wood from your property.

 

[slowlml]

Going to bump this back up again to show my latest project

Made from CPM-3V. Really tough even at 60Hrc

Have to ship them out to Peter's Heat treatment because my oven doesn't get hot enough (1950* minimum needed) to properly harden it

Got it cut out, profiled and bevels gound in. Made two smaller knifes from the extra length and offcuts

I am going to use micarta for the large chopper but I'm not sure if I want to do the same for the knifes or use some wood. I dont have a good selection of good wood near me so if I do it would have to be something simple like hickory or fruitless mulberry which I can cut from my front yard trees during pruning. Still debating. What do you think?

I'll update again when I get them back from heat treatment and throw the handles on and finish them up

Those are awesome looking. The small one on the bottom is my favorite.

 

[SmokeShow]

I'm really digging the skinning knife styled one! Curious to see how it turns out. And definitely do wooden handles out of wood from your own place. Too cool! :cool2: