Search results

Hi Again! I recently made a trip to the nearby metal scrapyard to just buy a forklift tine, some structural steel, and bought some plate while I was at it. But I noticed that one of the big plates I bought is significantly harder to grind. And I absolutely can not drill through it. I know...

I'm definitely going to experiment, and not do everything in one go. If my crude heat treating isn't working, I can always switch over to 15N20 and have someone do the AEBL proper.

Softer and springier than a knife. But you guessed right. Not a knife. 15N20 is an option for the same project. I've had great success with it in my kitchen knives. But given the price I'd have to charge to make any money on the project, I want to make it as fool proof and easy for the...

Cool still in the packet? Cool in oil? With air? Thanks for the answers, guys. I know I'm being a bit nebulous with what I'm doing and why, but I'm trying something new. Don't know if it'll work, or if I could even sell it for a reasonable price. But if it does work, and people buy it, I...

Hi again! I'm looking to fancy up my work. I've done 2 cu-mai (one failed, one stuck), but I was looking for something a little more food friendly. Hopefully for kitchen knives. Nickel sheets are expensive, but I came across Cupronickel. Mostly copper, but some nickel, shows up shiny and...

Hi again! I've got a project coming up where I'll be heat treating thin (~1/16") AEBL. But I'll be doing it in a propane forge. Now, I don't need ultra-hard heat treatment, or cryogenic treatment. In fact, I'll be tempering pretty soft and springy. But heat treating it rather straight is a...

He's worried about bacteria collecting in the handle. Like I said, I tried to convince him it wasn't a problem, or we could switch to other material types, but here we are. I'll try polyurethane.

Hi again! I usually use Danish Oil on all of my wooden handles. Sometimes if I don't want them to darken too much I'll use tung oil, like on blackwoods or other very dark stuff. But I've got a commission from a chef for 2 knives, and he specifically requested a seal coat on the handle. I...

It's my take on the classic 1970's windsurfing logo. I have a bad habit of picking up expensive, dangerous and very difficult to learn hobbies. Putting that logo on my knives shows that you can really fly if you keep at it. I also got the same symbol on an award from a sailing camp. They...

You're both wrong. It's obviously the international symbol for the Olympic High Dive.

My mark is getting very popular at the local craft fairs where I do the vast majority of my sales. I've even had a few people ID what it is without me prompting them. Plus now you'll remember it forever, too. First try with the new electrolyte and neutralizer and it went great! The...

What I mean is that if I clean up around the mark immediately after I etch it, the stain will come back in the next day or 2. If I wait a few days and then clean it up, then it's fine. But like I said. I ordered some official electrolyte and neutralizer. I'll try that once it gets here for...

Most of the time I only tape on one side with electrical tape and pull it flat. Then I often check under the stencil and wipe away extra fluid and such.

Neutralyzer. I'll try that. Ordered some proper etching fluid while I was at it. Thanks!

Hi again! Thanks for the help on the last problem. It seems that thinking annealing the knife was a better substitute for normalizing did cause the cracking problems. This next problem I have had for a while. (Sorry if this is the wrong section.) I electro etch my knife using a home made...

Ok, I sometimes (now) do one normalizing cycle immediately after forging. But I can't remember when I really stopped doing that and started the annealing, vs. when the cracking began. This has been happening over several months and I'm only trying to add it up in retrospect. I knew that...

Hi there! I'm new to this forum, but I've been forging knives for about 2 years, and blacksmithing about 6 months longer than that. I've been selling my knives for just over a year. But recently I've been having a lot of problems with my knives cracking. Not all of them, but enough that...