Knife bent

O

Oldquacker

Member
I have a question before I go any farther. I just cut the profile out of my very first knife ever. I noticed that it is not perfectly flat / straight if you understand what I'm saying. If you turn it on end and look down the spine from one end to the other there is a slight curve to it. :sad:

My question is do I want to correct this now before I go any farther removing material or deal with it later?
 
Oldquacker said:
I have a question before I go any farther. I just cut the profile out of my very first knife ever. I noticed that it is not perfectly flat / straight if you understand what I'm saying. If you turn it on end and look down the spine from one end to the other there is a slight curve to it. :sad:

My question is do I want to correct this now before I go any farther removing material or deal with it later?
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Well, brand new member here so take this for what it's worth. When you say slight curve from one end to the other, are you saying from left to right or back to front? What I try to do is get everything square before I go any further. After profiling the knife, square everything up to start out with a good foundation and then go from there.
Hope this helps man!
 
I think you need to fix the bend before going any farther or you will have a hard time getting the grind lines to match. The best way is to heat up the blade to just when you start seeing a dark red color then it will straighten it up using 3 pieces of pipe or just clamping it in a vise until it cools and it should hold straight when you heat treat it. The other way it to just straighten it cold if not yet heat treated, then its a crap shoot whether the bend will show up again when you heat treat it.
 
Slightly warped steel bar is not uncommon so learning how to straighten it is a necessary skill to learn. I've use the three bars in a vice system or just taking it out to the anvil and using my wooden maul to tap it straight before I harden the blade and I agree with Barry that you should do this before grinding. After hardening I clamp the blade to some angle iron with pennies to shim the blade with to create a counter bend and then repeat a tempering cycle. Do not do this with an untempered blade or you could risk snapping it. You might also have to repeat this step with to increase the counter bend by adding more pennies. One blade I had to shim with three pennies. I really worried about breaking the blade with that much of a bend even though it had been through three tempering cycles already but it's a risk that has to be taken.

Doug
 
I think there are a couple of tutorials on this in the tutorial forum. It's not an uncommon thing
 
Just do as Doug said. Straighten with a wood mallet, or most often you can bend it straight with your hands. Unless it is very radical there will be no harm done. On a tempered blade, I have used the Moran method for many years. Heat the spine in the area of the bend to a blue heat, over bend it a little past straight, hold that position and pour water over it. Repeat if needed. Easily done, and it works fine.
 
just me but wen I have cut the profile & then find a bend ill anneal then flatten the blade the anneal makes working it ezy
 
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