I made a half head knife.

[dikman]

I've made a couple of head knives from a circular saw blade and while they work they're fairly big (plus I need to grind the bevels down a bit more). So I thought "why not make a smaller half head knife?". A guy on youtube called Red Beard made one and kindly made the pattern available so I pinched it. Looking around for a bit of steel I found a panel saw I'd bought for $2 but it wouldn't cut straight and I couldn't be bothered resetting and sharpening the teeth so I just hung it in the forge. I tried a centre punch on it, which it promptly blunted! Hmm, might have possibilities. I made an assumption that the Chinese factory would likely have used a simple carbon steel, with no differential hardening for the teeth, to make it cheaply. So I cut a little piece off annealed it and then heated it to non-magnetic and quenched in water. Bingo, the file skated across it, looked like I was on a winner. I cut the shape out with an angle grinder, annealed it and ground to shape on the belt grinder, then heated and quenched in oil. To temper it I ran a gas torch carefully along the edge to just get a tinge of colour, good enough for this experiment.

The deer antler proved problematic as when I started grinding it became apparent there was going to be a lot of pith showing. At that point I decided not try and make it perfect, just functional. I wanted it to rest against the palm of the hand so that ruled out fitting an end cap. The blade was carefully sharpened on the belt grinder, then a paper wheel and finally a strop. I have some leather from an old saddle so it's dirty and stiff but it cut it without too much trouble and breezed through softer veg tan.

There's still quite a bit of the saw left so I might have another go once I can figure out how to better utilise the antler that I have.

Edited 3 hours ago by dikman
gramma

[DieselTech]

Looks great. Nice craftsmanship.

[Gezzer]

That looks like it would fit the hand VERY NICELY !!!!!!!!!!!