Homemade skiving knife.

[PastorBob]

57 minutes ago, chuck123wapati said:

That's the problem with unknown steels. it depends on what type of steel you have so its hit and miss if you get a good temper. Most can be though with some experimentation on some scraps. you have to re-harden the blade, then temper it. you can get by with map gas on small blades if you can keep the steel at temp throughout the whole length of the cutting edge.

P.S. I made this at home, does it count lol. and my putty knife skiver was the inspiration.

 

Beautiful!  

[MarshalWill]

3 hours ago, chuck123wapati said:

That's the problem with unknown steels. it depends on what type of steel you have so its hit and miss if you get a good temper. Most can be though with some experimentation on some scraps. you have to re-harden the blade, then temper it. you can get by with map gas on small blades if you can keep the steel at temp throughout the whole length of the cutting edge.

P.S. I made this at home, does it count lol. and my putty knife skiver was the inspiration.

Good inspiration. LOL, all putty knives should look so good.

Good suggestion to experiment with pieces for heat treating. I've found that in a lot of cases old saw blades are made of better steel than new ones.

3 hours ago, chuck123wapati said:

That's the problem with unknown steels. it depends on what type of steel you have so its hit and miss if you get a good temper. Most can be though with some experimentation on some scraps. you have to re-harden the blade, then temper it. you can get by with map gas on small blades if you can keep the steel at temp throughout the whole length of the cutting edge.

P.S. I made this at home, does it count lol. and my putty knife skiver was the inspiration.

Good inspiration. LOL, all putty knives should look so good.

Good suggestion to experiment with pieces for heat treating. I've found that in a lot of cases old saw blades are made of better steel than new ones.

3 hours ago, chuck123wapati said:

That's the problem with unknown steels. it depends on what type of steel you have so its hit and miss if you get a good temper. Most can be though with some experimentation on some scraps. you have to re-harden the blade, then temper it. you can get by with map gas on small blades if you can keep the steel at temp throughout the whole length of the cutting edge.

P.S. I made this at home, does it count lol. and my putty knife skiver was the inspiration.

Good inspiration. LOL, all putty knives should look so good.

Good suggestion to experiment with pieces for heat treating. I've found that in a lot of cases old saw blades are made of better steel than new ones.

3 hours ago, chuck123wapati said:

That's the problem with unknown steels. it depends on what type of steel you have so its hit and miss if you get a good temper. Most can be though with some experimentation on some scraps. you have to re-harden the blade, then temper it. you can get by with map gas on small blades if you can keep the steel at temp throughout the whole length of the cutting edge.

P.S. I made this at home, does it count lol. and my putty knife skiver was the inspiration.

Good inspiration. LOL, all putty knives should look so good.

Good suggestion to experiment with pieces for heat treating. I've found that in a lot of cases old saw blades are made of better steel than new ones.

Oops. Sorry about the multiple taps. But then, it does hammer the message home. 

[dikman]

Messing with old steels is always going to be a bit hit or miss but fortunately most blades for leatherwork are on the small size so as Chuck said a MAP torch should usually be ok. I have a Bullfinch gas torch and it gets almost as hot as a MAP so is fine for small blades. A good starting point is a red-orange heat and then quench. Sometimes quenching in water, rather than oil, can give a harder steel but the danger is the shock from a water quench can warp or crack thin steel - happened to me on my last experiment.

And yes, the older saw blades are often better quality steel, although I bought a really cheap Chinese panel saw that couldn't cut a straight line but the steel appears to be plain carbon steel and it makes quite good little blades, so it turned out to be good for something after all.