Head Knife....i Want To Make One

[Les No6]

DangerDan isright 1080 makes very a good knife the old knives are made from hot forged (hot rolled sheet) 1080 or simular including leather knives and cut throat razors, if you are making a knife for cost reasons don't bother once you factor in the cost and time it's cheaper to buy a good quality head knife such as Dixons. There are many factors that go into making a good knife, profile (compound taper), and heat treatment, get these wrong even if you are using high end crucible steel such as M4 you'll end up with a poorly performing knife. Old saw blade are probably going to be 1080 or similar and will be the wrong temper for a cutting edge only the teeth are tempered hard the rest is probably sping tempered, this steel wants annealing making it easier to work once you have done all the cutting and most of the grinding then heat treating to the required temper (hardness, toughness) then finishing and the cutting edge ground.

[dangerdan46819]

Awesome design on your blade Electrathon....any drawings available or all from scratch.

[Massive]

Just in my own work, I normally make my own tools, and I do it a lot, when I either want something I can't get, or because I just can't stop myself, so I am making the tool just for the experience. If the tool is available there is rarely any reason to make it to save money. Between sales, ebay, etc... one will find a cheaper version for sale than one can make. Occasionally there are hugely overpriced tools that are simple enough one can beat the price at home but it is rare in my work.

Head knives, as far as I can tell, fall into a catagory of tools that are made to be constantly honed. There are several reasons why certain tools fall into this category. Tools with fine edges and very high cutting power, are often made this way. It is better to leave the edge soft so it can be reset to the base thickness and to stop it, that it is to make it super hard. A tool might also be too hard and parts of the edge break off. There are certain industrial uses where constant edge maintenance is more fluid than breaking off and honing an edge. Examples are scythes, straight razors, butcher knives, and maybe head knives. So if one is down with that, there are flat stock blue tempered steels readily avaialble that can be converted into head knives. These will not require heat treating, but they will not be super hard either. Around rockwell 50. These are used by woodworkers to make new, custom saws costing hundreds of dollars, so you too can leave the precious (in some cases) antique saws alone and get nice quality exact size stock for your head knife projects.

Blue-Tempered Steel Shim Stock :

Look down the page

http://www.victornet.com/subdepartments/Shim-Stock/1010.html

[Mjolnir131]

That's 1010 really not good for anything with an edge.

[Leela Valley Leather]

http://www.victornet.com/alphabetic/Spring-Steel/1306.html

C% 0.90-1.03 too high in carbon?

[Mjolnir131]

If you temper it right then yes.Start thicker than your end goal and draw if out remember 5 minutes hammer time saves 30 min on the grinder.

[TwinOaks]

The main reason head knives get dull is not because of planned obsolescence. It's because it's cutting through a chemically corrosive material - leather. That's also why most knives only need a good stropping.

Take the time to read the thread on the swivel knife blades - steel vs. ceramic. Shtoink did a very good job explaining his findings.

If you think that the commercial blades are expensive, please consider the time and money that went into R&D for the final product.

[pabloz]

Take the time to read the thread on the swivel knife blades - steel vs. ceramic. Shtoink did a very good job explaining his findings.

TO,

I tried to find this thread and was unsuccessful. Would you please locate it and link as I would love to read it and learn from it.

Thanks,

PZ

[TwinOaks]

Sure thing...although I think I may be remembering parts of several threads. This one has most of the information:

http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=43296&hl=stropping#entry269804

And just to clarify, this was talking mostly about ceramic blades and the reasons to strop them...which also apply to steel. The comparison between the ceramic and steel is also talking about standard blades, not the blades from the SK3.

[switzforge]

While I am not the most experienced leatherworker around and have never actually used a head knife. It is also on my list of tolls to make. I have however been maiking knives and other tools for quite some time. Old saw blades with out the added carbide teeth should be excelent blade steel As would be the 0.90% - 1.03% steel mentioned by the last poster. The issue with any home made cutting tool is that you must either make it from already hardened and tempered steel or you must be able to do the herdening and tempering yourself. Cutting and shaping hardened steel isn't very easy and if you get it to hot while grinding you will remove some of the temper resulting in a softer area.

I think making a head knife sounds like a great project. But it is the perfect example of investing $200 in labor for a $50 item.