Head Knife....i Want To Make One

[TwinOaks]

But it is the perfect example of investing $200 in labor for a $50 item.

....or quite a bit more!

[Wanderinstar]

I have found aDon Carlos quater moon knife for sale over this side of the pond for £28.25. Does anyone have any experience of these knives?

Ian

[shtoink]

But it is the perfect example of investing $200 in labor for a $50 item.

Well, if it isn't worth overdoing, is it worth doing at all?

[Mjolnir131]

Tempering is easy , so if hammering them out really.

[Matt S]

I have found aDon Carlos quater moon knife for sale over this side of the pond for £28.25. Does anyone have any experience of these knives?

Ian

JT Bachelor is selling Woodware/Barnsley single and double head knives for a decent price (about £13 and £17 exc if I recall). They aren't fancy but really do the job. Sharpening goes without saying.

[switzforge]

Tempering is easy , so if hammering them out really.

Well, I would aggree tempering is easy. But proper heat treating - annealing, hardening and tempering all for a specific but unkown steel - may be a bit more than most home craftsmen are willing tackle. A round knife seems like a fairly easy shape to warp or heat unevenly with the tools available to most folks. But I think I will take on the chalange in the next few weeks. I will try one cut and ground out of a circualr saw blade with no change in the existing heat treat. I will make another from a saw mill size band saw blade (I have a bunch of that 0.10 thick L6?). This second knife I will try to get back on the proccess of testing for propper heat treating parameters and then how the two compare. Sounds like fun.

[TwinOaks]

If I recall correctly, L6 can be hardened with water, but i've found that it oxidizes quickly. My very first attempt at making a blade was with (I think L6) a circle saw blade, and though it hardened and tempered well, it requires a coat of oil on it to prevent rapid rusting....and neither rust nor an oily blade is acceptable for leather work.

[prc77ro]

All the more reason NOT to use any of the 10 series carbon steels, they will rust in the air so imagine what will happent to the blade, the actual cutting edge going through tanned leather. You'd be better of with a good stainless like 440C. TwinOaks, you'd be better off using O-1 as L6 has no corrosion resistance so it will rust and has very low wear resistance.

[switzforge]

Boy you guys must live in a wet part of the world. I have made several knives from these old saw blades with good results and no rust. But then again Colorado is pretty dry. I am pretty sure that all of the great old tools people are seeking out were made before steels got high tech and that means basically simple 10XX tupe carbon steels. I'm not a metalurgical historian, but thats my guess.

The band saw blades may not actually be L6, but other knife makers speculate that they are. And that is the reason it is always important to do hardening and tempering tests on scrap before trying to make a good tool. All part of the fun of using junk yard steels.

As for 440C, I personally avoid stainless, I have always thought it made an inferior cutting edge. If you can't avoid moisture or simply don't tend to care for your tools, then it is a good choice. Personally I am more concerned with a good sharp edge that tends to stay sharp but is easy to sharpen when needed. I find that 10XX, 5160, W1 & O1 are all good knife steels as is the old sawmill blade stock (whatever it may be) for thinner knives.

Anyone know what the top brands of new knives are using for their steel?

[prc77ro]

I think that all depends on what you consider "top brands". Are you refering to name brands such as Tops, Benchmade and KA-Bar? or custom makers like Emerson and Jay Fisher. the name brands us many different types, usually dependant on what the popular type of steel is eg. AUS8, 145CM etc. I know Emerson uses 154CM or even the more expensive CPM154CM for his custom knives starting over $1000.00. Jay Fisher mainly uses 440C does all the millwork, heat treating, tempering and annealing himself but will use other metals at buyers requests depending on their requirements. Both make knives for Special operators such as the SEALS and Para Rescueman as well as for law enforcement. Some of the top name brand companies that I mentioned before use different steels, Benchmade is using alot of 154CM for their police/military autos and some of the linerlocks, Tops uses primarly 1080 and i know that KA-Bar used to use 1080 but I think they are now using 420 which is really soft, maybe 52RC.