Built a practice knife today.

[Guest alloyguitar]

Lately I've been teaching a buddy how to use some of the tools in my garage, so, as an easy project, we're making knives out of an old sawblade. Sawblades aren't a good kind of steel, but these are more for instructional purposes than actual use, so oh well.

This is how mine turned out. The scales are leftover cutoffs (walnut/oak stripe) from the sks. Turned out pretty decent to have started with an old sawblade that'd been sitting outside rusting for the last few years. Lol

I had issues when it came to getting the bevel right. I have a wet grinder designed for sharpening chisels, but the guides on it were nowhere near the shape I needed, and the only belt sander I have is 3" wide, and I don't have finer grit belts for it, anyway.

I have some leaf springs (5160 spring steel) laying around, so the next one will be made out of those and will get micarta scales I believe.

[Guest Bowdenknxvll]

Nice work my man. Actually, old misery whip saw blades are excellent steel to make knives out of if you can find any. Its usually L6 carbon steel thats very thin and makes for a great slicer. You don't even have to heat treat if you keep the heat down when working it. Keep it up, it gets addictive!

[Guest Scramasax]

Yes many saw blades are L6. If you have access to old(non-chinese) blades. We used to go down to a large commercial sawmill in GA. They would tell a knifemaking friend when they had a pick up load of broken blades.

He got them for free. The sawblades were 80'x16". You can look up the proper anealing nd heat treat. Also an excellent source for damascus.

Cheers,

ts

[Grand Torino]

You did a great job......I gotta try that some day. Congrats

[Guest alloyguitar]

These are definitely not old sawblades. I'm pretty sure that was a dewalt chop saw blade made from High Speed Steel. Not really sure what HSS is, exactly, but it's what I had.

And thanks for the compliments, guys. I'll be sure to upload the ones my buddies (my class grew from 1 to 2 people. Lol) make when they're done. One will have micarta scales and is turning out pretty nice.

[Guest Broomhead]

(my class grew from 1 to 2 people. Lol)

Ever hold a "class" in Nashville? LOL. I'm learning as I go from trial and error and would love a good hands-on tutorial.

[Guest alloyguitar]

Haha, unfortunately I live about 35 miles east of Knoxville (Jefferson City, if you know where that is), soooo probably not. Lol.

Plus I'm not really good at knifemaking, either. I was just trying to get a few buddies accustomed to using some of the fabrication tools I have in my shop. Originally it started out with just me and one of my buddies, but another friend saw it and wanted to try, which is where I'm at now. I'm hoping to refine the blade shape a bit, then try it on some spring steel to make a solid outdoor knife. I own an esee 3, which is what I used for inspiration with the handle shape, but I really wanted a tanto point one. I like the esee for general stuff, but I'm more accustomed to having something with a drop point so you can really control it for detail work, and that's what I came up with. Not perfect, but it works.

[Guest Broomhead]

That's what I meant, I need the shop tools tutorial. I never learned as a kid because my dad had mostly hand tools. I'm going to buy my first belt grinder/sander hopefully today.

[Guest alloyguitar]

Ah. I understand that. I need to get a smaller beltsander. Only one I have currently is 3" wide that I just mount in my vise upside down. Lol. It does work, just not ideal.

[Guest Broomhead]

I just picked up a 1x30 belt and 5" disc combo from Harbor Frieght. It got excellent reviews online. On sale for 70 plus I had a 20% off coupon for a total of 55 bucks! I picked up a few different packs of belts to go with it, 40, 80, and 120 grits, plus a 5 pack of 20ft rolls of 150-400. Hopefully it won't be hard to make my own belts with it.

[Guest alloyguitar]

What'd the belts run ya? I've been looking at one of those for a bit but never picked one up. My garage is big on space, but small on usable space, since there's a lot of stuff in it. I'm going to have to figure out a way to add some work bench space before I can pick one up. I don't have enough room for the tools I have now. Lol

[Guest Broomhead]

The aluminum oxide belts were 5 for 2.99 and the Zirconium ones were 2 for 2.99. I bought various grits from 40 to 120. The 5 pack of 20ft rolls was 9.99.

[Guest alloyguitar]

Dang. That's a lot cheaper than I thought they'd be, even from harbor freight. I'll have to get on that once I get some space cleared out.

[Guest Broomhead]

They have two different belt grinders. The blue colored one is for wood only, while the orange one is for both. They are an in-store purchase only and can't be ordered online. Look in the junk mail coupons that come in your mailbox for their circular with the 20% off coupon. If you can find one I'll email you one that you can print off. I get the circular every week and the coupon that came today is good until July 25th.

On another note, that grinder will take a lot of practice. The 80 grit belts need to be kept for rough grinding only. The blade of the knife I am working on was round and wide, now its thinner and tanto style, lol. I'll have to post some pics of it later. I may just scrap it and start again, there's a place where the original saw's tooth was ground along the spine, making it look like a shark's tooth on the blade's face. It was about a quarter of the way from the tip towards the handle, now its much, much closer to the tip and will probably be a weak spot that will break. I liked the way it looked, but now its too much of a hazard. The original saw blade was really too thin for a standard knife anyway. I'll have to relegate those to neck/covert style knives.

[Guest alloyguitar]

Yeah, I'm a member of their Inside Track Club, or whatever it is. I've used many, many coupons at Harbor Freight. Lol

[Guest Bowdenknxvll]

Those 1x30s are a great deal. I use one daily to sharpen and shape handles.

[Guest alloyguitar]

I see you're in Knoxville. I live in Jefferson City, myself, but I'd love to meet up and check out some of the blades you've made if you'd be up for it.

[Guest Bowdenknxvll]

Yeah, sounds good. I only have a couple since I sell most everything I make. Ive actually been thinkinh about doing a grind in one day this summer for people interested in learning. I dont know if anyone would be interested or not. shoot me a pm and ill give you a link to my forum, it has pics of most of the orders I have made over the last year.