Most hunters agree that, in addition to a gun, you must have a knife when hunting. Its purpose is very different: for cutting up a carcass and protecting it from an attack by an animal, for performing various household tasks - chopping firewood and branches, building a hut, cooking, making other tools and self-defense. Thus, taking into account the functions performed, purchase in the store utility knife it can be extremely difficult. But every hunter can build a hunting knife with his own hands, taking into account all individual requirements.
Hunting knife
Making a hunting knife is not accessible to everyone, because it is necessary to take into account a number of its features. A hunting dagger is a weapon with a short blade. The handle is separated from the blade by a limiter, which allows you to protect your hand during a strike. The weapon is designed to cut rather than pierce, so its blade is made in an upturned shape with a large bend cutting edge to make long cuts in one motion. The shank and blade are a single whole, with only the cutting edge remaining sharp, and the second part of the blade being blunt - this is the butt.
The blade is equipped with special grooves that give it rigidity and reduce its weight. Its length is usually 12-15 cm, and its width is 2.5-3 cm. Stainless carbon steel grade 65G is used to make the dagger; tool steel grade R6M5 is often also used. You can learn more about how to make a hunting knife with your own hands.
DIY hunting knife: video
Before you make a hunting knife, you need to develop detailed drawing all its structural elements. The drawing will help you determine the shape and size of the blade, handle, stop, and sheath.
The manufacturing process at home includes several stages; the complexity of this process can be assessed after watching the video and photographs.
First of all, you need to decide on the shape and dimensions of the knife, to do this, sketch a sketch on paper, thus creating a detailed drawing.Sketch of a hunting knife
Choice of material. To make homemade knife for hunting, it is not necessary to have a block of R6M5 steel on hand. You can use items made from it: cutters, cutters, hacksaw blades. It is best to use the last option, namely, a blade from a pendulum saw for metal 2 mm thick, 400-500 mm long, and approximately 30-40 mm wide. The material must be smooth. Please note that with a butt thickness of 2 mm and a blade length of 150 mm, such a homemade hunting knife will not be a bladed weapon, since it complies with GOST R No. 51644-2000. For making a handle wood will do from birch, beech, maple, cherry, pear, mahogany.
After the material is selected, a sketch of the dagger must be applied to the hacksaw blade.
The workpiece is processed on a hacksaw machine, turning along the contour. It is important not to forget to make the transition from blade to tang semicircular shape. To prevent the material from overheating, you need to periodically dip it in cool water.
Preliminary grinding of the slopes is carried out on an emery machine with a coarse-grained belt.
Sanding the blade
The hole for the rivet is quite difficult to make using a drill, or pobedit drill. But this can be done using an electrolysis reaction. The electrolyte is water with table salt diluted in it. A source is used to supply electricity direct current power 27 volts. A circle is cut out in place of the hole, and the shank is placed in an electrolysis solution. After three hours, a hole will form that needs to be processed with a needle file.
Then you need to harden the knife steel. To do this, it is placed in the oven, then in oil and again in the oven. After this, the scale is removed using coarse sandpaper, the butt is processed and the required thickness of the cutting edge is formed. It is also important to periodically cool the steel at this stage.
Finishing the blade with finer-grain sandpaper
Grinding the blade is done using sandpaper, water and lapping. Processing is carried out in the opposite direction to the previous one.
Polishing the blade is done using trowel paste and a felt grinding wheel.
Making a bushing. A sleeve is cut out of brass or bronze by boring holes with a drill, and placed on the handle close to the blade. Before making the handle, a piece of leather is placed between it and the sleeve - it serves to prevent moisture from entering the place where the handle is attached to the blade, as well as to fix them more firmly.
How to make a hunting knife at home: making a handle
Making the handle
Photo hunting knives with your own hands says that most often the handles are made of wood. It fits comfortably in the hand and is comfortable when used in the cold in winter.
It is necessary to make a blank from wooden block, on one side of which make an even cut to fit the sleeve, and on the other, drill a cavity to accommodate the shank. It is also necessary to drill a hole on one side for the rivet. Using epoxy glue, the handle is placed on the shank, a brass rod is inserted in place of the hole for the rivet, the excess part is cut off and soldered. The surface of the wooden handle is processed and polished. It can be coated with oil to protect the surface of the wood, or varnished. For the convenience and safety of carrying weapons, you can make a sheath. In this case, you can use the same wood, for example, birch bark, or leather. At the same time, guides for the knife are formed inside the sheath, as well as a hole for water drainage, and metal rings for attaching to the belt.
With such a knife, hunting will only be a pleasure.
A knife can be made from anything
Today, I would like to continue the topic dedicated to accessible material, from which you can quickly and easily good characteristics. Many people are interested in the question of what can be made from without resorting to complex technologies. This is written about in some detail in. Here we will try to further highlight some details. suitable material for knives. The easiest thing is to use old broken stainless steel kitchen knives. Knives should preferably be Soviet-made, and not Chinese consumer goods. From such a fragment you can make a good knife with excellent cutting characteristics.
Also, good knives can be made from high-speed steel, which is used in production hacksaw blades For mechanical saws. The disadvantage of this material is that it is quite fragile and tends to rust. But it holds an edge well.
An excellent material is knives for a wood planer. This metal is very well processed and polished. Planing knife gets burned blowtorch red hot and then cools. After annealing, the metal can be easily sawed with a hacksaw, shaped, or sharpened with a file. After the knife is given its final shape, it needs to be either in oil or water. But, unfortunately, knives made of this metal also rust.
The next metal we'll look at is a regular file. It is very easy to make a knife from a file, without any special machines. Take a file, heat it well, again with a blowtorch until red-hot, and let it cool. After this, it is very well processed with another file, sawed with a hacksaw to give it the desired shape. Next, hardening is carried out again in oil or water. The main thing is that in order to get a good knife from this metal, you need. There is no need to unforge this metal. We simply burn, sharpen, file, remove excess metal hand tools or on sandpaper. And we get a pretty good knife.
You can also make it from an ordinary hacksaw for wood. It is also very easy to process, very elastic steel. Can be adapted, for example, for making kitchen knife, which will cut well and hold an edge well.
A car spring is also well suited for manufacturing. The only bad thing about a spring is that it needs to be unchained and properly heat treated. This is quite a time-consuming task. But if you build homemade horn on your site, you can make a good knife from a piece of spring. Or just take it to the blacksmith, who will forge anything for you for a bottle of vodka.You can make a knife from a car valve. It turns out good too stainless steel. The valve is heated to high temperature and hammered on an anvil. Then you need to shape the blade and harden it.
Very good knives are made from large drills. Clamp the drill in a vice, heat it until soft, take the gas keys and begin to slowly unscrew it. After this, you heat it up again and begin to unforge the resulting part, giving it the desired shape. The drill will not be sharpened with a file. All work must be done on sandpaper.
The knife can be made of spring steel. There is no need to anneal this metal. You can immediately make a knife blade from the workpiece. With a regular drill This steel cannot be drilled. It is necessary to use a pobedit drill.
Now let's talk about rust, which is present in most metals. If you want to prevent your knife from rusting, you can treat it with sulfuric acid or phosphoric acid.
The article uses material from a video on YouTube
A knife is a thing that we use every day, and we notice that we cannot always please with the quality of purchased knives. We suggest making a knife with your own hands; this is not an easy task, but the result will delight us for many years. Your own knife is more than just a knife.
How to make a knife at home?
This is an activity for real men who like to spend a few hours of their time in the workshop and work with their hands. And first, let's choose the material from which we will make the knife blade. The choice fell on X12MF steel; we needed a small piece.
Let's start making our knife!
1. On a prepared piece of steel we draw a model of the future knife. At this stage, you can not be very precise and draw everything by hand. After that, we take a grinder, put on protective equipment (glasses and earplugs) and begin cutting out the workpiece.
2. From our piece of steel, we received two blanks:
3. The next stage of processing - we need to work on the contours using a sharpener.
4. After the contours are ready, we grind a chamfer on the blade. Next we process the blade on the motor with sandpaper on the nozzle.
This is what we get as a result:
5. Now the knife must be hardened. We send the blade into the oven, then into the oil, and then back into the oven. We must achieve a good result, and it is approximately 60 Rockwell units on a hardness tester. After these procedures, we return to the circle with sandpaper, remove the scale, and slightly trim the cutting edge. At this stage, you should cool the blade very often. We start with high-grit sandpaper and finish with 120-grit sandpaper. This is what we get:
6. We refine the blade with finer and finer sandpaper, starting from 240 to 400.
Now the blade is ready for further manual processing!
7. Let's take a cylindrical lap, and sandpaper different sizes, and water.
8. We clamp the blade in a vice and begin to process the surface, making movements across the direction of the previous processing. Water removes chips well and cools the blade.
We start grinding with 500 and finish with 2000. Here is our result.
9. The next step will be polishing the blade. To do this, you will need diamond paste with a grain size of 3/2 microns, which we apply to the blade and then process it on a feta wheel.
10. Then we use 1/0 paste, use another circle, and finally - polishing paste on a muslin circle.
11. The wedge is ready. All that remains is to make a handle for it. First of all, take a brass strip and drill several holes in it.
12. Using a file, we remove the jumpers and adjust the workpiece slot to the size.
13 . Lubricate the workpieces with cyanoacrylate glue and glue them to the tail of the knife, then we can clamp them in cleats.
14. When the glue has dried, we can begin further work. Let's take a piece of wood from which we will make the handle. We drill a hole in it for the tail.
Knives are currently popular not only in the kitchen, but also among people who have connected their lives with extreme types of active leisure - fishing, hunting, tourism, etc.
On the market in modern times There are various knives: variable models, different sizes and designs. But none of them can replace a knife that you make yourself.
People often write on the Internet about how to make a knife with your own hands, but you have to try hard to make them.
Knives: types and basic properties
In the photographs of the knife on the Internet, you can see that each product is a creative element created from various mechanisms.
Available large classification knives depending on their functionality: combat, tourist, folding (for example, butterfly), knives intended for hunting, multi-tools, bivouac knives, as well as ordinary kitchen knives.
Kitchen knives are bought ready-made, but knives intended for hunting or tourism can easily be made at home yourself.
There are also knives such as survival knives, the main task of which is to help in living in conditions wildlife. This option is relevant for tourists and hunters.
The blade of such a knife is usually no more than 12 cm. This length is sufficient for cutting wood, processing game, cleaning fish or other similar actions. Small dimensions make this knife easy to transport.
When making such a knife, great attention should be paid to the material intended to create the blade. Steel is often preferred.
Procedure for creating a knife
To get a positive result when making a knife, you should first sketch out a drawing of the knife. In this case, you can know in advance what exactly you want to achieve in the end.
Instructions on how to make a knife at home include a number of rules.
Making a knife step by step
Cut out the blank for the future knife. Relying on finished drawing, cut out the shape for the knife.
You will need a knife sharpener. With its help, the base is brought to the required shape. And after this you will have a clear blank in your hands, where you can distinguish the places of the handle and blade.
Rough sharpening of knives. At this stage you need to clearly know what your future knife is intended for. If it is made for hunting, fishing or hiking trips, then it is better to give preference to the blade type of sharpening.
And, if the knife is created to function in the kitchen or in the garden, then the razor type is suitable.
Don't expect perfect sharpening at this stage, as this is just a rough draft intended to determine the future shape.
If the blade is pre-prepared, then you can start working with the handle. To create the handle, the most various materials– this is: wood, plexiglass, bones, thick types of leather, etc.
Note!
Having cut out a blank to create a handle, you should check whether it fits comfortably in your hand, as well as its proportionality relative to the blade. The knife handle is secured using the riveting method.
The shape for the foot handle is given using a sharpening machine.
The knife is ground and polished using sandpaper.
The final sharpening of the blade is carried out after sharpening on a sharpener, also using sandpaper.
At the end, the finished knife is polished with velvet cloth or polish.
Note!
As you can see, the process of making a knife with your own hands is not that difficult, so everyone can try their hand at this area.
You can also give the future knife the necessary and desired design. Special attention pay attention to the handle during the design process.
Knife design
Because it is by the handle of the knife that others can then judge your creative thinking and status.
Some write their names on the handles of the knife, draw certain patterns and sketches in the form of tattoos.
The simplest knife can be built in an emergency in the forest; the main thing is to find the materials necessary to create it.
Note!
You just need to find the cutting part for the knife, and then you should insert it only into the handle, which will be in the form of a piece of wood, rope or leather.
Photo of a knife with your own hands
Today, even with such a large assortment various knives excellent quality from famous manufacturers, knives hand forged are still very popular. This is not surprising, since such knives have a special energy and attractiveness. And if the blade itself is made of alloy steel and with skill, then such a knife is priceless. From in various ways handmade The most labor-intensive part of making a knife is forging a knife with your own hands. It should be noted that forging a knife allows you to create the most durable and high-quality blade that will last for decades and at the same time retain its qualities. Forging a knife with your own hands is a task that requires a master high level tool skills, knowledge of metals and their properties. For those who have decided to forge a knife for the first time, the recommendations described below will help you make your first blade.
How to choose knife steel
A quality homemade knife is distinguished by correct selection steel for him, cutting and strength characteristics the knife itself. To choose the right steel, you need to know and understand what properties the steel itself has. To forge a knife with your own hands, you need to focus on the five main properties of steel - wear resistance, hardness, strength, toughness, and red-hardness.
Hardness- this is a property of steel, indicating its ability to resist the penetration of another more hard material. Simply put, hard steel resists deformation better. The hardness index itself is measured on the Rockwell scale and ranges from 20 to 67 HRC.
Wear resistance- resistance of the material to wear during operation. This property directly depends on the hardness of the steel itself.
Strength indicates the ability to maintain integrity under the influence of various external forces. You can check the strength by bending or with a strong impact.
Plastic- the ability of steel to absorb and dissipate kinetic energy during impact and deformation.
Red fastness- this is an indicator responsible for the resistance of steel to temperatures and the preservation of its original qualities when heated. The minimum temperature at which it can be forged depends on how resistant the steel is to heat treatment. The most red-resistant steels are hard grades, working temperature forgings for which more than 900 °C. It should be noted that the melting point of steel is 1450 - 1520 °C.
All these properties are interconnected and the predominance of one of them leads to the deterioration of the other. Moreover, this or that property of steel depends on the content of various alloying elements and additives in it, such as silicon, carbon, chromium, vanadium, tungsten, cobalt, nickel, molybdenum.
The presence of certain alloying elements and their proportional use in the manufacture of steel, knowledge of the properties that alloying elements and additives impart, made it possible to create steel for specific purposes and needs. These steels each have their own markings. At the same time, domestic and foreign steel grades are designated differently. For convenience, the steel grade indicates the main composition of one or more alloying elements. For example, steel grade U9 indicates its carbon content in tenths of a percent. An analogue of steel grade “U” is steel 10xx, where “xx” is the carbon content. And what less value, the less its content. Or steel such as X12MF indicates a high content of chromium and molybdenum, which indicates the stainless and high-strength properties of the steel.
Domestic brands, which are often used when forging knives at home, include all steels marked from U7 before U16, ШХ15, 65G, R6M5, X12MF. Among foreign analogues, steel can be distinguished O-1, 1095 , 52100 ,M-2, A-2, 440C, AUS, ATS-34, D-2. Each of the above brands is used in the manufacture of knives, various instruments and spare parts. For example, steel grades R6M5, U7-U13, 65G are used for the production of drills, drills, cables, springs, bearings, and files. Therefore, it is from these items craftsmen They make hand forged knives.
Of course, you can find other products made from one or another steel. To do this, it will be enough to read Full description grades of steel and its use in the Making of Steel and Alloys, and then use a product made from it to forge a knife.
To forge a knife you will need a certain blacksmith's tool, which can be purchased at the store. But you can also use a non-professional tool:
- a hammer of 3 - 4 kg and a hammer of smaller weight up to 1 kg;
- blacksmith's tongs or ordinary pliers, but without insulation on the handles, as well as an adjustable wrench;
- vice;
- an anvil or its homemade analogue from an I-beam;
- grinder and welding machine;
- grinder;
- bake.
If with ordinary tool everything is more or less clear, some clarifications need to be made about the stove. The thing is that in an ordinary fireplace it is difficult to obtain a temperature of more than 900 °C. And the workpiece will take forever to warm up there. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the hearth a little. If you have not previously at least hardened metal, you will have to make a small furnace from scratch from thick-walled metal. Then attach a pipe to it, through which air will flow using a fan or an old vacuum cleaner. In this simple way, you can get a fairly reliable crucible for bringing workpieces to a temperature of 900 - 1200 ° C. Regular fuel is used as fuel. charcoal, preferably one that gives as much heat as possible and burns longer.
Before starting the work itself, you need to do sketch the knife itself.
In fact, a knife is a fairly simple object, consisting of a blade and a handle. But each of these elements has a whole set of components. In the photo demonstrating the design of the knife, you can see all the elements of the knife and what they are called.
You also need to know about some basic blade profiles in order to make the most suitable sketch. The photo below shows the profiles of the knives.
Having chosen the most suitable profile for you, you can safely begin creating a sketch. Certainly, experienced craftsmen do without sketching, but for a beginner it is still important to make a sketch and keep it before your eyes during the forging process.
Forging a knife from a drill
Drills have become very popular when forging knives due to the alloy steel R6M5 used in them, which is durable, easy to sharpen and wear-resistant.
When choosing a drill for forging, one thing to note is important point. Large drills consist of a working spiral part made of P6M5 and a shank made of ordinary steel. Small drills are usually made entirely of P6M5. When forging a knife from large drill it is necessary to immediately determine which steel is which and where the border between them is. This can be done quite simply, just by sharpening the drill a little along the entire length. Where there is ordinary steel, the sheaf of sparks will be large and yellow-orange in color. But where there is alloy steel, the sheaf will be sparse and closer to a reddish tint. The procedure described above is necessary in order to determine where the blade of the knife will begin and where the shank will begin. Having finished with this, we move on to the forging itself.
At the beginning light a fire in the stove, turn on the blower and wait until the coals get hot enough, after which place the drill in the crucible. But we do this using pliers and so that the shank for the most part stayed out of the fire.
Important! When forging a knife for the first time, you may not immediately determine when the metal has heated to the required temperature. As a result, more than one drill can be damaged. Therefore, before you start forging a drill, you can practice a little with heating and forging metal on ordinary fittings. In this case, it is necessary to remember what color the metal was and when it was forged most softly. It is also worth remembering that in sunlight, even metal heated to 1100 ° C will look dark.
As soon as the drill will heat up to the required temperature, which is more than 1000 °C, it is immediately necessary remove from the crucible, and clamp the bottom of the shank in a vice. Then take an adjustable wrench, hold the top of the drill with it and make a circular motion, straightening the spiral. Everything must be done quickly so that the metal does not have time to cool, otherwise you risk breaking the drill. If you couldn't do it in one go, that's okay. Just reheat the drill and repeat the procedure. The result should be a relatively smooth strip of metal.
The next step would be forging drill And rolling metal to an acceptable thickness. Everything is quite simple here. Having heated the metal to the required temperature, we take a heavy hammer and begin to level the metal with strong but uniform blows and give it an even shape. The result should be a strip of metal about 4 - 5 mm thick.
Important! When forging metal, you must constantly monitor the color of the workpiece. As soon as it begins to fade, acquiring a cherry color, we immediately return it to the forge. It is better to heat the metal one more time than to break it under a hammer blow.
Further the edge of a knife is forged. Everything is a little more complicated here. The fact is that it is necessary to give a rounded shape and at the same time maintain the required thickness of the blade. All the work is practically jewelry and will require a certain dexterity. Forging is performed in such a way that gradually rounding the tip, the blade is gradually drawn out in length. The blows must be strong, but careful. A beginner may not succeed the first time, but a little practice will improve everything.
The next step would be forging the cutting edge of a knife. This is a rather important and difficult stage. This will require a lighter hammer and preferably one with a rounded head. Starting from the middle of the blade, we gradually move the metal down to the cutting edge. We try to make the cutting edge as thin as possible. At the same time, we make sure that the blade itself remains straight and even. We apply the blows very carefully and try to apply only as much effort as is required to slightly deform the hot metal. We remember the color of the workpiece and, if necessary, send it back to the crucible.
After we managed to forge the blade and point, move on to forging the shank. The work itself will be much simpler than when forging a blade. First, we heat the round shank of the drill and then roll it out with strong hammer blows. Depending on the sketch, the shank can be either narrow or wide. Here, who already likes to make the handle of a knife. Some people make simple overlays, while others make a stacked handle.
Upon completion of forging, let the metal cool gradually and then let's move on to polishing. On grinding machine We remove excess layers of metal and unevenness, making the knife perfectly smooth and shiny. When sanding, up to 2 mm of thickness can be removed, and the knife will become much lighter and thinner. You can also sharpen the knife at this stage. Finally, we harden the knife. How this is done will be written below.
Forging a knife from a drill video review:
One more popular material for forging knives is a bearing, namely its inner or outer rim. Moreover, the internal one is even preferable. All work on forging a knife from a bearing is almost identical to forging from a drill. With some exceptions.
First, we cut out the blank from the bearing rim using a grinder. We try to take the length with a reserve, so that there is enough for the knife and another 1 - 2 cm left. Secondly, on initial stage For forging, the cut blank should be welded to the reinforcement bar. And in this form, heat and forge. Thirdly, if in the case of a drill the workpiece was rolled out from round to flat, then for the bearing race it simply needs to be aligned. A further actions the forging of the blade itself and the shank are completely similar. The only thing worth noting is that it is still more convenient to make a knife with applied handles from the bearing.
Forging a knife from a bearing video review:
In search of suitable steel for a quality knife, many people use springs. The metal of this car part is highly elastic and durable, which makes it an excellent example for hand-forged knives. In fairness, it should be noted that a knife from a spring can be made by simply cutting out the profile of the knife with further sharpening and hardening. But still, for the knife to be truly reliable, it is better to forge it, especially since the thickness of the spring is quite large, and for good knife it should be reduced.
We begin forging a knife from a spring by cleaning off rust with a grinder and marking the plate. Only a small part of the spring will be needed, so mark it and cut it off using a grinder. Next, we weld the workpiece to the reinforcement and heat it up. Then we gradually forge it, bringing it to required thickness. We forge the tip and cutting edge; how to do this is described above using the example of forging a knife from a drill. Having achieved the desired result, we leave the knife to cool gradually and then grind and sharpen it.
Forging a knife from a spring video review:
Forging a knife from a file
Wear-resistant and durable steel can be found in a variety of locksmith's tool and a file for that shining example. Making knives from a file is quite a popular activity. Moreover, the blades are extremely durable with an excellent cutting edge. But forging a knife from a file has its own characteristics.
First of all, you will need to clean the file from nicks and possible rust. This can be done using a grinder. Next, if necessary, cut the workpiece from the file to the required length. Then we weld it to a piece of reinforcement and put it in the furnace. Having heated the workpiece to desired temperature, we begin to roll out the workpiece to the thickness we need. Then we make the point and cutting edge. It is best to make the shank of a knife from a file under an overhead handle.
Forging a knife from a file video review:
Forging a knife from a rope
Making a knife from steel cable quite a rare occurrence. Since, unlike all the workpieces described above, the cable consists of scattered wire fibers, and it is quite difficult to forge them. In addition, cable steel does not have such high performance, like the steel of a drill or file. Most cable knives are forged because of their unusual pattern on the wedge, vaguely reminiscent of Damascus steel. In order to make such a knife, you need to put in a little more effort than when forging from a regular steel bar.
Forging a knife from a cable begins like regular forging. There are just a few little secrets. Firstly, this concerns the shank. Many craftsmen make a knife shank from a cable in the form of a finished handle. It looks very unusual and beautiful. And here there are two approaches to making a handle. Take a thick cable and then weld its end, making it a monolithic piece. Or make a handle in the shape of a loop, and forge a blade from the ends. Secondly, forging a cable is a difficult task due to the scattered wires that make up the cable. To make a knife, you will need to weld them together. But this is a whole art and you shouldn’t expect that you will get a knife out of a cable the first time. Welding can be done in two ways. The first is to electric weld along the large grooves. The second is to perform forge welding. The second option is more complicated and at the same time preferable.
So, having chosen the method of creating the handle, we proceed to forging the knife. To do this, heat the cable until it turns bright red. Then we take it out and sprinkle it with borax. Then we send it back to the crucible. This is a simple way to prepare for forge welding.
is a salt of tetraboric acid and is used by craftsmen for welding individual layers of steel. Essentially, it is a flux that facilitates the melting process and protects the molten metal from oxygen and eliminates metal oxides. Borax can be found in the public domain without any problems.
After the cable has been treated with borax on all sides and it has heated up from 900 to 1200°C or more, we remove it from the furnace and begin to forge it. We strike with a heavy hammer, but at the same time we try to keep the cable fibers together. The difficulty of forging a cable lies precisely in this. But with practice you can achieve acceptable results. In the end, the cable can be heated and forged as many times as desired. But at the same time, every time you heat it in the forge, sprinkle the cable with borax. The result is a monolithic piece of steel consisting of many layers, almost like Damascus steel. After which all that remains is to forge the blade of the required shape. Videos demonstrating the forging of knives have repeatedly shown exactly how to roll out a blade and create a cutting edge and point.
Blade hardening and tempering As noted earlier, hardening a knife is one of the most important stages
Begins by heating it from light red to orange color. After which the knife is lowered into water or oil. In this case, 2 - 3 tablespoons of table salt per 1 liter are added to the water, and the water temperature should be 18 - 25 ° C, the oil 25 - 30 ° C. Hardening is carried out quite quickly and for everything to go well after hardening, the blade must be released. The steel hardening itself occurs in the temperature range from 750 to 550 °C. The moment of hardening can even be felt when the steel begins to “tremble and groan” in the liquid. As soon as the process ends, the blade must be removed and allowed to cool naturally.
Blade release performed after hardening. The process itself involves weakening the internal stress of the steel, which makes it more flexible and resistant to various types of loads. Before tempering, the blade should be cleaned of possible scale and then heated again. But the temperature during vacation is much lower. The knife itself must be held over the flame and observed. As soon as the entire surface is covered with a yellow-orange film, remove the knife from the heat and let it cool naturally.
Sometimes quenching and tempering are done with oil or water, and sometimes through oil into water. This type of hardening is done very quickly. First, the blade is lowered into oil for 2 - 3 seconds, and then into water. With this approach, the risk of doing the hardening incorrectly is minimal.
Forging a knife with your own hands seems like a simple task. In addition to the fact that you will have to swing the forging hammer quite a lot, even without experience in the matter of forging metal, you may not be able to forge a knife the first time. Therefore, you first need to get good at it and practice a little, and then start forging a knife.