Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting What I've been up to lately, custom knives.

Something I've wanted to do for over 20 years and finally jumped in the last couple months. I'm using high carbon steel as the heat treating isn't quite as critical and I have the equipment to do it. Stainless is doable but easier to send out for heat treating. I have a couple blades in 440C stainless, just haven't sent them out yet, been having too much fun building these. I start from a bar of steel and start cutting and grinding.




Here are a few examples.

They do actually work. This is the first knife finished and I've intentionally abused the crap out of it. Batoned through seasoned oak, sliced up cardboard, whittled down 2x4's, used it in the kitchen, stab it into a tree and twist it out. This particular knife, being the first one has a slightly soft tip, it will bend which is unacceptable. I've tweaked the heat treating a bit and think I've got a sound treatment now, not too hard, not too soft. I've carried it every weekend and evening after work using it for anything I need a knife for, slicing rope or a lemon. Used it today in fact for some cardboard and I sliced a pork tenderloin with it at supper.








I don't know why here, not really backpack related but this is where I hang out mostly with you other outdoor doods.

Very nice stuff! I like the scale woods and the pin placement. For a first timer you can dang sure grind, if you made these from barstock.

Those look really nice to just be starting.
Good Job !

I like your handle designs snubbie!

Wow, really impressive Snub!

What temperature is needed for heat treating? My wife's glass kiln goes up to 1500F.

They look great

Sorry, I meant to answer that in our email last week. The 1084 steel needs to be brought to non-magnetic, then a little higher for a few minutes. Yeah, kind of vague but someone with a forge and a little experience can quickly learn just by the color of the heated steel. Of course, a heat controlled forge or electric kiln simplifies that somewhat.

1084 needs about 1500° for maybe 5 minutes then quenched. 1095 is a bit more critical needing 1475° and a "soak" at that temp for about 10 minutes.

So you'd be at about the upper limits of your wife's kiln and if you burn it out she's going to be mad.

Some people "soak" 1095 for as much as 30 minutes. Some simply look at any steel when using a forge or a charcoal fire and think, "That looks about right". SWAG method you may say, but it has been a very effective way of judging temperatures for centuries. Some people heat treat in a grill with a hair dryer "stoking" the fire hotter. Any of it needs to be brought just above non-magnetic. So you get varying opinions. Probably the more anal among knifemakers can overthink and over complicate. I use an oven because I can at least be consistent, and I happen to have one.

So steel has been annealed or made softer for cutting and profiling the blade and has to be heat treated to be useable. My understanding is the carbon needs the right temperature to go into solution and bond with the iron molecules which is the austentite stage, then quenched. Too hot and you start getting molecules clumped together and you get a steel with a very course grain that is weak and will break easily. The steel after quench is very hard and brittle and can even shatter like glass if dropped. After quenching it has to be tempered so as to not be brittle but also not too soft. You want it to bend without breaking or staying bent. That way, you don't get an edge that chips or bends but is flexible, as is the whole blade.

So different steels, depending on the carbon content and other alloys, differ slightly in the best heat treatment, and even among different batches of the same type of steel. Ideally, with each batch of steel one would do a test to determine best heat treatment for that batch, even making a blade and intentionally breaking it but I think that's a bit of overkill myself.

Frankly, I really am not that interested in the metallurgy of it all. I just want to know what temperatures work best for different steels and think it best to learn one or two steels and their characteristics. And there is a fair amount of latitude, more in 1085 than 1095.


Stainless is a whole 'nuther story.

All that and all you needed was "1500°".

Turns out that her kiln will go up to about 1700. However...the trick is to get the knife out while it's still hot. You'd need a shoulder length glove to reach down inside. It's designed to reduce the temp from 1500 to room temp over a period of 3 or 4 hours, not quickly.

Mine has a door that swings open on the front. I just reach in with long pliers, grab it and plunge it into the quenching oil. Regular leather work glove or welders glove is sufficient. I know some ceramic kilns open from the top as they are turned off after firing and slowly cool. Never a need to open it hot in fact that would likely shatter the ceramic (and your wife's beautiful art glass as well). A jewelers kiln is called a burnout oven and is intended to be opened hot to cast molten gold. Works great for knives.

As long as I don't intend to make 13" Bowies or Rambo knives!

Your knifes look really nice.

Thanks for all the nice comments. I have several more in the works.

I like your designs, nice, smooth, and practical.

Very nice, are you selling any?

Looks good to me. I'll be at table 19G at the blade show in Atlanta. You should go to the show. Lots to see.

Brian

www.bgoodeknives.com

Field tester available in Montana

Very nice!

I've sold a couple, not really trying to at this point. I'd like to get a few made up but then, I need to sell some to by some decent equipment!



That's going to be a HUGE show. I've looked at your site a number of times. I need to come down to my old hometown and see your shop sometime. I'm just up the road.
BTW Bryan, do you use stabilized wood or use a finish?

Thanks again for the comments. I have a couple more made but photobucket is screwed up at the moment and I can't post the new photos.

When it gets back up I'll post a couple more photos.