Originally Posted by Ptarmigan
Originally Posted by Ready
Wow, those look great. Homebrewn?

Please tell a bit more - steel, treatment, grind, spine thickness, stock shape...




I started out with some 1.5" x 12" x .125" 1080 steel billets. This stuff still had the mill scale on it which kinda sucked. I just bought some from a different supplier that comes ground so I don't have that crap! 1080 is easy for me to heat treat so I'm sticking with it for now. I brought the temp up to non-magnetic, then gave it another minute or so. I don't have any Parks 50 so I'm stuck with canola oil heated to 130 deg for my quench. I do two, two hour tempers at 400 deg.

I bring my edge down to about .03" before I heat treat, then down to about .01 before sharpening. I might need to go a bit thinner but it's just so easy to jack up your temper when doing your final grinding. I'm using a angle grinder to cut out the rough shape, bench grinder to get it closer, and a cheap 4x36 with ceramic belts for everything else. It's just a wing it garage hobby that I'm really enjoying right now.


Thank you for the details. Thoroughly enjoyed. It sounds like you have it quite figured out and the results bear witness. Winging-it-shop-hobbyist here, too.

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