What can be done from a metal cable. Forging a knife from Soviet secondary raw materials. How to choose the right knife material
Making a knife from a steel cable is quite rare. In order to make such a knife, it is necessary to make a little more effort than when forging from a regular steel bar.
Forging a knife from a cable begins, like regular forging. Here are just a few little secrets. First, it 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 in the manufacture of the 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 because of the scattered wires that make up the cable. To make a knife, you need to weld them together. And this is a whole art and it’s not worth counting on a knife from a cable the first time. Welding can be done in two ways. The first is to weld by electric welding along large grooves. The second is to perform blacksmith welding. The second option is more difficult and at the same time preferable.
So, having chosen a method for creating a handle, we proceed to forging a knife. To do this, heat the cable to a bright red color. Then take it out and sprinkle with borax. Then we send it back to the crucible. In this simple way, preparation for forge welding is carried out. Borax is a salt of tetraboric acid and is used by craftsmen to weld individual layers of steel. In fact, it is a flux that facilitates the melting process and protects the molten metal from oxygen and eliminates metal oxides. Bura can be found in the public domain without any problems.
After the cable has been treated with borax from all sides and it has heated up from 900 to 1200 ° C or more, we take it out of the furnace and begin to forge. We strike with a heavy hammer, but at the same time we try to keep the fibers of the cable together. The complexity of forging the cable is 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 you like. But at the same time, each time, heating it in the forge, sprinkle the cable with brown. The result is a monolithic piece of steel, consisting of many layers, almost like Damascus steel. After that, it remains only to forge the blade of the required shape.
The hardening of the blade begins with its heating from light red to orange. After that, the knife is lowered into water or oil. At the same time, 2 - 3 tablespoons of common salt per 1 liter are added to the water, and the water temperature should be 18 - 25 ° C, oil 25 - 30 ° C. Hardening is carried out quite quickly and in order for everything to go well after hardening, the blade must be released. The hardening of steel 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 moan" in the liquid. As soon as the process ends, the blade must be removed and allowed to cool naturally.
The blade is tempered after hardening. The process itself involves the weakening of the internal stress of steel, which makes it more flexible and resistant to various kinds of loads. Before you make a vacation, the blade should be cleaned of possible scale and then reheated. But the temperature during the holiday is much lower. The knife itself must already be held above the flame and observed. As soon as the entire surface is covered with a yellow-orange film, remove the knife from the fire and let it cool naturally.
Sometimes quenching and tempering is done with oil or water, and sometimes through oil into water. Such hardening is carried out very quickly. First, the blade is immersed in oil for 2 - 3 seconds, and then in water. With this approach, the risk of hardening incorrectly is minimal.
Forging a knife with your own hands only seems like a simple task. In addition to the fact that you have to wave the blacksmith's hammer quite a lot, it may not be possible to forge a knife the first time without experience in forging metal. Therefore, you first need to fill your hand and practice a little, and then start forging a knife.
Today, even with such a large assortment of different fine quality knives from well-known manufacturers, hand-forged knives 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 alloyed steel and with skill, then such a knife is priceless. Of the various ways to make a knife with your own hands, the most time-consuming 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 business that requires the master to have a high level of tool skills, knowledge of metals and their properties. For those who decide 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 high-quality home-made knife is distinguished by the correct selection of steel for it, the cutting and strength characteristics of the knife itself will depend on this. 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 five basic properties of steel - wear resistance, hardness, strength, toughness, red hardness.
Hardness- this is a property of steel, indicating its ability to resist the penetration of another harder material into it. Simply put, hard steel resists deformation better. The hardness index itself is measured on the Rockwell scale and has a value 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 for bending or with a strong impact.
Plastic- the ability of steel to absorb and dissipate kinetic energy during impact and deformation.
Red hardiness- 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, for which the working temperature of forging is 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. In this case, one or another 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 give, made it possible to create steel for certain purposes and needs. Such steels each have their own marking. 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 the carbon content in it in tenths of a percent. An analogue of steel grade "U" is steel 10xx, where "xx" is the carbon content. And the smaller the value, the smaller its content. Or such steel as X12MF indicates a high content of chromium and molybdenum, which indicates the stainless and high-strength properties of the steel.
Domestic grades, which are often used when forging knives at home, include all steels marked from U7 before U16, ShKh15, 65G, R6M5, H12MF. Steel can be distinguished from foreign analogues 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 tools and spare parts. For example, steel grades R6M5, U7-U13, 65G are used for the production of drills, drills, cables, springs, bearings, files. Therefore, it is from these items that craftsmen make hand-forged knives.
Of course, you can find other products from one steel or another. To do this, it will be enough to read the full description of the steel grade and its application in the Steel and Alloy Grader, and then use the product from it to forge a knife.
Forging a knife will require a certain blacksmith tool, which can be purchased at the store. But you can also use a non-professional tool:
- a hammer for 3 - 4 kg and a hammer of less weight up to 1 kg;
- blacksmith's tongs or ordinary pliers, but without insulation on the handles, as well as an adjustable wrench;
- vise;
- anvil or its homemade analogue from an I-beam;
- grinder and welding machine;
- grinder;
- bake.
If everything is more or less clear with a conventional tool, then some explanations need to be made about the furnace. The thing is that in a conventional hearth it is difficult to get a temperature of more than 900 ° C. Yes, and the workpiece will warm up there for ages. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the focus a little. If you have not previously been involved in at least hardening of metal, then you will have to make a small furnace from thick-walled metal from scratch. Then attach a pipe to it, through which air will flow with a fan or an old vacuum cleaner. In this simple way, you can get a fairly reliable crucible for bringing blanks to a temperature of 900 - 1200 ° C. Normal charcoal is used as fuel, preferably one that gives as much heat as possible and burns longer.
Before starting the work itself, it is necessary to do sketch the knife itself.
In fact, a knife is a fairly simple item, consisting of a blade and a handle. But each of these elements has a whole set of components. On the photo demonstrating the design of the knife, you can see all the elements of the knife and what they are called.
It is also necessary to know about some of the main 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 start creating a sketch. Of course, experienced craftsmen do without a sketch, but for a beginner it is still important to make a sketch and keep it in front of your eyes during the forging process.
Forging a knife from a drill
Drills have gained great popularity in forging knives due to the P6M5 alloy steel used in them, which is durable, easy to sharpen and wear resistant.
When choosing a drill for forging, one important point should be noted. 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 a large drill, you must immediately determine where which steel is and where the border is between them. This can be done quite simply, just a little drill along the entire length. Where there is ordinary steel, the sheaf of sparks will be large and yellow-orange. But where the alloy steel is, the sheaf will be sparse and closer to a reddish tint. The procedure described above is necessary in order to determine where the blade will begin at the knife, and where the shank. Having finished with this, we move on to the forging itself.
At the beginning make a fire in the oven, connect the blower and wait for the coals to flare up strong enough, after which put the drill in the crucible. But we do this with the help of tongs and so that the shank for the most part remains out of the fire.
Important! When forging a knife for the first time, you can not immediately determine when the metal has heated up to the required temperature. As a result, more than one drill can be damaged. Therefore, before taking on the forging of a drill, you can practice a little with heating and forging metal on conventional fittings. At the same time, it is necessary to remember what color the metal was and when it was forged most gently. It is also worth remembering that in sunlight, even a metal heated to 1100 ° C will look dark.
As soon as the drill will heat up to the desired temperature, and over 1000 °C, its immediately needed take out of the furnace, and clamp the bottom of the shank in a vise. Then take the adjustable wrench, clamp 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 can't do it all at once, no big deal. Just re-heat the drill and repeat the procedure. The result should be a relatively flat strip of metal.
The next step will be drill forging And rolling metal to an acceptable thickness. Everything is pretty 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 with a thickness of about 4 - 5 mm.
Important! When forging metal, it is necessary to constantly monitor the color of the workpiece. As soon as it began to fade, acquiring a cherry color, we immediately return it to the forge. It is better to heat the metal once again than to break it under the blow of a hammer.
Further knife edge forged. Here everything is somewhat more complicated. 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 work is almost jewelry and will require a certain dexterity. Forging is carried out in such a way that gradually rounding the tip, the blade is gradually pulled in length. Strikes should be strong, but accurate. A beginner may not succeed the first time, but a little practice will fix everything.
The next step will be knife edge forging. This is a rather important and difficult stage. This will require a lighter hammer and preferably with a rounded head. Starting from the middle of the blade, 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 blows very carefully and try to apply only as much effort as is required for a slight deformation of the hot metal. We remember the color of the workpiece and, if necessary, send it back to the crucible.
After forging the blade and point, move on to shank forging. The work itself will be much easier than when forging a blade. First, we heat up 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, someone likes to make a knife handle. Someone makes simple overlays, and someone makes a typesetting handle.
Upon completion of forging, let the metal cool gradually and then move on to sanding. On a grinding machine, we remove excess layers of metal and irregularities, making the knife perfectly smooth and shiny. When grinding, it can take up to 2 mm of thickness, and the knife will become much lighter and thinner. Also at this stage, you can sharpen the knife. Finally, we harden the knife. How this is done will be written below.
Forging a knife from a drill video review:
Another popular material for forging knives is the bearing, namely its inner or outer rim. And internal is even more preferable. All work on forging a knife from a bearing is almost identical to forging from a drill. With some exception.
First, we cut out the blank from the bearing rim using a grinder. We try to take the length with a margin, so that there is enough for the knife and another 1 - 2 cm remains. Secondly, at the initial stage of forging, the cut blank should be welded to the reinforcement bar. And in this form, glow and forge. Thirdly, if in the case of a drill, the workpiece was rolled from round to flat, then for the bearing cage it simply needs to be aligned. And further steps for forging 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 overhead handles from a bearing.
Forging a knife from a bearing video review:
In search of the right steel for a quality knife, many use a spring. The metal of this car part is highly resilient and durable, making it an excellent example for hand forged knives. In fairness, it should be noted that a knife from a spring can also be made by simply cutting out a knife profile with further sharpening and hardening. But still, in order for the knife to be really reliable, it is better to forge it, especially since the thickness of the spring is large enough, and for a good knife it should be reduced.
We start forging a knife from a spring by cleaning the grinder from rust and marking the plate. Only a small part of the spring will be required, so having noted it, we cut it off with the help of a grinder. Next, we weld the workpiece to the fittings and heat it up. Then we gradually forge, bringing to the required thickness. We forge the point and the cutting edge, how to do this is described above using the example of forging a knife from a drill. Having achieved the desired, 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 various plumbing tools and a file is a prime example of this. 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 need to clean the file from notches and possible rust. You can do this with a grinder. Next, if necessary, cut off the workpiece of the required length from the file. Then we weld it to a piece of reinforcement and put it into the crucible. Having heated the workpiece to the desired temperature, we proceed to rolling the workpiece to the thickness we need. Then we make a point and a cutting edge. The shank of a knife from a file is best done under the overhead handle.
Forging a knife from a file video review:
Forging a knife from a rope
Making a knife from a steel cable is quite rare. Since, unlike all the blanks described above, the cable is a scattered fiber of wire, and it is quite difficult to forge them. In addition, the steel of the cable does not have such high characteristics as the steel of the drill or file. For the most part, rope knives are forged because of their unusual pattern on the wedge, vaguely reminiscent of Damascus steel. In order to make such a knife, it is necessary to make a little more effort than when forging from a regular steel bar.
Forging a knife from a cable begins, like regular forging. Here are just a few little secrets. First, it 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 in the manufacture of the 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 because of the scattered wires that make up the cable. To make a knife, you need to weld them together. And this is a whole art and it’s not worth counting on a knife from a cable the first time. Welding can be done in two ways. The first is to weld by electric welding along large grooves. The second is to perform blacksmith welding. The second option is more difficult and at the same time preferable.
So, having chosen a method for creating a handle, we proceed to forging a knife. To do this, heat the cable to a bright red color. Then take it out and sprinkle with borax. Then we send it back to the crucible. In this simple way, preparation for forge welding is carried out. is a salt of tetraboric acid and is used by craftsmen to weld individual layers of steel. In fact, it is a flux that facilitates the melting process and protects the molten metal from oxygen and eliminates metal oxides. Bura can be found in the public domain without any problems.
After the cable has been treated with borax from all sides and it has heated up from 900 to 1200 ° C or more, we take it out of the furnace and begin to forge. We strike with a heavy hammer, but at the same time we try to keep the fibers of the cable together. The complexity of forging the cable is 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 you like. But at the same time, each time, heating it in the forge, sprinkle the cable with brown. The result is a monolithic piece of steel, consisting of many layers, almost like Damascus steel. After that, it remains only to forge the blade of the required shape. On the videos demonstrating the forging of knives, it has already been shown more than once how exactly the blade is rolled out, the cutting edge and the point are created.
Hardening and tempering of the blade
As noted earlier, hardening a knife is one of the most important stages in its manufacture. After all, it is on how correctly it was performed that the performance of the knife depends. The hardening process itself is carried out after the knife has cooled down and has been ground on a grinding machine.
It begins with its heating from light red to orange. After that, the knife is lowered into water or oil. At the same time, 2 - 3 tablespoons of common salt per 1 liter are added to the water, and the water temperature should be 18 - 25 ° C, oil 25 - 30 ° C. Hardening is carried out quite quickly and in order for everything to go well after hardening, the blade must be released. The hardening of steel 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 moan" 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 the weakening of the internal stress of steel, which makes it more flexible and resistant to various kinds of loads. Before you make a vacation, the blade should be cleaned of possible scale and then reheated. But the temperature during the holiday is much lower. The knife itself must already be held above the flame and observed. As soon as the entire surface is covered with a yellow-orange film, remove the knife from the fire and let it cool naturally.
Sometimes quenching and tempering is done with oil or water, and sometimes through oil into water. Such hardening is carried out very quickly. First, the blade is lowered into oil for 2 - 3 seconds, and then into water. With this approach, the risk of hardening incorrectly is minimal.
Forging a knife with your own hands only seems like a simple task. In addition to the fact that you have to wave the blacksmith's hammer quite a lot, it may not be possible to forge a knife the first time without experience in forging metal. Therefore, you first need to fill your hand and practice a little, and then start forging a knife.
In search of ideas for making perfect tools, craftsmen try to use the most unusual materials and tools at hand. The blacksmith realized one of these homemade finds. He showed how to make his forged knife from a metal cable without sketches. If you do it according to pre-prepared drawings and drawings, thinking through everything to the smallest detail, this is what craftsmen who specialize in making knives do.
Two videos of the channel “Kovko Kova4” show the technology of making a knife from such a strong steel material as a cable. The first video is cable welding. The second is about forging a knife.
To weld a cable and make a forging for a knife out of it, you must first prepare the material. There is a rope in the center of the steel coils, you need to remove it, it interferes. To do this, the coils will have to be partially untwisted. In place of the rope, a wire rod of 8 millimeters is installed.
To prepare for welding, we prepare 2 trimmings. We weld the edges with electric welding. Then we put it together and again connect it by welding. We also attach a handle for which it is convenient to hold. In the middle between the tracks on both sides, 2 pieces of wire 8 mm were welded. More master did nothing extra. Flux - borax. Sprinkled the heated workpiece. And back to the fire. See the rest of the video.
Welded wire rope. Dimensions shown. If you cut the forging into three equal parts, clean it and reassemble it, you can weld it again. As you can do several times, changing the location of the cuts. The master himself did not set such a goal, but simply wanted to make a knife from a cable. Therefore, the workpiece was divided into two parts. They will make 2 knives. I noticed some dark spots on the cut of the forgings. Most likely this is the norm when welding a cable.
This shows the dimensions of the blank after forging on a hammer. Before this, we remove the scale with a brush. No cracks or pores were noticed. A forging for a knife will be made from it. The blade and handle will be formed. Descents on the cutting part will be made. The rest of the work on fine-tuning the knife must be done on sharpeners and grinders.
Buying a knife from a cable is almost ready. But you can also shorten it if you wish. The very length of the blade. The blacksmith left everything as it is. The handle will be of two overlays. Fastening with three rivets. Three holes are made accordingly. A dark streak visible to the eye appeared on the blade itself. A small pair was seen on the tip. But when processing it, everything should be ground off. In general, the product from the cable turned out to be good.
Now on sale there is a fairly large assortment of various knives of good quality. However, hand-forged knives are very popular. Such products have a special energy. Do-it-yourself knives can be made in different ways. The most difficult way is the manual forging option. It should be understood that forging makes it possible to make a durable blade of excellent quality, which can last a fairly large amount of time without losing its qualities.
A knife forged from durable material can last for many years without breaking or losing its qualities.
In order to forge a knife, you will need to have some knowledge about metals and their properties. In addition, you need to thoroughly master the tool for forging. For people who decide to make this product with their own hands for the first time, it is important to familiarize yourself with some recommendations.
How to choose the right material for making a knife?
Figure 1. The design of a forged knife.
To make a quality blade, you need to choose the right steel for it. The cutting characteristics of the knife and its strength will depend on the choice of material. For the correct selection of metal, it is important to know what properties such a material has. You will need to focus on 5 main properties of steel:
- Wear resistance - the resistance of steel to wear during use. This property will depend on the hardness of the material.
- Hardness is a property of a material that indicates its ability to resist the ingress of hard materials into it. It is worth knowing that a solid material is less subject to deformation. The strength index can be measured on the Rockwell scale.
- Strength - the ability to maintain integrity when exposed to atmospheric forces.
- Plasticity is the ability of a material to absorb and distribute kinetic energy upon impact and deformation.
- Red hardness is the resistance of a metal to high temperatures and the ability to retain its properties during heating. The minimum temperature for forging steel will depend on the resistance of the material to heat treatment. It is recommended to choose hard grades, for which the working temperature of forging is more than 900°C. It is worth knowing that the melting point of this material is approximately 1500°C.
All these characteristics are interconnected. The predominance of one of them leads to the deterioration of the others. Each property of the material will depend on the content of alloying elements and additives in it, which include silicon, tungsten, molybdenum and others.
Figure 2. Types of knife profiles.
The presence of all alloying elements and their use in the required proportion in the process of steel production, as well as knowledge of their properties, makes it possible to create steel for the required purposes. Each of these steels has its own marking. It is worth noting that Russian and European brands have different designations.
Russian manufacturers, which are often used in the process of forging blades with their own hands, include steel marked U7-U16, R6M5, Kh12MF and others. Of the European grades, steel 1095, M-2, A-2 and others can be noted.
A detailed description of the metal grade can be found in the Steel and Alloy Grade Book.
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What tools are needed for forging a knife with your own hands?
To forge a blade, you will need to have a special blacksmith tool, but you can also use amateur tools:
- Hammer 4 kg.
- Hammer up to 1 kg.
- Vice.
- Point machine.
- Stove.
- Anvil.
- Apparatus for welding.
- Bulgarian.
- Blacksmith's tongs or ordinary pliers.
- Wrench.
Forging tools: hammer, vice, adjustable wrench, blacksmith's tongs, chisel, tamp.
You should know some of the nuances regarding the stove. It will be necessary to reach a temperature of approximately 1000-1200 ° C, which cannot be done in an ordinary oven. In this regard, it will be necessary to improve the stove. The structure is made of metal with thick walls, after which a pipe is connected into which air will be supplied from the vacuum cleaner. Coal is suitable as fuel.
Before making a knife, you will need to make a sketch. A knife is a simple object that consists of a blade and a handle, but these elements have many components. On fig. 1 you can see a sketch of the structure with all its components. The existing types of profiles can be seen in Fig. 2. After a suitable profile has been selected, it will be possible to proceed to the creation of a sketch. Professionals do not always use drawings, but beginners will need them.
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How to make forged knives from a file or cable?
The file is made of wear-resistant steel, and therefore knives are often made from this tool. Such blades will have a good cutting edge.
A knife forged from a cable is inferior in its characteristics to others, but the blade has an unusually beautiful pattern, reminiscent of Damascus steel.
The first step will be to clean the tool from notches and rust. This action can be done using a grinder. If necessary, it will be necessary to cut the workpiece of the desired length from the file. After that, the product is welded to the reinforcing bar and thrust into the stove. The product must be heated to the required temperature, after which it will be possible to start rolling the product to the desired thickness. Next, a point and an edge for cutting are made. The shank of the knife from this tool is recommended to be made under the overhead handle.
The cable must be split to red, then removed from the stove and sprinkled with borax. After that, the cable must be heated to 1000 ° C, removed from the furnace again and begin to forge. The blows are applied with a hammer, it is important to try to keep all the fibers together.
The end result can be a strip of steel, which consists of several layers. It will be possible to forge a knife of the required shape from it.
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We forge a knife from a drill ourselves
Drills are often used for forging knives. This is due to the fact that these products are made of R6M5 steel, which is suitable for blades. It has a good level of strength and is easy to sharpen.
You should be aware that large drills consist of a working part made of R6M5 steel and a shank made of ordinary steel. Drills of small sizes in most cases are made of P6M5.
The file knife has excellent cutting properties.
If you plan to forge a knife from a large drill, you need to immediately determine where each type of steel is located. To do this, you need to grind the drill along the length. In places where ordinary steel is present, a large number of sparks will form. At the point of a drill made of alloy steel, there will be few sparks. This procedure will need to be performed in order to determine where the knife will have a blade and where the shank.
Forging is performed as follows:
First of all, a fire is made in the stove, after which the blower is connected. Next, you need to wait until the fuel starts to burn strongly. After that, the drill is placed in the oven. This must be done with tongs so that the shank is located outside the fire. If forging is performed for the first time, it is quite difficult to determine from the first time whether the metal has heated up to the desired temperature. In this regard, more than one drill will be damaged. In order not to spoil a large amount of material, it is recommended that you first practice with heating and forging on reinforcing bars.
You will need to remember what color the metal had and when it was easy to forge. It should also be taken into account that in sunlight, even a metal heated to 1000 ° C will not be light.
After the drill is heated to a temperature of more than 1000 ° C, it will need to be removed from the oven, and then the lower part of the shank should be fixed in a vise. After that, you will need to take an adjustable wrench, press the top of the drill with it and straighten the spiral using circular motions. All actions will need to be done quickly so that the metal does not have time to cool, otherwise the drill will break. If all the steps in one approach did not work out, you will need to reheat the drill and repeat the process. The end result is a relatively flat strip of metal.
At the next stage, it will be necessary to forge the drill and roll the metal to the desired thickness. To do this, you need to heat the metal to the desired temperature, take a heavy hammer, and then level the steel with strong blows, giving the necessary shape. The end result will be a steel strip with a thickness of approximately 3-5 mm. In the process of forging the material, it will be necessary to constantly monitor the color of the product. As soon as a dull color appears, the workpiece will need to be returned to the forge.
Next, you need to forge the tip of the knife. It is worth knowing that the product will need to be given a round shape, while maintaining the desired thickness of the structure. Forging should be done in such a way that in the process of making a hole, the blade is slightly pulled along the length. You have to hit carefully.
The next step is forging the cutting edge. To do this, use a light hammer. The metal moves down to the edge, and you need to start from the middle of the blade. The cutting edge should be thin, and the blade should remain straight. All strikes must be applied carefully. It is important to monitor the color of the product.
Next, the shank is forged. First of all, the shank of the round drill is heated, after which the product is rolled out with strong hammer blows. The shank can be narrow or wide. Everything will depend on the sketch.
After the metal has cooled, it will be possible to grind. You will need to remove excess metal to make the knife even and give it a shine. After grinding, the product can become 2 mm thinner, as a result of which the knife will have less weight. At this stage, sharpening and hardening of the blade can be performed.
Secondary raw materials will not allow you to make a blade of the highest quality. But many people like the feeling of rebirth of other materials into cutting and piercing objects. For example, forging a knife from a file or chain, a spring, a valve, a bearing, a cable, a drill.
Bearing knife
For knives, bearings from cars are used, usually with a diameter of 10-15 centimeters.
Rope knives
Good blades are obtained from the cable, but the Damascus properties are not high due to large patterns. Wire rope knives contain a small amount of carbon, so a Damascus cutting edge must be welded to their bodies.
Spring knives
Many people prefer to make knives with their own hands from a spring that was made back in the Soviet period. Then high-quality steel 65G was used for the spring. The properties of the spring metal are enhanced by the correct ratio of the components and technological heat treatment. If the knives from the spring are overheated, they will become brittle.
Chain knives
Widely used for forging such secondary material as chains. More often these are chains from a chainsaw, but there are also motor chains from a gasoline engine.
Valve knives
To make knives with your own hands, hollow exhaust valves are taken from the valve. Not every craftsman knows how to correctly pull the knife out of the valve. Therefore, this is not the best option.
Drill knives
Good knives are made from a drill. The tool steel from which the drills are made speaks for itself. If you properly harden a blade made with your own hands from a drill, then it will not break under shock loads and will be able to withstand high bending loads.
File knives
To make it with your own hands, you must first draw a sketch - the shape of the blade and handle, choose the method of attachment, as in the video. The metal for the file is U10 carbon steel. Its hardness is 57 - 58 HRC. These properties of the metal are preserved during forging, and the knives from the file are strong, with high cutting performance and withstand heavy loads.
Saw knives
An alternative would be to use a mechanical rail saw. Their strength is even higher than that of files. Both of these products are the best suited for forging knives at home. Since the old file is more accessible, we will consider the technology from it in more detail. You can also watch the process on video.
Steps for converting a file into a knife
Forging at home should take place with strict observance of all precautions.
We will use:
- File (preferably Soviet).
- Material for the manufacture of the handle (plastic, bone, wood, etc.).
- Shoe polish and wax.
- Gas stove or other heating device.
- Machine tool, vice and grinder.
- Magnet.
- Sandpaper.
- Material for rivets (preferably brass).
- Glue for leather and metal.
First, we fire the file in the oven, as in the video. We heat it for 6 hours and leave it there until it cools completely. We do this so that the steel becomes the same as before factory processing. Instead of a stove, you can use hot coals of a fire. At home, you can use a gas burner for this. The future knife is placed on it in the place where the cutting part is supposed to be. A metal heat shield is placed on top so that it does not touch the file. The workpiece is sprinkled with salt, which should melt when heated. Process time - 6 hours.
Then they cut off everything superfluous from the workpiece so that it matches the drawn sketch. Now you need to drill holes for rivets and harden the future knife. The workpiece is evenly heated until the incandescence of one color. The handle may not be hardened. If the steel is hardened, then it will not be magnetized. This is a signal for further action. At this stage, the workpiece should scratch the glass if done correctly.
The most important part of the job is over, you can start tempering - the process of changing the properties of steel in order to reduce brittleness. To do this, warm the knife in the oven for two hours. Then the knife is polished, brought to a smooth surface, as in the video.
The next step is etching the steel with ferric chloride. The result will be the formation of an oxide film, it will protect the metal from corrosion. If there is no ferric chloride, then you can use vinegar or lemon juice.
The final step is the handle. She sits on the glue and riveted. Sharpening is supposed to be manual, as in the video, since the knife is not afraid of scratches. In any case, manual sharpening is better than inept sharpening on the machine. Now the blade needs to be waxed. It is advisable to sharpen knives before the final hardening of the metal.
Instead of a false handle, you can use leather, which must be wound evenly and brought to a state of uniformity with the help of shoe polish.
It should be noted that knives made at home are very resistant to mechanical processing and after hardening, they can only be edited on a diamond sharpening machine. On a conventional sharpener, it will be possible to correct only manual sharpening.
