back to work on this knife. I've got a long way to go and a short time to get there.

bevel started on the other side of the knife.


Bevel completed on the other side.

This post may disappoint a few people. It is too much stuff going on at the same time to get some good photos while the work is in progress. As it was I had to get my wife to step in as the magnet holder and firewatch. So I don't havel any good photos of the hardening of the steel as it happened. I will describe it as best I can. I held the knife with a pair of vice grips while I had a small propane torch on one side and a weed burner on the other side to get the knife hot enough to harden(non magnetic). My loving wife was upstairs at the time heating canola oil on the stove up to 200 degrees. I had left her with an empty .30 cal ammo can to pour the hot oil into once it got to temp and instructions to bring it down to me when it was ready. 10 minutes later and she was bringing me an ammo can full of hot oil, I had the knife at the proper temp for about 5 minutes. I had her check the blade with a magnet and man the fire extinquisher. By this time the oil had cooled down to a more appropriate 160 degrees. I dunked the blade and waited patiently for it to cool. Here it is after coming out of the oil.



Here is the oil. You can see some of the carbon that escaped the blade down in the bottom of the oil.

Once the knife has been hardened it is time to temper it. I bought a toaster oven from the goodwill for $8.00 and it does this task perfectly.
Here is the knife in the oven according to the instructions on the package I selected to temper for one hour at 400 degrees.





Here is the knife immediately after tempering, which completes the heat treating process. Next step is to clean up the blade and do the finish metal work prior to installing the handle.

He's gonna love it. Can't wait to see it finished

So, what's the deal with checking if the blade is magnetic before quenching in oil?

Haha I made the same grinding jig! Works great!

the heat causes the crystal structure in the steel to change, which is necessary to make the steel harder, fortunately it is easy to check when you have the proper crystal structure as it will no longer attract a magnet.

Once the metal has been cooled it regains is magnetic properties


I have been investigating knife making for awhile now...I just picked up supplies to make my own jig (I have several cut out blanks waiting...)

Nice, thanks!

Let's see those blanks.

The top two gut hook knives are stamped: "SCHRADE+ USA 1430T" The other one is stamped: "Remington Made in USA", these both came from the Camilus factory



These next ones have already been cut & heat treated, just need the final edge put on them, handles and a polish

The top one is a Chinese made one from Premium Knife Supply. 2nd from top is A Remington (also made in the Camilus factory), the 3rd & 4th are Western Boot Daggers, the last one is a small Western camp knife


I plan on using the top two as templates when I get some tool steel

Do you ever do "Spring Temper"? Afcter heating the blade quench only the lower half (cutting edge) in oil. This leaves the backof the blade less prone to breaking.

I have not tried that, I will look into it. The next knives I make are gonna be smaller, maybe a file knife or two. Then I will be making a small wood carving knife for my uncle. He just gave me an anvil for Christmas, I figure I owe him at least one knife.

This build is only my fifth attempt at knife making. There are still lots of things to learn and try.

Pretty good lookin knives.

Next step is to do the finish work on the blade before handle install. As much or as little here is really up to your preferences.
As you can see the file leaves fairly deep scratches that I will be sanding out.



I like to alternate sanding the length of the blade with a swirling motion. I use increasing grit counts on the sandpaper as you would for any polishing operation. Here I will start with 80 grit, then 150, 220, 400 and finally 600.

Here you can see the finished blade. Some additional work was done to the spine and edges of the handle. I am leaving the spine of the knife a hard 90 degrees to be used with a fire steel that I will be including in this build.



And the other side.