Looks good Magnum! If you have decided to do the stock removal thing instead of building a forge, you might want to consider leaf springs. They are made of excellent steel, and a lot of them are 5160(one of my personal favs). Surely there are some leaf spring shops in your area that you could visit. It is best to try and buy new spring steel. A lot of times the shops will sell you the end pieces that they cut off for cheap. They aren't much use to them anyway, so you just offer them a few bucks for them and tell them you don't need a receipt. We have one local knifemaker here that gets all of his steel that way and saves about 60% over buying from supply houses. You can also use used leaf springs but you really have to watch out for stress cracks. Find out if you have a shop that makes up leaf spring packs and pay them a visit.

Something else any of you interested in making your own blades might want to check out is this book http://www.amazon.com/Wayne-Goddards-50-Knife-Shop/dp/0873419936 , It has a lot of good info on how to do things on a budget but still do them right. I even found it in my local library.

i have goddard's book. it is full of knowledge, but i barely used any of it in my knife. it is focused more on economy than facility. i have some nice power tools, so i used em. i went back to home depot and got the carbide blade for my jig saw, but the reciprocal saw worked well enough and uses more robust blades, if less controllable.

Sounds like you could wrap the blade in the foil and include an unwrapped sample of the steel stock in the forge.
Use the scrap piece as a temperature gauge.

A cheap method I've seen is to take a large pair of cheap pliers, then get some conduit or other small thin pipe cut to length. Take off the rubber coating on the pliers, insert the handles into the pipe, then hammer it to crimp it so it will stay in place. It lengthens the grip, so you can work from a safe distance.

well, they were right i guess. the past few days it's been holding its edge under normal use. today it met a stubborn knot and i bet it senseless with the baton till my hand hurt. when the wood finally split, the edge had rolled like a rug around that knot.

Decent carbon steel like 1095 becomes hard right after it goes from magnetic to nonmagnetic so that is the easist way to check if it is hot enough. One of the magnets on a stick for picking up dropped nuts and bolts is perfect.


It is much easier than colour especially if you have not had an expert show you how to judge the colour in person.

I admire his efforts! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

+1!