How can i make a homemade knife

How to make a homemade knife? Self-made knives made by forging are especially popular. If the production was used such material as alloy steel, then the knife acquires a special value. Forging a knife with your own hands - the most time-consuming option of manufacturing the product. The most durable and high-quality blades are created using forging, serve more than a decade and retain their qualities unchanged. However, forging requires a lot of knowledge and experience from the master. You will need a good knowledge of the properties of metals, which will allow you to make a home-made knife of high quality and beautiful.

A homemade knife can be made by forging it out of steel.

Wrought knife making

In addition to professional tools, you can also use tools for forging if they seem comfortable. In order to forge a knife, you will need:

Tools for hand forging.

• large hammer;
• small hammer;
• blacksmith tongs;
• pliers;
• adjustable wrench;
• vice;
• anvil;
• Bulgarian;
• welding machine;
• grinder;
• grinding machine;
• sandpaper;
• file;
• coal;
• bake.

It should be remembered that ordinary foci (especially fires) will not give the necessary temperature for forging steel. It will take too long to warm the workpiece, which is fraught with deformation and burnout of the material. The furnace is required to be made of thick-walled metal, and a pipe should be attached to it, through which a constant flow of air will be adjusted. Air can be supplied with an old vacuum cleaner or fan. The fuel must be chosen taking into account the fact that it should burn for a long time, from the air flow - not to go out, therefore coal is well suited.

The choice of steel for a knife

For a quality knife, you need to choose the right metal and process it.

Characteristics of strength and cutting quality depend on the selected metal. In order to choose the metal correctly, you need to know what characteristics it possesses. The main properties of steel are strength, hardness, wear resistance, toughness and redness.

Hardness indicates the ability to resist penetration of a harder material. Solid types of steel, which are made from homemade knives, can successfully resist deformation. To measure the hardness there is a Rockwell scale: steel should have values ​​from 20 to 67 HRC.

Wear resistance - resistance to wear of the material during operation. This indicator is directly dependent on the hardness of steel.

Strength is usually checked for bending or strong impacts. It is characterized by the ability to maintain integrity under the actions of external forces.

Plasticity is the ability to absorb and dissipate the kinetic energy of an impact without being destroyed or deformed in the process.

In order to properly forge a knife you need a sketch.

Red hardness - resistance to high temperatures. If the home-made with heating and after it remains with the same strength characteristics, it means that the material has a red durability. From this indicator depends on what temperature the steel can be forged. Solid steel grades are the most red-resistant, the temperature for forging them in the region of 900 ° C. The melting temperature for such steels ranges from 1450 to 1520 ° C.

All properties have become interrelated and must be combined with each other, since an increase in one indicator necessarily leads to a deterioration in another. Properties of steel depend on silicon, carbon, tungsten, cobalt, nickel and molybdenum contained in it, as well as other alloying elements and additives. In order to find out exactly what the composition of the steel is in one or another object, from which it is planned to manufacture an improvised knife, it is necessary to have on hand a full reference to the steel and alloys. It contains detailed compositions of steels and their characteristics.

Sketch for the design of the knife

Types of knife blades.

A knife can be considered a simple object, as it consists of a handle and a blade. But for the manufacture of high-quality knife nevertheless requires compliance with a number of parameters, since the functionality of the tool depends on them. Skilled craftsmen can do without blanks and preliminary sketches, but for a beginner it is important to create the initial template.

The shape and size of the template depends on how you plan to use the finished knife. Complicated shapes will require a file and a lot of work on editing and smoothing every conceived protrusion. Hunting knives have simple shapes, and authoring products are difficult to manufacture, but non-functional. Beginners can be advised to start with small pocket knives (they are also called mushroom). It should be remembered that the knives may be the results of the examination to be recognized as knives, for the possession and manufacture of which requires a license. Given this, it is more desirable to manage the manufacture of small samples.

The drawing is done on thick paper, it is recommended to do both the image as a whole, and separately the handle and blade with the shank. Layout cut to keep in front of your eyes or put on the blade, before you apply for grinding files.

How to forge a knife from a drill?

Knives can be made from drills or wrenches.

For the production of many drills used alloy steel, which makes them popular for forging various types of knives. This type of steel is wear-resistant, durable and easy to sharpen, a file will help to fix minor flaws. When choosing a drill for forging, you need to remember that large-size drills from alloy steel have only a tip, and the shank is made from ordinary steel. Before forging, it is necessary to check which steel is and remember the boundaries. Determination of the boundaries can be made using a file or drill, piercing along the entire length of a special machine. When grinding, the sparks from ordinary steel go into a big sheaf and have a yellow-orange color. On alloyed steel, sparks are much smaller, and their shade is closer to the red spectrum. This procedure helps to determine from which part of the drill to make the blade, and from which tail.

In the furnace make a fire. When it inflames, turn on the blower and wait for the coals to flare up with a sufficient temperature. Then the drill must be placed in the fire. This procedure is performed with ticks. The drill is positioned so that there is a blank for the blade in the fire, and the shank serves as a handle.

Heated to the desired temperature, the metal is removed from the fire and beat to the desired thickness.

It is difficult to determine whether the metal is sufficiently heated without proper experience. Due to an error, the drill bit can be spoiled. Before forging a knife from a drill, you can practice on the fixture, remembering the color of the metal that best yielded to forging. But if the work is done on a sunny day, the color of the metal will not help, since the metal will remain dark in appearance.

Heated to the desired temperature, the drill is immediately removed from the furnace, the bottom of the shank is clamped in a vice. A wrench firmly clamp the top of the drill and straighten it, spinning in a circular motion counterclockwise. This must be done as quickly as possible so that the metal does not have time to cool. Began to cool drill easily breaks. The unwinding may not happen the first time, in this case the drill is placed in the furnace again, and the operation is repeated the necessary number of times. The untwisted drill bit looks like a metal strip with relatively smooth edges.

The following operations are performed with a hammer, rolling the metal of the drill to the desired thickness. On a hot iron hit with a heavy hammer until its thickness is 4-5 mm. The color of the workpiece in the process must be continuously monitored, and as soon as the metal turns cherry, it is returned to the furnace. Excessive heating can form scale, which can easily remove the file. Not enough hot billet can be easily broken with a hammer blow.

After the knife is forged, it is sharpened on a grinding stone or machine tool.

Working with a blade is the hardest part of forging. Giving round the edge with preservation of thickness can be considered jewelry work that requires experience and dexterity. The blows must be directed so that the point is rounded, drawing in length strongly, but at the same time very carefully. At the same time, care must be taken that the blade remains even and straight.

Not less difficult stage - to forge the cutting edge. A light hammer is taken (if possible with a rounded head). Begin strikes from the middle of the blade gently to drive the metal down towards the cutting edge. Strikes must be applied, counting their strength, not forgetting to follow the color of the workpiece.

Following the blade and the tip is forged shank. Work with him is much less than with the blade and the tip. The shank, which has a round shape in the drill bit, becomes hot and with the powerful blows of the big hammer is flattened out. The handle of the knife is worked out, according to the sketch, and may have a different appearance, thickness and width.

When forging is complete, the metal should cool. After that, proceed to refinement and grinding.

All stages of production are very important, as they prevent corrosion and improve the cutting properties of the metal.

This will require a file and a grinding machine. All irregularities and overflows should be removed, and therefore the file most likely will not be useful for the work of the novice master. If you need to clean up a lot of waste, the grinding machine will cope faster. Sometimes it is necessary to remove up to 2 mm of steel to perfect smoothness and a flat surface, the knife becomes much thinner and lighter. Sharpening is performed at the same stage.

The knife is polished with a special felt wheel with a special abrasive applied on it. The knife is tested by cutting the rope and planing timber. Sharpening, if necessary, is adjusted.