Indian George traded me 2 Harley primary chains for some mammoth tooth scales a couple months ago. I finally got around to using one of them. Heres how I am making a boot knife from it. I dont have the knife done yet so this thread may string out for a while.
I cut the chain in two equal lengths and loaded them side by side into a canister. I put a mild steel separater between them because I want to make two knives from the same canister.
I want to retain as much chain links and pins pattern so I dont want to stretch it out any more than I have to.
I filled the can with 1084 powder (from Kelly Cupples) and recessed the lid to slide down tight. I actually used my press to sqeeze the lid down and welded it in place. The welds need to be all the way around. I dont leave an air hole. Never have.
I made some cutout notches on the 2 sides where that separater is so I can later bandsaw the billet into two equal billets. I have a handle welded onto the canister for ease of handling.
Its up to around welding heat and it has soaked for about 15 min. Notice its almost invisible in the fire. I have a shot of the pyrometer in a minute that shows how hot it is.
Out it comes and right into a set of large squaring dies on my press. The squaring dies sqeeze from all four sides at once and quickly reduces the size of the canister
The last shot is too cold to work but you can see it is reducing in diameter and beginning to stretch out lengthwise. Notice the cap is dome shaped already. If it werent recessed it would have popped off and lost powder by this time.
Here is some of the drawing process and you can see Im still at welding heat. The billet is still welding even during the drawing process so I cant drop the heat down yet.
Notice though I have changed to a set of drawing dies. They are a matched set of curved faces that force the billet to get thinner and longer at the same time.
Next I put another set of dies on to re-square the billet. It is now about 1 1/2" wide by about 8" long.
Notice the scale is falling off as soon as I press on it. Thats a good thing because the canister will just get ground away anyway. At this heat the outer layer is really getting roasted. Also there is no flux involved with this method. Its the cleanest method I know of.
Here is my 8" long flat dies. (I know theyre not exactly flat but they also work on tapering tangs and distal tapering blades)
I used the chop saw to take off both ends. I can now see where that seperator is. Now it goes into the annealing oven at 1325f for 30 minutes.
Stay tuned for more fun
after anealing it can be cut in half along the seperator and each piece is forged into a blank about 3/8" x 1 1/2" x 10" long and flattened out.
My pics are out of sequence right here.
OK here is the bandsaw picture.
OK Im this far along now. I need to mill one of these blanks on each side until I can see chain.
I had some time today so here we go again
Heres what I had in mind for the design. I know it looks abit crude now but it will straighten out later I promise. The bar is cut to length and squared on both edges so it will clamp tight in my milling machine vice.
The first shot is of my table top mill from China. Im milling the edges.
Next I mill off the mild steel canister on one side, it comes off easy but the mild steel seperator on the other side takes allot of milling to finally get it off.
here is some shots of that dang seperator. Its easy to see mild steel when milling, notice how white it is? The next shot shows it is gone finally.
You can see the before thickness and the final thickness here. It is close to 1/4" thick still and should make some nice hollow grinds on a 5" wheel.
I ground off the milling tool marks to about 220 grit and gave it a quick dip in the ferric cloride to see the pattern is even on both sides. It looks pretty good I think. The pins are really visible now and the plates will show up later Im sure. The powdered 1084 looks like it has micro pits, not a bad thing but interesting and should have a cool texture when completed. The 1084 powder was really coarse grained which I believe explains the texture.
Here is the pattern. Dont worry Im sure it will show some more activity after the heat-treat and a real acid etching
I cut out the general paper pattern, folded it in half and cut out the correct shape. Daggers need to be symetrical and this is an easy way to do that.
The elmers glue holds it on the steel great. be careful to keep it straight because the glue makes the paper wet and could dry crooked, duh
bandsawing comes next, staying very close to the lines.
The file guide and a chain saw file works good for the rounded notches at the ricasso.
Notice the straight line from tip to center of the pommel? It is easy to measure with calipers from that line to the profile and use the disc grinder to make it symetric. The inside curves will be cleaned up with a foredom
Well thats it for today. Stay tuned and thanks for looking
I had some time today so I laid out the holes. The center holes are drilled with a #30 bit for 1/8" pins and the outside holes are #51 for 1/16" pins. The lanyard hole is 1/4"
I like to use a compass to draw the arcs on the paper.
Notice there are now 2 lines down the center? Yes the first one was off center so I had to draw another one.
Next comes the best feature of this knife. IG and Harley Riders everywhere will approve.
Just a little filing in the right places and 2 Blue Moons later it works.
A couple thumbrests would go good with this one. I used a checkering file to score the spacing and finished them up with a small 3 sided file. After heat-treating I will clean them up with a 3 sided diamond file
Also I finally ground off the paper template.
Heat treating is next. Im going to grind the bevels and taper the tang after HT
Back at it today for the HT
I heated the blade to 600f in my Even Heat digital oven and sprinkled it with PBC from Brownells. It keeps the scale from forming and rinses off with water after the quench.
See the spring blue color in the blade? That is 600F and you can see the PBC isnt melting yet so back in the oven to about 700-800f for the second dose. I had to flatten out the bubbles on the second sprinkling and back in the oven to 1500f
I used the propane torch on my vertical quench tank and probed it with my thermocouple. I stopped at 135f
OH, thats Tough Quench in there
The temp went up to 1500+- and soaked for about 5 minutes until I could find my gloves and the tongs.
OK I just ran out of picture space. I need to go in and delete some of my old pics of my dogs and knives and stuff before I can continue. Anyway stay tuned because I started grinding today too. Its beginning to look like a knife. Thanks for hanging in here
The camera flashed just before the blade came into view from the oven into the quench and Im not going to do it again...dangit, it flamed up nice too! Well actually the tough quench is pretty tame stuff.
After the quench I took it out while it is still smoking to check for warpage. It was straight as an arrow thanks to the normalizing thermal cycles I forgot to talk about. The annealing also helps stress relief increasing the chances of success out of the quench. If it is warped you get a minute or so to striaghten it before it gets too brittle. I just put it back in the straightening dies if it shows any signs of warpage. I like my press
Rinsed off the PBC with water
Passed the file test and showed a shower of sparks. Yep its hard now.
At times like this Im glad Kaye bought this digital kitchen stove. Its accurate within + or - 10 deg.f Anyway 395f for one hour after pre-heating it should do it for tempering.
When tapering the tang, I like to grind a steep angle on both sides of the pommel (like chisel grind almost) the same depth, to establish the center and its depth. Next hollow grind out the center of the tang with the 5" wheel and then flatten the tang on the flat platen. The disc grinder works well for tapering tang also. The push stick is handy to keep the pressure where I want it and save the fingers.
I tapered this tang from the pommel all the way to the ricasso.
I use a height gauge to see if the tip needs to be ground on one side or the other. It should be the same height on both sides when pressing the flat tapered tang down against the granite block.
Blue layout fluid works good and is durable throughout the grinding process. It shows the scribed lines very well. The height gauge has a carbide edge that marks the dual lines on both edges. Scribe down the center on the sides with a straight edge to establish where the center ridge will be.
That little square is handy to align the filing/grinding guide perpendicular to the center line.
Simply grind out everything between the lines. Im hollow grinding on a 5" wheel and a new 80 grit belt. My Burr King is single speed but with the small diameter wheel it seems slow and controlable.
I like the small wheel for hollow grinding because it shows definition and stays in the groove. The ridge needs to stay sharp so be careful to stay off of it.
I can only make one or two passes and the blade needs to be cooled. The blue layout fluid will burn off if you are not careful. Its a good indicator to cool more often. If it burns off there is no more line to follow. I grind bare handed to feel the heat.
note: there is a scratch that looks like a scribed line in the 4th picture, also please excuse the blurry pic.
Its beginning to shape up.
Notice the grinds naturally overlap each other where they meet towards the tip, causing the ridge to move back and forth until the grinding is finished.
The edges are thin and will overheat easy now. Time for a fresh 80 grit belt.
Remember I have ground this whole knife after heat treating.
