[TheForge] A not so spectacular failure

Sat Aug 16 04:22:53 2003

Frosty:  Bummer about Lindsay's knife.

    Bless her heart for trying a not-so-easy project for a beginner.  I had
this happen to me once when I was a newby knife-maker.  I determined that
the reason was my failure to maintain heat at the junction of the tang and
blade, after it had been formed.

My remedy was to make sure the tang junction was heated with each heat and
to cease striking before the tang junction had lost its color.  Tongs near
this area also draw heat away very quickly.

Hell, she's young enough to break many more knives as she travels along.

Grant
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jerry Frost" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 11:25 PM
Subject: [TheForge] A not so spectacular failure

> Well, when I let Lindsey attempt a knife I told her there was a chance it
> would fail and the most likely time was during heat treating AFTER 90% of
> the work was done.
>
> She'd sweated her butt off all last weekend in rare Alaskan 90* heat.
Spent
> a solid 10 hours at the belt grinder and had a pretty nice looking belt
> knife, especially for someone who'd never touched a grinder of any kind
till
> last weekend.
>
> 5160, new stock. Watching the temper colors run showed up a crack, through
> and through about 80% of the width of the tang, 3/4" behind choil (sp?)
and
> just ahead of front rivet hole. Knife's a write off. <sigh>
>
> She's going to finish the handle (fiddle back Myrtle) for the experience,
> then we're breaking the tang off so it can't be used and she's going to
> frame it.
>
> Bummed.
>
> Frosty
> ------------------------
> If it ain't forged
> it ain't real.
> Wrought iron is.
> The FrostWorks
>
> Meadow Lakes, AK.
>
>
>
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