[TheForge] RE: Finishing forged knife

Mon Oct 20 14:02:01 2003

Scott,

My son is a full time knife maker and makes a lot of welded blades. His
process is as follows:

Forge blade, normalize, aneal,  rough grind (60 grit), harden, temper in
oven (400 deg), draw back with O/A,  finish grind (400 grit), hand rub to
600, etch, wrap blade with tape to protect, fit guard, fit handle, assemble
knife, grind sand and finish handle and guard,  take tape off blade, make
sheath, clean with solvent, and do final sharpening.

Lots of steps but will give predictable results.

Bob Ehrenberger
Shelbyville, Mo

Original Message++++
From: Scott Lane <[email protected]>
Subject: [TheForge] Finishing forged knife
Reply-To: [email protected]

Greetings,
I have just finished rough forging my first pattern welded blade (and
don't anyone dare say Damscus).  It's pretty close to final shape but I
left enough to do the final grinding.  As this is my first forged knife
ever I have a question:
In what order should I now do the grinding, normalizing (thermal cycling 3
times) and hardening/tempering?  I'll probably normalize before grinding
just to be sure so that I can tap out the small kinks, but should I
normalize after grinding again?  Heat treat before or after
grinding?  Polish after heat treating?  Acid etch last?