My home made blades

[Einar]

I've been doing blademaking as a hobby for a little while now. Here are my finished pieces.

1060 steel, hardened and tempered. Blade lengths are 20", 18" and 6".

The slender one is inspired by burmese dha's the other two are Seaxes, a popular design in the viking age.

 

[RerouteToRemain]

I'm liking the one in the middle. How long does it take you to make these. Can you write a little bit of your process?

 

[Protectandserve]

What is the next project?

 

[Einar]

I'm liking the one in the middle. How long does it take you to make these. Can you write a little bit of your process?

I've never kept track of time while I work on these. Many many hours spread over many days. I'm a beginner, so I learn as I go and have to correct many mistakes as I go along.

I work mostly by stock removal. For the one in the middle, I used 1/4 inch stock of 1060 carbon steel. This was before I got my belt grinder, so I used an angle grinder and files to give it a full Vee grind. Then I normalised it in my forge, before hardening, tempering and straightening any warps from the quench.

Then I decided it needed a fuller, so i cut that in with an angle grinder and refined the shape of the bevels and the profile, very carefully so i dont overheat the steel and ruin the temper. After that, its on to the sanding blocks and rising grits of wet/dry sandpaper from 180 grit to 600 grit iirc for that blade.

The grip is very long, room for two hands, but theres no need for it as the blade is very light. But these big Seaxes historically had very long grips for whatever reason. The handle is birch with steel bolsters at each end, and wrapped in double twisted steel wire in a herringbone pattern.

Sharpening is the last thing I do.

 

[Einar]

What is the next project?

Here are my next three blades, all unfinished obviously.

The long one is a grosse messer or kriegs messer. A medieval sword that got around the definition of a sword at the time. It was constructed like a knife, and therefore could be carried by commoners and made by knifesmiths. Swords were limited to nobility in many areas, and only members of the swordmakers guilds were allowed to make them. But these blades were defined as a Big Knife, or War Knife, because of loopholes in the definition of a sword. Mine has a blade length of 30 inches, about 40 inches over all. 1/4" thick at the hilt, tapering to 1/8" at the clip.

Next is a Fulham style roman gladius, about 20 inches in blade length.

Last will be a kind of westernised wakizashi, about 17 inches in blade length. I believe the blade type is called hira zukuri, which is a full grind. I've clay quenched it twice now, and both times, the hamon (temperline) has been incomplete. I'll have to attempt it a third time, and hope I get it right.

 

[Protectandserve]

Looking forward to seeing the finished products.

 

[D Train]

I've been doing blademaking as a hobby for a little while now. Here are my finished pieces.

1060 steel, hardened and tempered. Blade lengths are 20", 18" and 6".

The slender one is inspired by burmese dha's the other two are Seaxes, a popular design in the viking age.

You have a gift.
That middle one looks like something from Tolkien's imagination. I've never seen one like that. Do you sell these?

 

[Einar]

You have a gift.
That middle one looks like something from Tolkien's imagination. I've never seen one like that. Do you sell these?

Thank you. I'll need to get a lot better and faster when i work to justify selling my stuff. Thank you for asking though. Especially I need a lot more confidence in my heat treatment.

The middle one (and the small one too) is called a Broken Back Seax. Seaxes came in many sizes and types. The Broken Back type has a clipped point, like mine does. They came in all kinds of sizes, from small belt knives to sword length.

Some original viking age examples:

This is one of the biggest ones I know of, and one that I will definitely attempt to recreate, the Little Bealing Seax. The blade length is 30 inches, which is full sword length.

 

[D Train]

This is very interesting.

 

[Higus]

Those are great!

I've started making hunting knives. I'm work pwnt at the moment, otherwise I'd put up some pictures. My first one is a drop point that I pretty much copied from an ESEE 4. It was a good learning project. It has a tan micarta handle and I made a kydex sheath for it, which came out much better than I would have predicted. My next one will be a custom wharncliffe style knife. Like you, other than an angle grinder for the profiles and a drill, I've done almost everything by hand and with jigs I made.

The fuller looks like it could have been done with a mill. It looks great. Can you go into more detail on how you made it?

 

[Einar]

Those are great!

I've started making hunting knives. I'm work pwnt at the moment, otherwise I'd put up some pictures. My first one is a drop point that I pretty much copied from an ESEE 4. It was a good learning project. It has a tan micarta handle and I made a kydex sheath for it, which came out much better than I would have predicted. My next one will be a custom wharncliffe style knife. Like you, other than an angle grinder for the profiles and a drill, I've done almost everything by hand and with jigs I made.

The fuller looks like it could have been done with a mill. It looks great. Can you go into more detail on how you made it?

Thank you. I would love to see your work, man.

I just clamped a straight flat bar of steel to the blade and used that as a ruler for the angle grinder. The fuller came out pretty straight that way, and I refined it further with a piece of round file and then sandpaper.

I actually ground it too deep though, so the steel in the bottom of the fuller is literally paper thin. I broke through in one spot, so I had to cut off about 2 inches of blade length. There was much cursing and gnashing of teeth.

Thats the kind of mistakes that adds a lot of time to a project. I ground the fuller, and then used a file, like I said, but I was impatient and didnt brush the file often enough with the file card to remove shavings. So of course, i got deep scratches in the fuller from the file that turned out to be impossible to sand out. So I had give it a few passes more with the angle grinder, undoing all the filing and sanding I had done already, and thats when I ground too deep. So I had to cut off some blade length, and then its back to the file again to remove the marks from the grinder, being more careful this time, and then its on to the sanding again. It adds up to a shitload of extra work when you rush things.

 

[Higus]

Thank you. I would love to see your work, man.

I just clamped a straight flat bar of steel to the blade and used that as a ruler for the angle grinder. The fuller came out pretty straight that way, and I refined it further with a piece of round file and then sandpaper.

I actually ground it too deep though, so the steel in the bottom of the fuller is literally paper thin. I broke through in one spot, so I had to cut off about 2 inches of blade length. There was much cursing and gnashing of teeth.

Thats the kind of mistakes that adds a lot of time to a project. I ground the fuller, and then used a file, like I said, but I was impatient and didnt brush the file often enough with the file card to remove shavings. So of course, i got deep scratches in the fuller from the file that turned out to be impossible to sand out. So I had give it a few passes more with the angle grinder, undoing all the filing and sanding I had done already, and thats when I ground too deep. So I had to cut off some blade length, and then its back to the file again to remove the marks from the grinder, being more careful this time, and then its on to the sanding again. It adds up to a shitload of extra work when you rush things.

Thanks for the reply. I think I can see what you mean about having to cut the blade shorter. I'm guessing that the fuller wasn't supposed to go past the guard originally?

I finally got around to uploading some images.

This is the final product. Like I said, I pretty much copied the ESEE 4 for my profile. Metal is O1 tool steel, which has a forgiving heat treatment profile. I did half ass it on the handle around the glass breaker. I chose to go with hardware instead of epoxy to hold the scales in and it turned out to be a big pain in the ass. I made a lot of mistakes that added time to the overall project at that point. Overall it was a good learning experience for the knives to come.

Here is the kydex sheath I made for it. I'm going to trip the edges a little where you see the pencil lines. I have a lanyard in mind but haven't gotten around to it yet. I want to pick out a nice bead or spacer for it first. Kydex was easy and fun to craft, so I'm trying to think of other projects to do.

Here is a picture of the knife I have in progress. I drew the design myself. I forgot to put thumb grips on the spine of the last one, so I made sure to draw them in this time. When it's done it will have black micarta scales epoxyed with pins. I'm going back and forth if I want to put a patina finish on the metal or not.

 

[Einar]

Thanks for the reply. I think I can see what you mean about having to cut the blade shorter. I'm guessing that the fuller wasn't supposed to go past the guard originally?

I finally got around to uploading some images.

This is the final product. Like I said, I pretty much copied the ESEE 4 for my profile. Metal is O1 tool steel, which has a forgiving heat treatment profile. I did half ass it on the handle around the glass breaker. I chose to go with hardware instead of epoxy to hold the scales in and it turned out to be a big pain in the ass. I made a lot of mistakes that added time to the overall project at that point. Overall it was a good learning experience for the knives to come.

Here is the kydex sheath I made for it. I'm going to trip the edges a little where you see the pencil lines. I have a lanyard in mind but haven't gotten around to it yet. I want to pick out a nice bead or spacer for it first. Kydex was easy and fun to craft, so I'm trying to think of other projects to do.

Here is a picture of the knife I have in progress. I drew the design myself. I forgot to put thumb grips on the spine of the last one, so I made sure to draw them in this time. When it's done it will have black micarta scales epoxyed with pins. I'm going back and forth if I want to put a patina finish on the metal or not.

Yes! That looks great, man. Thats your first knife? Thats a hell of a nice blade. The finish looks great, I bet you spent quite a lot of time sanding that sucker. What grit is the finish?

And your lines look clean, looks like the thickness at the edge is very uniform. It shows that you took your time with this.

The fuller on the Seax was always supposed to go past teh guard, but not as deep into the tang as it is now. The flawed part of the fuller is now a couple of inches inside the handle, if that makes any sense. That makes for a weak point in the tang, but the tang is so broad anyway and has a lot of mass, so I'm not worried about it.

 

[Einar]

By the way, isnt it a bitch to get a good photo of a knife? So hard to get a good representation of what it actually looks like in real life. I'm gonna try to build a simple light control box, like this one in Walter Sorrells video.

 

[Higus]

Yes! That looks great, man. Thats your first knife? Thats a hell of a nice blade. The finish looks great, I bet you spent quite a lot of time sanding that sucker. What grit is the finish?

And your lines look clean, looks like the thickness at the edge is very uniform. It shows that you took your time with this.

The fuller on the Seax was always supposed to go past teh guard, but not as deep into the tang as it is now. The flawed part of the fuller is now a couple of inches inside the handle, if that makes any sense. That makes for a weak point in the tang, but the tang is so broad anyway and has a lot of mass, so I'm not worried about it.

Thank you! I did put a lot of time in it. It was funny at some points because I would be going at it with a file or a hack saw for a long time and it would still look like shit. I'd pause and ask myself what the hell I was doing. The bevel in particular had me scraping away for hours with what at the time looked like only a pile of dust to show for it. It came out looking good at the end, but it was a lot of work. Luckily, I feel like I learned more than a few short cuts during the process, so the next one should not be as time consuming.
I sanded up to either 1200 or 2000 grit, I think. I'll have to confirm later. It did take some time to do it all by hand, but honestly that was one of the easier parts of the build.

+1 to getting a good photograph. I could never get into photography. I have a black dog that looks like a blob in all my photos. I got a lot of respect for Sharpbycoop's photography. The guy made his niche in photographing custom blades and making them look like art. Also, +1 to Walter Sorells. I watched a lot of his videos and learned a lot from them and Aaron Gough's channel.

 

[Einar]

Thank you! I did put a lot of time in it. It was funny at some points because I would be going at it with a file or a hack saw for a long time and it would still look like shit. I'd pause and ask myself what the hell I was doing. The bevel in particular had me scraping away for hours with what at the time looked like only a pile of dust to show for it. It came out looking good at the end, but it was a lot of work. Luckily, I feel like I learned more than a few short cuts during the process, so the next one should not be as time consuming.
I sanded up to either 1200 or 2000 grit, I think. I'll have to confirm later. It did take some time to do it all by hand, but honestly that was one of the easier parts of the build.

+1 to getting a good photograph. I could never get into photography. I have a black dog that looks like a blob in all my photos. I got a lot of respect for Sharpbycoop's photography. The guy made his niche in photographing custom blades and making them look like art. Also, +1 to Walter Sorells. I watched a lot of his videos and learned a lot from them and Aaron Gough's channel.

2000 grit, shiny Never went that high myself. I do more of a satin finish at around 600 grit, always finishing lenghtwise. I agree, sanding is one of the easier parts of my projects, but it does take time. Its kind of nice though, because at that point, you're finished with all the major steps where you can fuck your blade up.

Aaron Gough and Walter Sorrels are two of my favourite youtube channels for knifemaking. Trollsky is another good one.

http://dcknives.blogspot.no/ has tons of good info on knifemaking. He also has a shit ton of patterns for knives that you can print out and use as templates.

 

[Higus]

2000 grit, shiny Never went that high myself. I do more of a satin finish at around 600 grit, always finishing lenghtwise. I agree, sanding is one of the easier parts of my projects, but it does take time. Its kind of nice though, because at that point, you're finished with all the major steps where you can fuck your blade up.

Aaron Gough and Walter Sorrels are two of my favourite youtube channels for knifemaking. Trollsky is another good one.

http://dcknives.blogspot.no/ has tons of good info on knifemaking. He also has a shit ton of patterns for knives that you can print out and use as templates.

Yeah, dc has some good info. I want to try one of the spine file patterns some day.

How did you sharpen your blades? I tried a coupe different things, like whetstones and a Lansky jig, but the only sharpening method I was actually satisfied with was a Worksharp electric belt sharpener.

 

[Einar]

Yeah, dc has some good info. I want to try one of the spine file patterns some day.

How did you sharpen your blades? I tried a coupe different things, like whetstones and a Lansky jig, but the only sharpening method I was actually satisfied with was a Worksharp electric belt sharpener.

I use a Smiths sharpening jig. It basically the same as the Lansky jig I think.



I can sharpen my knives to hair popping sharp with this jig and I am in no way a good knife sharpener. Mine has a coarse and fine diamond stone and an arkansas stone for the final sharpening. Then I strop the edge on a leather belt.

 

[Einar]

I'd like something similar to the Smith jig but with longer stroke, so I might try to build a jig like this, using a t-bar and sandpaper. I could make this work with longer blades too I think, as the Smith jig is limited in the size it can handle.

 

[Einar]

By the way, you can build a jig for an angle grinder with the same principle. Just use a long threaded rod in the hole where the handle goes. I have mocked up a jig like this with just planks, a threaded rod and a clamp to test the concept and it works pretty well for normal sized knives. I only tested it on mild steel stock to see if it worked, and then my Pheer Belt Grinder arrived, so I havent used the jig anymore, but the concept seems solid.