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Forging A Knife

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amishfoot:
Lastly, you do the taper. You work from the spine to the edge of the blade first and that taper is from however big your bar is at the spine to 3/8" or smaller at the edge. Then, do the same from the center of the blade to the tip to give you a nice point. From this point on, reduce the number of dents in your blade, use a hammer with a very broad flat head. After you have the taper the way you like it, straighten the whole blade one more time and make sure it is exactly the way you like it. And once it is the way you like it use a wire brush to wipe off all the slag. Then you are ready to temper.

amishfoot:
Now is time to do the temper. First and foremost you need to make sure all your equipment is ready to use very quickly. I put my magnet on my forge and a bucket or can of oil  that is as deep as your knife. When you put it in the oil it needs to be nonmagnetic. It will look nonmagnetic and probably sparkly. Make sure it is nonmagnetic and plunge it in the oil.

amishfoot:
Plunge it in for 3 seconds out for 2 then back in till it cools. I put out the fire after about fifteen seconds but immediately put the knife back in.When it is cooled and dried lightly glide a file over the blade and if you did it right it should sound glassy. The next step is to cover the knife in foil and put it in the oven at 375 degrees and bake it for an hour. Then let it air cool completely. You can do this up to three times to get the best hardness.

amishfoot:
Lastly you need to grind the blade to the exact shape you want. Make it as perfect as you can and try not to burn it. Then put as best of an edge you can.Then when it is as you want it  you sand it i prefer a 1" belt sander but really any sander will do and put a sharper edge on it with a sander. Then put a nice edge on it with a stone and you have a knife.  And sorry about there not being more pictures but they just didn't turn out and I had to take the one of the finished knife on my phone so it sucks but just ask if you need more detail and hope you enjoyed it.

amishfoot:
By the way when I said the first try was a terrible failure i ment the first build along lol couldnt figure out the pictures

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