The Shade Tree Knife Mechanic

by Dick Baugh (5/23/00)

The shade tree auto mechanic was a good ol' boy with a box full of old tools who rejuvenated beat up cars with a minimum of fuss. I'm trying to take the same approach to knife making. I'd like to tell you how to transform a piece of appropriately chosen scrap steel into an excellent cutting tool without using a lot of expensive power tools. Even if you never use this information to make your own knife, I hope that it will give you a greater awareness of what constitutes a good knife.

Staying Sharp The ability of a knife to maintain a sharp edge after extensive use is a very valuable characteristic. I grit my teeth when I read or hear "Don't make the steel too hard because then it will be difficult to sharpen." What nonsense! Yes, there is a tradeoff between edge holding ability (hardness) and toughness but once you use a knife which stays sharp you will never want to use anything else." There are two principal mechanisms which cause a knife to become dull, mechanical abrasion and chemical etching. Mechanical abrasion is the main dulling mechanism in carving dry wood. Both mechanical abrasion and chemical etching are important in meat cutting and shaving. Stainless steel razor blades last longer than the old plain carbon steel ones because they are more resistant to attack by the chemicals in the shaving cream. Edge holding is also intimately connected with the hardness of the blade. Hardness, defined as resistance to penetration, is a measurable quantity. One qualitative measure of hardness is the Rockwell C scale, based on an instrument which presses a diamond stylus with a specific force into the material being tested. The size of the indentation indicates the hardness. Cheap knives and most stainless steel knives have a hardness value of RC 56 to 58. better knives, such as the laminated Swedish Mora blades have a hardness of Rc 58 to 60. Many Japanese woodworking tools have edges with hardness of RC 62 to 64. The difference between edge holding properties of Rc 56 and Rc 62 is ENORMOUS. I try to temper blades to Rc 62. Yes, the steel is more brittle than if it were softer but remember this is a knife, not a pry bar. One consequence of increased edge hardness is that it takes longer to sharpen. With blades of very hard steel you should avoid using 'Crock Stick' or other cylindrical sharpening devices. Excessive pressure on a cylindrical sharpening stone with break out a series of little tiny chips from the cutting edge. Use flat whetstones instead. Raw Materials Most of my experience has been with plain carbon steel, type 1095, .05 inch thick. The reasons for using 1095, in no particular order, are:

a. That's what I have available from making Bowscraper blades. b. It is relatively inexpensive. c. It is easy to heat treat. d. It has excellent edge holding properties for wood carving. 1095 can be obtained from Precision Steel Warehouse (http://www.precisionsteel.com) (1-800-323-0740) or Admiral Steel (http://www.admiralsteel.com). Worn out files are another source of high carbon steel similar to 1095. 1095 steel consists predominantly of iron atoms with approximately 0.95 % carbon by weight. Since carbon atoms are lighter than iron atoms (ratio 12/56) 4.5 % of the atoms are carbon and 95.5 % are iron. Another way of looking at it: Every 23'd atom is carbon. An additional small amount of manganese is added to make the steel easier to harden. Another type of steel, readily available in old saw blades, is L6. Look for an old crosscut saw (misery whip) or Sawzall blades. This is a high carbon steel with some nickel added. The heat treatment procedure for L6 is similar to that for 1095. L6 is slightly less hard and more tough than 1095 for a given heat treating cycle. One can also buy knife steel from mail order houses that specialize in knife making supplies. The shade tree knife mechanic should avoid using high-speed steel saw blades or fancy alloys for knife construction. The procedure for heat treating high-speed steel and higher alloy knife steels is much more complicated, involving very high temperatures, exact temperature control and reducing atmospheres to protect the blade from oxidation. That isn't shade tree any more. Blade design The knives I make have fairly short blades. This is because of the experience I had with a laminated Mora knife with a 3 3/4 inch blade, a gift from my late mother in law. It had excellent edge holding properties but the parts of the blade that needed sharpening most frequently were the first 2 inches of the blade and the tip. The middle part of the blade never got dull. From this I concluded that I rarely used the middle portion of the blade so why not eliminate it? Make the blade no more than 3 inches long. I use a tapered tang that fits snugly into a slot in the handle. Cutting out the blade Wear safety glasses dammit! It seems to work best when I make the handle first. This is particularly important when making one-of-a- kind handles from antler. After finishing the handle, including the slot for the tang I make a cardboard template of the proposed blade shape to see how it looks in the handle. Next I use an indelible marking pen to transfer the blade shape to the steel. A vice to hold the steel and a hand-held hacksaw can be used to cut out the blade if the steel is in the soft annealed state. Now I use the power jigsaw with a high speed blade to cut the blade to shape. I use the highest speed setting on the saw and stop frequently to lubricate the blade with paraffin wax to keep it from overheating. Some touch-up work with a fine file is always needed to make the back of the blade nice and smooth.

When you are deciding on the blade thickness you are going to use remember that the amount of metal that must be removed is proportional to the length of the blade times the square of the thickness. If you want a blade that is twice as thick then you have to create a pile of metal filings which is 4 times bigger. This why I like making small knives. Another technique is used for cutting up old annealed crosscut saw blades. 'Hot sawing' involves using a dull power jigsaw blade, no lubricant, high speed and lots of pressure. Do it at your own risk! After everything heats up and the sparks fly it will cut very quickly but not give a super smooth edge. The freshly cut edge of the blade will actually be hardened by the transient heating that accompanies the cutting. Hard steel is the sort of thing that ruins files. Consequently you will need to remove the thin hardened layer with a grinder before you do any filing.

Setup for filing the bevel Ergonomics! If you had infinite patience and dexterity you could hold the knife blank in one hand and the file in the other while you shaped the blade. That would probably be the last knife you ever made. Good ergonomics requires clamping the knife blank at

waist height so that you can apply your body weight and muscle power to the file in order to make the bevel quickly, accurately and neatly. Use both hands and apply a very great pressure to the file. I also don't like getting steel filings all over my workbench. Consequently I fasten a 2by4 to the workbench which extends out about 12 inches. I then clamp the knife blade to the 2by4 and the filings fall onto the floor. Filing the bevel In order to get the job done as quickly as possible use three different files. Start with a very coarse file. Try to keep a constant bevel angle over the entire edge. An included angle of 30 degrees is adequate. How do you tell 30 degrees from a handsaw? Easy. That is a 15 degree bevel on each side of the edge. A 15 degree bevel means the length of the bevel is approximately twice the thickness of the blade. over for and up 1. Do 90 % of the work with the very coarse file and finish with the medium and fine files. Keeping a constant bevel angle will pay dividends when it comes time to put a razorsharp edge on the blade.

About steel and heat treating This is a description of the way I heat treat 1095 carbon steel knife blades. My personal objective is to make a small knife with exceptional edge-holding properties instead of something that can be used as a crowbar. Consequently the steel near the edge is kept in a very hard state.

Light Weight Theory: Iron atoms have a simple crystal structure. When you add carbon atoms to an iron crystal lattice the equilibrium position for the carbon atoms is in big holes in the lattice. When the carbon atoms are in the big holes, the annealed state, the properties of the iron + carbon alloy (commonly called steel) is only slightly different from the properties with no carbon. You hardly know the carbon atoms are there at all. The magic happens when you heat the steel lattice above a critical temperature (medium red heat or about 1475 degrees Fahrenheit) and then cool it quickly. Then the carbon atoms get stuck in places where they normally wouldn't fit, a non-equilibrium condition. The crystal lattice expands slightly because the carbon atoms have pushed the iron atoms farther apart and becomes very, very much harder. The tensile strength and hardness are vastly increased. The down side of all this is that the steel becomes very brittle. A major for this reason is thermal stress. Unless every part of the steel goes through the exact same cooling cycle there will be parts of the steel where most of the carbon atoms are pushing the iron atoms apart and regions where a smaller fraction of the carbon atoms are distorting the iron lattice. This sets up severe mechanical stress in the steel which may cause it to spontaneously crack. As quenched the steel is probably harder and more brittle than you want. The hardened steel can be made less brittle and thermal stress relieved, tempered, by heating it to a specific temperature for a specific amount of time. Tempering is always a compromise between hardness and stress relief. Remember, no carbon = no hardening. You can't heat treat a nail. Heat sources I have used three different heat sources. The first was my Weber barbecue + charcoal briquettes. I did it in the late afternoon so I could see the medium red hot color in the steel. Light up a medium size pile of briquettes, fan them to get them glowing and plunge the steel into the mass. When the steel is medium red quench it. The advantages of the Weber are that you can do large pieces, there is very little danger of overheating the blade and it provides a reducing atmosphere so there is little chance of decarburizing the blade. The next furnace I made, good only for small things like carving knives, was a muffle furnace heated by my Bernzomatic torch. Poke a hole in the bottom of a tin can which will accommodate the broad Bernzomatic burner head. Fill the tin can with damp dirt and then jam a 1 inch by 2 inch stick into it to provide the furnace cavity. Pull the stick out and let the dirt dry. Light the torch and play the flame through the hole. Wait until your furnace gets hot before you put in the blade. Simple but effective.

For the two abovementioned methods do the heating in a dimly lit location so you can tell when the blade has a medium red glow. This is a fairly good indication that the correct temperature has been reached. I also have an electric furnace with a thermocouple thermometer. This gives much better control than the other two methods but may not be as readily available. Heat treating a blade The blade should have as smooth a finish as you want at this stage. Remember, once it is hardened you won't be able to shape it with a file. All you'll do is ruin the file. Have some way of holding the blade which will allow it to go from the furnace to the quenching oil. On some knives I wrap a piece of heavy wire around the tang and use that as a handle. Otherwise I use a pair of farrier's tongs. Make sure your heat source is big enough so that the entire blade is uniformly heated to the same medium red color. a. Bring the entire blade to medium red heat (1475 deg. F). Don't leave it in the furnace any longer than necessary and to prevent grain growth don't get the steel hotter than necessary . b. Plunge the blade edge first into the quenching bath. Keep the blade vertical. If one side of the blade cools faster than the other then the blade will warp. I use a quart of 30 weight motor oil poured into an old bread pan. Motor oil is cheap but it stinks. David Boye's book says he used olive oil at one time. Water quenches the blade more quickly than oil and gives a greater risk of warping or cracking. Were you successful? If you didn't get the steel hot enough before quenching it will not be hardened. Try to scratch the blade with a file. If you can scratch it then the blade didn't get hot enough. Sometimes the thermal stress created by quenching is so severe that the blade will spontaneously crack. Consequently the next step, tempering, should be done very soon after the blade has been quenched and hardened.

c. Temper the blade to get the desired hardness: in a kitchen oven at 400 deg F for about 20 minutes. The goal is Rockwell C-62. Warning: If you put the knife blade in your wife's oven without thoroughly washing the 30 weight motor oil off you will be in BIG trouble. Many books give a slightly different recipe for tempering carbon steel. The procedure they follow to temper a quenched and hardened blade is: 1. Polish the hardened blade with emery cloth so you see shiny metal. 2. Heat the blade slowly until you see a colored oxide form on the surface of the blade. When the color is just right plunge the blade into water. (light straw color for a knife to deep blue for a screw driver.) That's the way it was done by the village blacksmith. Welcome to the 20'th century. I don't think oxide colors are as accurate as a thermostatically controlled kitchen oven. Differential Tempering A differentially tempered blade has a cutting edge which is harder than the remainder of the blade. This is something I didn't do in the earliest knives I made. I do it now because it looks good but I don't know if the knife is stronger because of it. If you don't want differential tempering then skip steps c. and d. c. Polish the blade with emery cloth so it looks like shiny metal. This is so you can see the oxide colors form on the back as you heat it up the draw some of the temper on the back of the blade. d. Draw more temper from the back of the blade: Hold the blade in a clamp with the cutting edge in contact with a damp pad of paper towel or rag. With a Bernzomatic torch set to put out a pencil flame, play the torch on the back of the blade until a blue oxide layer forms. Ideally you should have the entire blade blue except for the edge. This is easy to screw up. If you don't do a good job of keeping the blade edge cool with the damp rag and the blue oxide forms on the cutting edge then there will be a soft spot which will not stay sharp. Practice your heat treating and tempering techniques on scraps until you are confident. Buena suerte. Japanese swords are hardened and differentially tempered in one process. The untempered blade is coated with clay except for the cutting edge. The sword is then heated red hot and plunged into water. The clay layer slows down the cooling rate on the body

of the sword and prevents it from becoming fully hard. The cutting edge, exposed directly to the water, cools very quickly and becomes very hard. I think this would take a lot of skill.

Un-heat treatment What if you are starting with old cross cut saw blades or files which are already hard? Do yourself a favor and anneal the steel before trying to shape it. Heat it up to red heat and let it cool very slowly (hours). The handle There are several options for handle materials and ways of fastening the blade to the handle. I will describe what I have been doing lately. If you want other options then consult David Boye's book. I have been making handles from osage orange, yew, iron bark eucalyptus, and manzanita wood but my favorite material is reindeer antler. Shrinkage is the biggest danger with wooden handles. If you epoxy the blade into a piece of wood with some residual moisture then the wood is liable to crack as moisture evaporates and the wood shrinks. The way to avoid this is to thoroughly dry the wood handle before mounting the blade. Leave the handle in your car for a week or so during the summer or put it in the oven set at the lowest possible temperature (150 degrees) for a few hours. Antler seems to be dimensionally stable and not need this sort of treatment. The blades I make have a V shaped tang which fits into a slot in the handle. In order to make the slot I first drill a 3/16 inch hole in the handle the length of the tang. Next I form the slot with my 'float'. This tool cuts a slot which is exactly the width of the tang. It is best to clamp the handle in a vice so that both hand can hold the tool for power and control. Once the slot has been cut then you can shape the handle. I cut the slot before shaping the handle because if you accidentally get the slot off center you can shape the handle to bring it back to the center. It is also easier to hold the wood in a vice if it has parallel sides. If you shape the handle first and then cut the slot it will look bad if it isn't exactly in the middle.

I attach the blade to the handle with 30 minute epoxy. Knives which were made using these techniques can be viewed in the PrimitiveWays Trading Post. Tool Set All of the operations in knife making can be done with hand tools but I am the impatient type. The power tools I use are a Bosch power jigsaw and a 1950 vintage Shopsmith which I inherited from my Dad. I use the jigsaw for cutting out the blade from annealed 1095 stock and cutting out the hardwood for the handle. The Shopsmith is set up as a horizontal drill press for drilling the hole in the handle. This insures that the hole is parallel to the sides of the handle. If you have either a good eye or low standards you can use a vice and a hand-held drill. I also use the Shopsmith's disk sander attachment for shaping the blades and handles. Beveling the edge can either be done with a set of files or with a grinder. 'Real' knife makers use a specially constructed dual belt sander for this job. A special hand tool is used for making the slot in the handle which receives the tang of the blade. I think the traditional name for this tool is a 'float'. The float consists of a short section of saw blade mounted in a wooden handle. The thickness of the saw blade is selected to form a slot the same thickness as the knife tang. The tip of the float is ground narrow so it fits in the hole. The float is mounted so it cuts on the pull stroke. One can also make the float from the same material the blade is made from.

The following table may seem obvious but it lists various materials and the tools which can be used to shape the |<---------------------------- Tool--------------------------------->| File Hacksaw Material Annealed steel Crosscut saw Sawzall blade ''Annealed" Hardened steel Power grinder OK OK YES OK YES Whetstone

OK OK OK OK NO NO OK OK NO NO

Why bother OK YES OK YES

*** David Boye's book, "Step-by-Step Knifemaking", ISBN O-87857-181-7 is an excellent reference. .

How to make your own Throwing Knife

Easily build a throwing knife with these Do-It-Yourself photoinstructions.

Every knife thrower toys with the idea to build his own throwing knife. Now with these photo-instructions provided by Christof Weese, it's easy to make one in your basement or garage, without the need for expensive machinery. Raw material:

Stainless steel, flat, 40x4 mm, cut to a length of 2800.5 mm. Sheet of paper, size A4 Piece of cardboard 1-2mm, size A4

Tools:

Pair of scissors Black permanent marker Bench vice Hacksaw with a saw blade for metal that is (or can be) turned 90 (see photo on the right and photo 18) Half round file, coarseness "bastard", single cut, length 300mm Half round file, coarseness "smooth", single cut, length 300mm File with a three square (triangular) shape Chisel or screwdriver Sandpaper, very fine ( CAMI grit size 180) and extra fine (CAMI grit size 320)
If you are lazy, of course you can use your bandsaw and electric power-file or even a CNC machine.

I - Finding the right steel

As mentioned above, you need a flat piece of stainless steel, with a profile of 40x4 mm and a length of 2800.5 mm. If you can, have them cut it to the exact length in the shop. The best steel for the knife, which in general is on stock everywhere, would be number EN 1.4301 / AISI 304 (V2A) (=X5CrNi18-10). It is available in different grades of surface finish, from simply milled to sanded on all sides. The last variant is a little bit thinner (2.7mm), but will make your life a lot easier when you later polish the throwing knife. An alternative stainless steel would be number EN 1.4307 / AISI 304L (=X2CrNi18-9). Your knife will have a weight of about 200g, a little more if you don't use pre-polished steel. The throwing knife will hold up well to throws at tree slices. If your target is constructed from dry glulam wood planks or you throw from very close distances, expect to straighten your knife once in a while (simply lay it across two bricks, or place it in the vise bench).

II - The design
.pdf .gif

Of course you can use your own draft, but for a start better stick with the blueprint designed by Christof Weese, provided in two versions below:

PDF-Format. Download, open with Acrobat Viewer, and print it. GIF-Format. Download, than insert into your preferred word processing or publishing software. Resize to correct dimensions (see marks on blueprint), and print it. Of course you can directly open the file with a graphics editor, but getting the printout to be of the right size will be more difficult here.

When printing, make sure you don't have an option like "fit to page size" activated in the printing options/window. In fact, after printing, I suggest you take a ruler to see if the knife outline really has a length of 28cm on the paper. If you keep having trouble there, do go to a copy machine and work with the enlargement/shrink option until you get a copy with the right size. CAD / For lazy people: Go to the metalworker shop of your choice and have the design cut on their CNC machine or laser cutter. This shouldn't be terribly expensive, and if you can go for the CNC option, you might as well start with your own, more complicated design. Below are files with design blueprints, provided by kind knife makers (these files come without the warranty that the machine will like them): * Throwing knife, design Weese, DWG file format (Thanks to Jrgen Bnisch) * Throwing knife, design Weese, DXF file format (Thanks to John) * Throwing knife, design Pahl, DWG file format (Thanks to Jrgen Bnisch) * Throwing axe, design Bhnisch, DWG file format Thanks to Jrgen Bnisch) Now glue the blueprint onto a stiff piece of cardboard. Hint: If you hover with the mouse pointer over a photo, a short explanation will show up.

1 Then cut out the contour of the throwing knife with the pair of scissors, making sure nothing of the black outline remains (sandpaper can be helpful here). Then use some edge or ruler to check the center of gravity of the template: it should be in the middle of the longitudinal axis of the knife, with an allowed shift of 1cm into the direction of the tip. In fact, this deviation is even desired, as the tip will have to be made pointy later. On the bottom of this page, you can find the blueprint for a heavier throwing knife, if this is more to your liking.

2 Using a permanent marker, transfer the outline onto the stainless steel.

III - Sawing the outline

Be sure to always tightly clamp the steel in your vise bench, with only 20mm of metal between saw and bench. More, and it will screech without end. When clamping, make sure your work piece is clean, and also put a thick sheet of paper between steel and bench jaws, to avoid scratches on your knife surface. When starting to work on a new segment, do not directly use the saw to enter the steel, but first produce a groove with the triangular file! Thus, the ingate will be clean and accurate. When sawing, stay right on the line or a little to the outer side. (What's gone is gone!) If things get too tight in a curve, use the chisel or screwdriver to widen the gap (see picture on the right).

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IV - Filing to fit
Using the bastard and smooth files, work on the outline until the last bit of the black markings is gone. Also, smooth away any saw nicks. Don't treat the end of the handle yet!

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29 Now, slant both sides of the blade, that is even the back. But, don't make it sharp, do leave a small ridge of 1-2mm. Thus, you can't slice with your knife, but a hit on a nail or another knife won't immediately destroy it. Only at the tip of the blade, the edges should come together, to allow for a smooth entry into the target wood.

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31 For a smooth and comfortable grip, do round all edges with the smooth file a little. Take care that no sharp parts remain after filing! Now you may work on the handle end (using first the coarse, then the smooth file, as usual). The goal is to take away exactly so much steel that the center of gravity comes to lie precisely in the middle of the knife. This should be around 14cm, but please measure for yourself to be sure.

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V - Polish it
The last step is polishing the throwing knife until you have an even, shiny surface and edges. Wrap the sandpaper around a wooden block to get a good grip.

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And now have fun with your piece of art!

Please: Be careful, and do not throw at trees.

Christof Weese

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Throwing Knife Designed by Michael Pahl

This simple and heavy design (see the blueprint with measurements, or CAD-file above) can be thrown from the handle and from the blade. It permits an excellent control of the turns it makes in the flight. To build this throwing knife, simply proceed as explained in the instructions given above. As raw material for this knife strip steel is well suited. You can get it from the roll at your local plumber or metalworker. Buy it in the following dimensions: width 30mm, thickness 4mm, length 330mm. Just for the curious, strip steel is a construction steel of

low hardness, which can not be hardened (but as with any throwing knife, you rather prefer to bend it back in shape than to have it break). The finished throwing knife will have a weight of nearly 300g. If you want, you can wrap the handle with textile tape of a contrasting color, for looks and an improved grip, and to better find it in the grass. .

Razor Sharp Knives

The best book I have run across on sharpening knives is The Razor Edge Book of
Sharpening by John Juranitch. I don't know if it is still in print, but your local library may have a copy if you check. (I have been advised that it is available also from http://www.knives.com/bookshelf.html or http://razoredgesystems.com/) As a consultant to butchering houses, and as a result of his independent research, Juranitch came up with a sharpening technique I find is reliable and repeatable. It helps to keep in mind what you are doing; first, you are setting the edge, i.e., you are removing the inevitable rounding of the edge that a dull knife has. You use a relatively coarse stone so that you can remove, in a reasonable amount of time, the necessary amount of knife metal to get the edge into a 'v' shape rather than a 'u' shape. Second, you are removing the roughening effects of the coarse stone by polishing the edge with a fine stone. Third, you are putting the final mirror polish on the edge with a smooth steel so the knife edge is as smooth as possible. The sharpest edge is the smoothest edge you can achieve.

Using a dry coarse stone (carborundum is fine), grit size #100 or #200, set the edge using a constant angle of around 20 to 30 degrees. I use a knife jig to keep the angle constant. I grind one side only until the edge just turns over. This is determined by feeling the edge with your finger tips. Once you have felt the turned over edge you will realize how sensitive your finger tips are. You can't see it but you can feel it. I then stroke the other side until the edge turns similarly. Using a dry fine stone (carborundum is fine), grit size #400 or #600, now stroke each side into the blade alternately, with the same angle as previously, with about 2 to 6 strokes per side. Now take a mirror smooth steel and alternately steel each side 2 or 3 times. The edge will be razor sharp. Using the steel every other day will lengthen the time between sharpenings by a factor of 4 to 6. Nothing is terribly critical about the grit sizes, the first one is coarse to remove the rounding of the knife edge in a reasonable amount of time, the fine one is essentially the finest you can get as your objective is to make the edge as smooth as possible.

Nothing is terribly critical about the angle, the shallower gives a sharper edge at the cost of a more fragile edge. Maintaining a constant angle is important. I use a knife jig to maintain the constant angle.

Juranitch sold me a kit for about $35 several years ago containing a fine stone, a coarse stone, a steel, a knife jig, and sharpness tester. I confidently can now very quickly take all our knives to razor sharp edges... and I have to... my wife will not work with anything less. :-) If he is still in business the book beside me, The Razor Edge Book of Sharpening by John Juranitch, Warner Books, ISBN 0-445-38002-4, gives the address of; John Juranitch, c/o Razor Edge Systems, P.O. Box 150, Ely, MN 55731 (Mar 7, 1998 -- From a reader's tip I find Juranitch has a catalog available on a web site at http://www.razoredgesystems.com/) Some quotes from the Jurnaitch's book follow. I typed these up for a posting dealing with a tiny controversy I stirred up on the question of no oil for sharpening knives on the newsgroup rec.food.cooking: "Now this may come as a shock to you, and some of you may even want to make sure you're sitting down for this one. But if you use oil in sharpening, it will: Number one -- cost you money. Number two -- make a mess. Number three -- give you an inferior edge." "....We encountered a problem with using oil when we first started demonstrating at sports shows around the country. How do you sharpen all those knives with all that oil? Heck, we could drown in oil! So rather than use oil we just kept our hones clean as best we could, and thought we could always switch to a new hone when the dirty one quit working. But guess what. The hones just kept going ... and kept going ... and kept going. Both the coarse and fine. And then we noticed something else. Our edges seemed to be better than when we were using oil..." "... The question is why did the edges deteriorate so quickly when we used oil? The answer is this. The grit that has been worn from the hone becomes suspended in the oil with the metal filings from the blade, and you get a grinding compound, similar to the stuff used to grind the valves on your car. Running your knife through this compound is like running it through a pile of sand..." "... After our experience in that packing plant with oil (where oil sharpened blades did not last as long - dg) we went into further study on the subject. We used electron microscopes with magnification of up to 10,000 power, and you could easily see the difference between the wet and dry edges. The edges that had been sharpened in oil had small chips knocked out of the cutting edge; the dry-sharpened blades did not..."

My experience since I switched to dry honing parallels Juranitch's. My stones show no sign of wear, are not glazed or clogged, and my knives are sharper than before and retain their sharpness longer. A Jan 18 1997 email note asks; > I read the link you gave and it talks about stroking the knife at > a 20deg angle but it doesn't say which direction. A prior post said > toward you (pulling up away from the edge) but I was always taught > to stroke down like you are slicing. Which is it? .

ade Easy
Knife Sharpening Information and Equipment

Home Sharpening Schools Sharpening Made Easy Book Booklets/DVDs/Tutorials Recommended Equipment More Info Contact Us

The original article on the Razor Sharp system appeared in the February 1977 issue of Popular Science. Popular Science retains all rights to the article and has denied our request to reproduce it on the Internet. So, under the fair use principle for copyrighted material, we can only quote from the article for teaching purposes. Many thanks to Gary Alpaugh for preserving and scanning the article.

You can get a razor edge on all of your tools and knives by following these simple steps By JOHN A. JURANITCH * John Juranitch got interested in sharp edges as a barber in the Korean War. Later he began a full-time study of blade design and composition, abrasives, honing, steeling and other subjects related to blades and sharpening. Today, he runs a business called Razor Edge Systems in Ely, Minn. "The real expert we have to please is the meat cutter," says Juranitch. "You find a man who has pulled a blade 10 hours a day for the last 20 years. He has no Ph.D., but he will tell you if a blade is sharp. All he has to do is bury it about six inches in cold beef and pull . . . Many times when we're working a blade, we will notice blood. But we have to hunt for the cut, because a sharp edge produces a painless cut." Despite all the misunderstandings and misinformation that produce so many improper sharpening methods, Juranitch claims that getting a nearly perfect edge isn't difficult - if you understand the principles and follow a few simple rules. Read on to learn the sharpening secrets of a pro.

How to sharpen a knife: Keep your hone from moving by putting it on a soft piece of rubber or tacking small pieces of wood around it. Use a Razor Edge guide (photo above) to establish the proper angles for primary and secondary edges, or try this trick: Fold one 90-degree corner of a piece of paper in half. Fold in half again, and you have 22.5 degrees. Hold the blade at this angle or slightly less for your primary-edge face (right). Fold the paper again and you get 11 degrees. This is the angle you should use with the coarse hone for the secondary edge. Use whichever motion you prefer, back and forth or circular, being very careful to hold the angle constant. If you have trouble knowing when the burr forms (see diagram next page), check with a magnifying glass; once you see that curl you'll learn to feel it with your fingernail. When you go to the fine hone to form the primary edge, stroke the knife into the hone as if you were trying to slice it. Use only light pressure, as the edge is microscopic and pressure will distort it. Make alternate strokes on opposite sides of the blade. When the edge will shave hairs from your arm, it is usable. If you wish, concentrate on one section of blade at a time, leaving the curved tip until last.

Considering how long people have been using sharpened edges, you'd think we'd know a lot about them. But most people - even professionals in the field don't. I've seen men who have been sharpening knives for half a century and still have little idea of what they're doing. We're found that the largest meatpacking companies in the world don't know what to tell new employees when it comes to sharpening. Before I get down to the secrets of sharpening, let me tell you some of the things we've learned that aren't true. First, despite what you hear to the contrary, fine manufactured hones are far superior to the natural ones. That's not to say that natural hones are no good; they're just highly overrated.

And second, I'd like to puncture the biggest myth going - and I can hear the howls already. But we've learned the hard way. You're better off with a dry hone. I don't care what every sharpening book in the world says. You can save that oil and use it in your crankcase. The basic problem with using oil for sharpening is that as you sharpen, grit from the hone and steel particles from the blade become suspended in the oil and form slurry. The very fine edge you're putting on the blade actually runs into the particles of hone suspended in the oil. It's as though you were trying to sharpen your blade by running it through a sand pile. I've had this point proved to me many times. A few years ago, we were called into Iowa Beef; the worlds largest. The meat cutters thought our edges were great, until one day management asked us why we didn't use oil. We explained situation, but they asked us to try anyway, just to see what would happen. So we used oil. It wasn't long before the reports started coming back from the lines that the quality of the edges had dropped. So we cleaned all the oil off the hones and the reports suddenly got better.

For true sharpness, try the Razor Edge steel. With the wings set to the proper angle and the knife blade parallel to the center support, the blade wipes the steel edge at precisely the right angle. If your hone is saturated with oil, wash it thoroughly with hot water and soap before using it next time. Keep your fine hones clean by wiping with a rag; vigorously slap coarse hones on your hand, and all the loose particles will fall out. One final tip: All new hones come with a smooth, dull finish on them and will not work properly until you wear through that surface.

As for sharpening itself, it doesn't make any difference what kind of blade you have. Sharp is sharp, whether you're cutting whiskers, leather, wood, or meat. When you begin a sharpening job, remember the two critical steps. First, do a good job of tapering the edge back with the coarse hone. This produces blade relief, and is the most important part of sharpening (the diagrams show why). A blade with good relief will sharpen easily to a high quality edge. Second, set the primary cutting edges with your fine hone. Don't get too anxious, pay attention to your angles, and you'll always be able to get a knife-edge that will shave the hair on your arms without touching your skin. For further info, write Razor Edge Systems, Box 604, Ely, Minn. Edge design and sharpening Edge design starts with a decision on how much taper to build in, and is determined by what you plan to do with the edge. The rule is to taper it back just short of the point at which it will collapse when worked most severely.

Thus for a chisel, A would be best. For a knife designed to do everything from cutting rope to opening 55-gallon drums, B is a good choice. But for a professional meat cutter and most of your kitchen, hunting, and pocket knives, taper back to C.

For meat cutting, Juranitch hollow-grinds the taper this way: The blade is 0.02 of an inch thick an eighth of an inch behind the cutting edge, and 0.04 of an inch thick one-quarter inch back. The tapering is called relief, and its importance cannot be overstressed. A blade with good relief will sharpen quickly; one with poor relief, slowly. Only a blade with good relief will take a superior edge.

Keep taper angle in mind as you begin sharpening a blade. Chances are, a dull blade looks something like A. Held at the proper angle during sharpening, it will grind to shape B. When it reaches this point, a small burr will rise as shown. This is critical; it tells you that you have ground enough. You may not be able to see the burr, but you can feel it by running your finger over the edge at a 45-degree angle or by running a fingernail across the edge. Now turn the blade over and grind on the other side, making sure your burr comes up (C).

The most important secret of sharpening : To this point, the blade has been ground to form a secondary edge face. But for a really sharp edge, you must form the primary-edge faces that come together to form the actual cutting edge. The secondary faces were formed on a coarse hone, since a good bit of metal might have had to be removed. Now, for the primary edge, switch to a fine hone and increase the angle. This is called double edging and is the secret of a really fine edge

______________________________________________________________ _____________ What does an edge really look like?

The editors of Popular Science were curious about what an edge looks like under high magnification. So John Juranitch sharpened a number of knives by different processes, then cut almost through the blades on a grinding wheel so that we could snap off one-inch-long sections and have them photographed under a scanning electron microscope. We took them to Structure Probe, Inc., of Metuchen, N.J., where the following pictures were made.

Anatomy of an edge

At 100X magnification, the secondary edge shaped with the coarse hone can be seen at top. The smoother surface below is the primary edge.

Oil vs. dry honing An edge made by a hone has some tooth pattern no matter how sharp. These edges are shown at 3000X magnification. The dry-honed edge (top) is somewhat rough. But the one honed in oil (bottom) has several large chips taken out of it something like an arrowhead that has been chipped away to produce an edge. Juranitch suspects these chips were caused by particles of grit suspended in oil, claims this edge would not compare with a really sharp dry-honed edge.

Try steeling for a really superior edge The steeled edge has been smoothed out (top) into an even sharper cutting edge, as though someone had wiped the frosting on a cake with the side of a knife. Notice that there are no primary furrows (caused by the hone) left in the steeled area. Bottom photo shows a more heavily steeled edge. The metal has actually flowed back as though it were molten. This is an edge no hone will ever equal. But be careful not to over steel. In some microphotographs we've taken, you can see a thin hair of metal peeling away from such an over steeled edge. That ruins the edge and the blade has to be honed again. Tomahawks are simple but effective hand-to-hand combat weapons, still used by the elite U.S. Army Rangers, but for the average person they can also be used fruitfully for yard projects like trimming limbs or chopping kindling wood. Here is a guide to building your own throwing tomahawk, roughly based on the U.S. Army Rangers model. Ads by Google

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Edit Steps
1. 1 Find some scrap steel, between 3/16 and 1/4 inch (4.7mm to 6.35mm) thick, and at least 4 inches by 5 inches (10cm by 12.5cm) in size. You may find some in a junkyard or salvage yard, but it is also sold at industrial supply stores. Make sure it is not to heavy, but not to light that you cannot build up speed while swinging Ads by Google

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Pair of tomahawk blades roughly cut. Mark out a 3 1/2 inch (8.89cm) height by 5 inch (12.5cm) width, with a radius as shown in the image. The radius is hand drawn, as well as the blade curve, but an exact shape shouldn't be critical for the tomahawk to work. 3. 3 Cut out the rough shape of the blade with a steel cutting blade on a circular saw to save time and effort when doing the finished cut later. You can make all cuts using a metal cutting bandsaw if you have one available, or even use a cutting torch. 4. 4

Using a jigsaw with a metal blade to cut curved line. Use a bandsaw or a jigsaw with an appropriate metal cutting blade to cut the curved edges of the tomahawk blade. Clamping the blade to a scrap piece of plywood that can be sawed through as you cut will make the task safer. 5. 5

Cleaning up the cut so it is even. Use a grinder to smooth edges of the blade, and to sharpen the cutting edge of the tomahawk. 6. 6

The coupling should be carefully aligned with the blade. Clamp the blade to a welding table and position a 3/4 inch (1.9cm) pipe coupling along the straight, 2 inch (5cm) edge of the blade so that it is centered and aligned with the blade. Be careful here if the blade ends up skewed, the tomahawk will not perform well. 7. 7

Ready for welding. Weld the blade to the coupling (which will be the thimble for attaching the handle), then clean the weld and look at the position of the blade in relation to it to make sure it is straight. 8. 8 Cut a 17 inch (43.18cm) length of ash or other 1 inch (2.5cm) diameter hardwood dowel for the tomahawk handle. Shave the end about 2 1/2 inches (6.35cm) so it fits very tightly into the thimble on the tomahawk head.

9. 9

The handle should screw into the pipe threads tightly so the handle is securely attached. Clamp the head into a vice and screw the tomahawk handle into the threaded pipe coupling until about 1/4 inch (6.35mm) is sticking past it. 10. 10 Clean up the metal's edges and sharpen the blade of your new tomahawk, and you are finished.

Poison for Darts

BlowgunsNorthwest.com DOES NOT condone or recommend the use of poisonous darts with any product. This information is here only as an informative tool
Many people have asked if we carry poison to be used with the darts we sell. So as not to get caught up in any legal issues regarding poison and the possibility of you being poisoned when using poison, we do not and will not carry poison of any type. However, due to the large request for poison for darts, I thought it might be helpful to write something about it for those of you with an interest in it. In researching some information on this subject, I've compiled a number of interesting pieces taken from various articles. We hope you find this information useful. Traditional blowgun poisons are all based on some form of strychnine. In some countries, curare, prepared from the wourali vine, is the poison of choice. The sap from this plant is boiled until it becomes thick and gluey. Most recipes also include exotic ingredients such as red and black ants, snake venom, and magical herbs. This does not do a thing for increasing the deadliness of the basic poison though. Curare kills by paralytic effects, arresting the motor nerves and literally relaxing the victim to death. Strychnine poisons produce symptoms of stiffening and convulsions. Curare is only toxic if it enters the bloodstream. This is beneficial in that the meat of the animal killed by the curare-coated dart can be eaten without fear. If you are using other poisons, the flesh in the area hit by the dart must be cut away immediately to prevent the spread of the poison through the meat. Curare is not for sale to the general public.

There has been documentation that a steel dart coated with curare shot from a blowgun, killed a deer when shot at 20 yards. This was a special case and not likely to be duplicated by the average blowgun hunter. The question you are probably asking yourself now is, What poison can I use or how can I obtain some? There are literally thousands of traditional poisons that can be used. Most of the substances surrounding us everyday are toxic. What we dont stop to think about are the effects they might have if administered directly into the bloodstream. The list of toxic substances that are readily available over the counter is nearly endless. Some of the most obvious ones are rat poisons, many of which contain strychnine and cyanide. Many of the warning labels on most products identify them clearly as dangerous substances of potential interest to the blowgun hunter. Once youve identified a poisonous substance, all you have to do is put it in a form that is easily delivered by a dart. There is a very interesting book out called the Poisoners Handbook, by Maxwell Hutchkinson, published by Lompanics Unlimited that makes for some very good reading. CAUTION: If you should decide to experiment with poisonous darts, take extreme caution as not to prick yourself or use poison in or around the mouthpiece. Make sure that you clean the mouthpiece with warm, soapy water to get rid of any poison residue. We have a very informative 81 page book about blowguns. This book contains a great deal of information on the blowgun. This book is available for sale at special request. Please ask your Blowguns Northwest Representative when placing your order.

How to Make a Sword - a Beginners 10 Step Guide

What follows is guide on how to make a sword using the most simple and straightforward method suitable for a beginner - stock removal (in other words, taking a length of steel and shaping it into a fully functional sword). While this guide has been designed with the beginner in mind, learning how to make a sword is a fairly steep learning curve, requiring a fair amount of experience working with power tools - so we do not recommend this method if you are under 18 years old or are not a natural DIYer.. That said, for those of you willing to give it a try, the following guide is a great place to learn the basics of how to make your a sword based on the techniques used by sword artisan Brendan Olszowy (aka 'Brenno') from Fable Blades.com

This free illustrated guide is both straightfoward and presented in a step by step format, so with a little skill and elbow grease, it's possible to create a seriously functional, original sword that you can be proud to call your own.

HOW TO MAKE A SWORD: A STEP BY STEP GUIDE

Our basic guide on how to make a sword using the 'stock removal' method.

STEP ONE: Outline Your Design

Decide what type of design you want for your new knife, dagger, or sword. Mark your steel where the outline of the blade will be, from tip all the way to the end of the tang.

After marking the outline on your steel, then drill out any places that you won't be able to get to with an angle grinder. (Make sure to drill first - after grinding, the steel hardens and it will be almost impossible to drill.)

This step is unnecessary for simple straight blades.

STEP TWO: Cut out the outline

Using a 5" angle grinder (with 1mm cutoff wheels), cut along your outline, leaving some room for error (about 2mm away from the line is good, once you get more practice you can try going closer).

STEP THREE: Refine the profile

Refine the profile to the exact lines that you want, taking off that 2mm that was left behind by step 2. Use the angle grinder again, this time with a 6mm grinding disc. As you get close to your lines, try and keep your strokes long to make the edge as smooth as you can. If there are minor high or low spots, smooth those out by hand with a file.

STEP FOUR: Final Shaping

Begin to grind in the bevel. Make sure your centre line is clearly marked first. Start with a steep angle at the edge of the blade, and then smooth it out to the centre line. Once again, try to keep it as smooth as you can. Going all the way down the length of the blade with each stroke takes some time, but it gives the best results. Don't try to get it perfectly sharp; it's good to leave at least a millimetre thickness at the edge of the blade to keep up the blade's strength before heat treating. BEFORE

AFTER

Use a belt sander to smooth away the rough edges left by the angle grinder.

STEP FIVE: Heat Treating

Since this is a very basic 'how to make a sword' guide for beginners, we'll assume that you don't have your own forge. Most manufacturers that supply steel will heat treat your blade for a nominal fee, so take your newly shaped blade back to a local steel supplier and request that it be heat treated.

Heat treating is very important to ensure that your sword is flexible enough for cutting and resists taking a set on a bad cut.

This is how it will look after heat treatment. That dull finish can be removed by sanding.

STEP SIX: Crossguard and pommel

6. a) Crossguards and pommels are available online if you wish to purchase them (Click here for some recommendations), though they will have to be adjusted to fit the tang on your blade. If you want learn how to make a sword cross guard and pommel from scratch, making the crossguard is very similar to steps 1 through 3; design and mark out the shape that you want on your steel, cut out the shape and refine it. For the pommel, if you can obtain a steel rod that makes your job a bit easier.

6. b) Drill (a drill press is invaluable for this task) holes in the crossguard that will be filed out to make room for the tang. Make sure it is a snug fit, don't make the holes too wide. Drill through the pommel as well.

6. c) Clean out the rough holes made by the drill using a dremel and a needle file. The holes should be snug enough to the tang that you need a mallet to get them on. The crossguard can be affixed to the tang at this point, though leave the pommel until after the wood for the grip is finished.

STEP SEVEN: Make the handle

Choose the wood for the grip European Beech is often historically used, though any hardwood should work just fine. Cut two lengths needed to fit between the crossguard and the pommel (the two halves will be hollowed out and then epoxied together around the tang). Round the wood with a belt sander.

Measure the width of your tang at the base and at the tip and mark the inside of the wood, then make a shallow cut along the lines with a hacksaw.

Chisel out in between the cuts.

Use a dremel to smooth out the inside so that the wood will rest comfortably next to the tang.

Place the two halves of the grip along the tang, liberally applying epoxy to both of them and clamp them in place for them to dry.

After it's dry, the grip can be refined a bit with a belt sander to taper it or give it a slightly different shape. OPTIONAL REFINEMENT: You may decide to leather or wire wrap your wooden hilt so that it looks like this:

Click here for a step by step guide

STEP EIGHT: Put it all together

Put the pommel in place on the tang above the wood, using (you guessed it) more liberally applied epoxy. Trim down the end of the tang so it's about 3 mm past the pommel. To peen the end of the tang, cut down the middle of it using the dremel with a small cutoff wheel. Use a chisel to spread the two halves apart so you can hammer it flat. Before hammering rest the tip on a few pieces of wood, and make sure it is over soft ground in case the blade goes through. Now hammer away. It will probably take a degree of violence. Do try to be careful though, you certainly don't want to damage the sword you've worked so hard on to get this far. Take the angle grinder and remove any excess left and then sand it to smooth it out.

STEP NINE: Final sharpening and polish

To get a nice edge and shine on your new baby, polish using sandpaper with a finer and finer grit. If you alternate directions (for example going along the blade with 120 grit, then across with 240, diagonal with 320, etc.) then it's easier to see when you have successfully worn down the lines left by the rougher paper.

STEP TEN: ENJOY!

I hope this ten step guide on how to make a sword has been helpful and encourages you to experiment with various styles to create your own home made armory! While not everyone wants to make their own sword, for those of you who want to know how to make a sword and to try their hand, this guide should be enough to get you going!