my broadhead design

[inksoup]

this is my design. i will use 1.5mm thick metal sheet. what do you think?
dimensions are in metric.

[Roy Steele]

Evettime metric comes up I have to look it up. I must have slep that day in school. So how thick on 1/8 we talken. Is it harden and tempered.
I make a dozzen or 2 tradfe points as well as a knife or 2 each winter for myself and others everyyear. I use old saw mill blades there 1/8 inch thick 1095 steel the newer ones after 1950 are 1055.both are good edge steels. The smaller ones under 18 inchs are 3/32.I settled 2 3/4 long 1 1/8 wide. A zwicky desigh because of the back of the blades. Because of the easy remove for targets.
 You can cut to form like they are already harden and tempered. There a beast to cut to form like this. Plus if get them hot you just lost the temper.
  I like to aneal mine then cut to form. Alot easer when your cutting a dozzen or so at a time. Reharden in VEG.OIL and you can retemper  these steels in the kitchen oven.
Unharden and untemper heads will work but will roll back if it hits bone stick in a tree. That I some times do.

[Cuban Missile]

Roy have you thought of doing a Build a long for broad heads?  I would be interested in seeing your re-tempering process.  I have always wanted to make my own  because they are just so darn expensive.

[gudspelr]

I started making a few knives after lurking around the knife forum on here for a while and the quenching/tempering isn't necessarily all that mysterious if a guy wants to try it out.  Also, if you have the TBB sets, I think it's volume II that has a good section on using and making metal points.  I think it was in the 20's that either Pope or Young were discussing this and mild steel was also used-can be sharpened pretty well, just won't take a hardening (lack of carbon in the steel).

Old saw blade steel works well, and any of the 10xx series steels would be a fine choice.  The last 2 numbers of the 10xx tell you how much carbon is in that steel.  For example, 1095 has quite a bit more than 1040.  An easy way for someone to anneal (soften hardened steel) is to heat the steel up to non-magnetic (once it's hot enough, touch it to a magnet and it won't stick), then put it in vermiculite (gardening section of Home Depot, etc) or wood ashes and leave it.  The vermiculite or ash is just an insulator-to soften, the steel needs to cool slowly.  Leave the steel in for several hours and when you take it out, you should be able to file/shape it no problem.

When done shaping, heat it again to non-magnetic and plunge it into a quenchant.  Vegetable oil will work for your purposes or mineral oil, different steels can harden better or worse depending upon the quenchant.  When in the quenchant, move the trade point forward and backward, along the same plane as the flat part of the blade so it's introduced to cooler quenchant to get it cooled quickly.  For example, if the blade edges are up and down, DON'T move the point from side to side-it will much more likely warp.  After it's cooled try to wipe off some of the goop and put it in your oven to temper the harndness back so it's not so brittle.  The temperature and time for tempering depends upon which steel you use.

If you really want to give it a whirl, you can buy 15N20 (carbon steel with a bit higher nickel content) in some very thin pieces and it will be annealed already.  Just cut/file the points and harden them and you're off an running. This is of course a very generalized way of stating it all, but you could certainly get some very useable points.  Good luck.


Jeremy

[red hill]

I'm with Javier, Roy. I've tried to cut broadheads out of circular saw blades. I haven't tried'em yet, though.

[Steve B.]

I think Inksoup's design is good.  The final weight would matter to me, and the sharpness.

I really like Jeremy's info, I'm going to hang on to that and try it.

Here are my homemade blades made from skillsaw blades.  They were simply cut out with a plasma cutter and worked by hand to the final form.  I'm bear hunting with the tanged ones next week.

 

[ChuckC]

about 1.1" wide at the widest point and about 1.6"long, plus tang. About .060" thick.

The shape is about the same as several broadheads previously marketed, including the Butterfield Brute and Silver Flame.

It will work fine.  Watch out though for somethng not so obvious.  Look at the shape of the head.  On a broadside it will work fine.  As you provide more angle of entry, you come to a point where the sides impact before the point does, or too soon after, maybe causing a skip or a long tear cut.  Hold a straight edge above the design above and see what I am saying, as you make a quartering angle.  This HAS happened to me, so it is not just theoretical.

Looks like it could be a really good design.  Probably best as a double bevel grind due to its width.
Pix please
ChuckC

[Zradix]

how do you screw it on?

lol

Looks good.

[JamesKerr]

Looks like a good design.  

[Fletcher]

Looks pretty good, Inksoup.  Thickness and width are good; I like mine with a straight edge and longer for better penetration and cutting.    

Roy, 1 mm is just shy of .040".  1.5mm is .059", or a hair less than 1/16" (.0625).