I tempered the blade at 400 for 2 hours. It came out dark bronze with a hint of purple on the edge as the edge was almost finished. I re-ground the blade a bit more and put a convex edge on it. Then just quick sharpening with worn out 400 grit belt on my grinder.
Now she had to earn the right to get dolled up with a nice handle. With a piece of old para-cord and tag end lanyard, she chopped through the better part of a 2x6 actually breaking the last piece off. Not bad for a blade from a piece of stock 5160 1 1/4"x1/4"...not really a heavy chopper. Then I pruned some small tree branches with clean cuts. Finally completely cut through a filled plastic water bottle.
I usually don't put my blades through this type of test since they tend to be small hunting blades. If they field dress & skin a bear or deer, I'm very happy. Ever since I got to spend a day forging with Jason Knight MS and making a Big Chopper, I needed to see if I could do this on my own with a blade I'd probably use for general camp chores. The edge even though it wasn't hand honed to scary sharp preformed great! Plus there were NO dings, chips, or rolled edges. She came through all this just as sharp as before the test.
Definately earn a nice handle...might even up grade to some black & white ebony I have on hand for a special blade!
Hope ya'll enjoyed my process of how I come up with a blade. Doesn't compare to ABS standards...but ya'll should be proud of a Knife that You make and meets Your standards. ABS just gives us all goals to to continually stretch for...heck even Lin, Karl, Doug etc are still striving to get better.
Enough about my blades...I'm gonna sit back and enjoy everyone else's work...Doc
Topic: Camp Knife (Read 820 times)
