Milled blade?

[Rusty Snuffers]

I seem to recall seeing a thread on a knife that was cut out of some sort of stainless bar stock using a mill.  (Anyone have that link?  I can't seem to find it.)  I work for a manufacturing company that builds stainless pumps for the oil and natural gas industry, so we have several computerized mills and lathes.  My question is that once you cut out the blank and grind the edge, am I correct in thinking you'd have to heat treat to harden?  The big boss would like to make some knives as "executive gifts" for employees and customers so I told him I'd look into it.

I handle the computer network here at the office, so forgive my ignorance regarding steel types and hardness factors, etc.

Thanks,
Rusty

[Lin Rhea]

There has to some heat treat involved because you'll want to anneal it to do the cutting and milling. If you are going that route, you might think about one of the air hardening stainless materials but, again, you probably wont want to try to cut it while it's in a hardened state. If it comes annealed, you can farm out the heat treat from some of the folks offering that service and then you'll have to put the handles on. Better get started.

[Wampus]

Don Robinson was a machinist for many years before he started knife making so he uses machine tools in most of his processes.  He has some videos and books that show how he sets up his mill for doing blades out of bar stock.  I don't think there's any of his info online available for free though.

 http://home.earthlink.net/~donwrobinson/knifemakerssupplies/index.html

[Rusty Snuffers]

Good info, as always.  Thanks guys.

[gables]

In the front of the Blade 2011 Knives book there is an article on milling blades. In this article, as I recall, the frictional heat from the milling takes care of part of the heat treating process.