First forged knife - Work in progress

[Rathbuck]

First off - total newbie to this craft.  I've always been fascinated by knifemaking, and always wanted to get give it a try.  I started about 6 months ago by purchasing bar stock and doing removal.

I won't share the first few attempts, as they were pretty rough...LOL.

Had a fun time with it, though, so went further and now have a homemade forge, belt sander, and old section of railroad track that my great-grandfather used to use.

For my first attempt, took a piece of steel from an old plow off the family farm.  No idea of the makeup, but since this is practice, didn't worry too much.

Original bar of steel - this is after I cut off the hammered out blade - sanded it clean, then heated and hammered.

   

[Rathbuck]

I didn't take a picture of the hammered out blade...I guess I was too excited and went straight to the belt sander.  Won't make that mistake again.

After the first rough sanding:
   

[Rathbuck]

After some more cleanup and file work.  You can still see some of the hammer marks on the blade, but honestly I like the looks of it.

Still a LONG way to go (obviously), but happy with how it's going so far...I could easily get addicted to this.  If all goes well, this will probably be the knife I send to Hackbow for winning the St. Jude's auction.

 

[Frenchymanny]

Awesome!
     


F-Manny

[Hackbow]

Mark,

I'm excited and honored to be able to be a part of this knife's story. Thanks again for your generous contribution and your dedication to the St. Jude kids!

[Rathbuck]

Glad to be able to contribute!  This one has been a lot of fun for me, as it's a different feeling forging a blade rather than just removing metal from bar stock.

Here's the blade fresh out of the heat treat - heat treat went well and she was good and hard.

   

And after a little bit of cleanup (after 320 grit):

   

Terrible picture, but this is about 1/2 way through the 1000 grit stage:

     

More updates soon...  

[Rathbuck]

And just for fun, here's the first knife I finished - started with 440C stainless bar stock, shaped and ground down.

Made a bunch of mistakes with this one, but learned a ton, and I was pretty happy with the final product.  Sent this one to my father-in-law as a belated father's day gift.

   

   

   

[Rathbuck]

After many, many delays (this was a doozy of a year), the knife is finally finished and on it's way to Darren.

I'm nowhere near the skill you guys are, but I'm happy with how this one turned out.  Lots of learning on this one.

Sorry - having issues with size of pics.

[Rathbuck]

   

[Rathbuck]

[slowbowjoe]

Looks pretty good to me!

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Looks like you are figuring it out nicely!