I am in the process of making my own hunting knife. I got a piece of cutoff saw blade that's used for cutting heavy steel. I had the outline cut out with a plasma cutter so it wouldn't lose it's temper. Now I'm slowly grinding it into the shape of a knife. It should keep it's temper if I keep the grinding process down to finger warm as I am doing. This piece of steel that I'm using is the same as tool steel, so it's hard to grind, but will be a great knife when I finish it. The piece of steel that I made it from was from an old saw blade that is used to cut steel slabs that are about 1 foot thick and four four wide. The blade is 4 inches long and razor sharp, I can shave with it. The handle is from a 7 point buck that I killed in Sumter county, Alabama quite a number of years ago. It feels great to have a hunting knife that I crafted with my own hands!

Here's some pic's of my very first homemade hunting knife.

Wow does that take me back to High School.
I talked the shop teacher into letting me make a double edged 10"dagger with "S" shaped hand guard. It was inspired by the Arkansas Toothpick.
The steel, a hammer, some coals and an anvil. The class year ended before I could finish the last bit of shaping, smoothing out the surface. I was gonna finish it at a friends farm workshop but somehow we had a falling out and I had left it there before that. Never did get it back as I moved from the area shortly after. I always wondered if it ever got used.

That is an absolutely beautiful knife!!!! Let me know if you get teh hankering to make another and need a home for it!!!!!!!!

Pretty work!!!

Paul

That's a beauty mtnman.
I've made a lot of knives, usually from flat bar stock like they sell at Home Depot.
Something you gotta have is a small welder. Strip the coat off of flat stock and start welding fullers on the blade, then filing them down. It strengthens the blade and lets you put nice blood grooves and such on them. Just run a bead along the surface and keep adding to it - its easy. Make hollow ground blades too.
I like to put a full tang on them, and when people see the blade is thicker than the tang they can never figure out how I did it.
I don't mess with tempering the blade to make it easier to work and sharpen, so the extra metal keeps the blade from bending.
Another tool I don't do without is a bench grinder - I put cloth buffing wheels on it and use compound sticks to put a mirror finish on any metal. I mirror things up for the sheer old fun of it, and it puts a mirror finish on lacquer and other coatings.
Caution - that wheel will snatch a metal part out of your hand if you use too much oomph and send it zinging around the room, so I wrap the ends with cloth and save the sharpening for last after the mirroring is done.
I made a bayonet that you couldn't tell from an original.
No way am I gonna pound on a anvil - so I got a 50 ton bottle jack and built a floor stand for it (welder comes in handy). Now my thinkin was make damascus steel by heating metal squares then whangin em flat with that 100K pounds. Then bend em over, heat em and whang em again. Do that 5 times and you have 32 layer steel. Problem is making die plates, but it sounds like you have access to some good metal parts for them.

HI.. I have to weigh in on this , but im not trying to diss your knifes, just point out
the HUGE mistaks you are making in the process... if you change a few things you will
make a real, and much better knfe...



I've made a lot of knives, usually from flat bar stock like they sell at Home Depot.

> YOU ARE BUYING SOFT STEEL, IT HAS A VERY LOW CARBON CONTENT, IT WILL NOT HARDEN AS A PROPER BLADE SHOULD. ( WHERE YOU STATE THAT YOU HAVE TO WELD STRENGTHENING STRIPS OF STEEL ON TO KEEP THE BLADE FROM BENDING IS VERIFICATION OF THAT }

NEXT YOU CLAIM TO KEEP THINGS FINGER WARM SO AS NOT TO DESTROY THE TEMPER...

> GUY, SOFT STEEL HAS NO TEMPER... ONLY HARDENED SPRING STEEL HAS TEMPER.... SO YOU ARE REALLY DOING NOTHING BUT KEEPING YOUR FINGERS FROM
BEING BURNT... IN FACT..SINCE THIS IS SOFT STEEL, GETTING IT HOT WILL ACTUALLY "IMPROVE IT"

IF YOU WERE USING HARD STEEL, {HI CARBON CONTENT} CUTTING IT OUT ON THE PLASMA MACHINE WOULD BRITTLE HARDEN THE CUT EDGE ABOUT 1MM INTO THE STEEL... IT WOULD TAKE YOU CARBIDE TOOLS TO REMOVE THAT...


YOU ARE MAKING THE EQUAVALENT OF A BAYONETT... BAYONETTS ARE NOT KNIVES.. THEY ARE VERY SOFT AND BENDABLE... THEY USUALLY WILL NOT HARDEN,
AND MAKE POOR KNIVES...


IF YOU WANT GOOD SCRAP STEEL TO MAKE GOOD BLADES OUT OF...USE OLD LAWN MOWER BLADES , AND WHEN YOUVE WORKED UP YOUR BLADE, HEAT IT RED HOT AND DROP IT IN SOME MOTOR OIL OR TRANNY FLUID, ( USING PROPER SAFETY STUFF AND DOING IT OUTSIDE ON CONCRETE OR ASPHALT OR JUST DIRT...AWAY FROM ANY BURNABLE STUFF....


THEN TAKE IT...CLEAN ALL THE OIL OFF WITH A SOLVENT... WASH IT WITH DISH SOAP WELL... AND THEN PUT IT IN YOUR TOASTER OVER AT 300 FOR ABOUT 45 MNS... AND YOU WILL HAVE TEMPERED IT PRETTY MUCH ACCURATELY...

ANY OLD FILE OR RASP OLDER THAN 50 YEARS IS GOOD.... RAILROAD SPIKES MARKED CC , HC, HS, ARE GREAT...

SOME OF THE BEST IVE SEEN IN SCRAP STEEL IS HI CARBON REBAR... IT WILL BE MARKED HC,

WELL.. GOOD LUCK... OR MABY YOU LIKE YOUR BLADES THE WAY THEY ARE..THATS COOL TOO!

tempering a knife blade is not as hard as some think it is. I had a guy show me how with a pop bottle torch, and the oven in his kitchen. There's some chalk you can use, by making a mark on the blade and heating it until the chalk mark melts and then quenching it. Then you can finish up with the oven by heating the metal slightly.

I am in no way a knife maker or a worker of steel of any type. But I do remember my ole pappy putting a cross cut blade in a safe place in a pile of manure out in the pasture or barn and leaving it buried for a year or more and tempering it this way. He then cut the blade into the shape he needed or wanted.
Took a couple of years to make one working in his spare time.

He made the old butcher knives from the metals. Sure did work good in slicing fatback meat and other meats.