01 Hunting Knife

First time heat treating a piece of 01 steel and so far no loud bangs or tings, color me happy.

Figured try and get a Hamon, did lots of reading while the high temp silicone set only to find out it is not going to happen. Well a little disappointed but I did have this after quenching;
https://www.facebook.com/1473930692924704/photos/p.1558777387773367/1558777387773367/?type=3&theater


Yaaaa got a link to work
I lightly sanded the surface then gave it a coat of cold blue. Figure a controlled oxidization for tempering might help keep the pattern? if not no loss and thinking I might leave the blade the way it is.

Oh and the blade was finished with a red and blue scotch brite belt before heat treating.
john

 

What you are seeing there is variances in the blade surface cause by oxides. The decarb layer is worse where the blade was exposed to oxygen, and limited where the clay covered it. What i find is to get a visible actual hamon, i have to knock all of that off and start sanding and polishing again. O1 is not known as a hamon producing steel but you may see some type of hardening line after. A hamon is IN the steel, and what you see there is ON the steel. With that said, if you like the look there isnt any harm in leaving it that way.

 

tempered and still in one piece, still not 100% on the idea of using the knife like this. Polished up with pink compound after a rub down with 000 steel wool.
Almost a steam punk thing going on with the finish and I really hate doing something that is popular, just call me old and cranky

 

Well it took a week plus trying to decide on the handle layout and posting on the local garage sale forum looking for planetary gears from a battery powered drill. The gears and a plumbing fitting have been made into a medallion that will be attached to the sheath.

No pictures yet of the sheath since I have not started it but here is the knife so far. Always take a close-up picture or two since it highlights the problems better than these old eyes any day.




One thing I learned is that tapering a tang on 1/4" stock is a loooong process but the finished knife will balance on the first finger so it was well worth the effort.

The purple heart is supposed to age naturally in sun light to a nice purple but I was impatient and used a small propane torch to speed up the aging. The wood is finished with Tru-oil and will allow some further aging of the wood until the purple becomes almost black and the brown shifts towards purple. If I did everything right over the years the handle will slowly change colors and be different than the day it was made.

 

Rad man! Tapered tang is on my list of learning too...

 

Nice work man, I am really digging that handle construction. The fit between the components looks great and the choice of materials is very nice. I wasn't aware you could speed the purple up using heat like that from a torch. A always assumed it was from light like Lignum is. Now that i think back, i assumed the crazy purples in the saw kerfs were from a polishing action but maybe it was the heat itself. I have a ton of purpleheart but have never used it so i may have to sand down a piece and experiment with the oven. I have enough 25+ knives so it cant hurt to try even if some gets scrapped.

 

I thought the same and even researched some on speeding up the color change. The propane torch was more an act of desperation that worked and could have just gone to charcoal as quickly.

One thing is that the end of the grain goes purple much faster than the side so the next fillet knife I make is going to have a purple heart handle with all end grain. After profiling and burning I think it will be pretty impressive and one other thing to stop the reaction it is suggested to use a marine grade spar varnish since it has UV stabilizers in it.
This one I want to change slowly as the knife ages so when with the oil finish.

 

progress shot of the Sheath and I may have gotten a little carried away but I like it

The medallion is part of a plumbing fixture, gears are planetary ones from a battery powered drill. Cast in clear acrylic from Michaels, Gear stamps are from Tandy's and copper and gold liquid leaf for color. May have gone overboard on the rough rivet work, these were laid out free hand and still debating the whole rough look to the medallion holder.

 

Amazing piece of art!

 

The handle really stands out

 

Totally steampunk cool! Very original package.

 

I know someone who will ask how much and will want to buy it. Now the tough part I reaaaaaally like this knife second would be coming up with a price.

Should keep track of how many hours it takes to do something like this, off to find the post that a few people mentioned price per inch estimate.

Thinking I may do a copper wire lattice handle next or something like that.

 

I just noticed the color appears different in the handle from a different angle and light intensity. Certainly an interesting material if it looks different from various angles.

 

I believe everybody is worth their time as well as materials. Obviously some people charge more for their time than others. What is your time worth to you? If I am doing something for money, I don't work for peanuts. I would rather give to to a friend as a gift than undervalue my time personally but everyone is different of course! This is true of any endeavour....

 

That is one unique piece of art! That is the type of piece that a client would buy for display.
Cheers!

 

i like a lot-visually nice and well executed

 

This little adventure has lead into a hunt for three old distributor wrenches to be used in a fixed blade and folder set.
Plus a cheap wind up pocket watch to be used in a handle, still have to locate a source of very small chain and matching gears.

The handle color literally changed in a couple of days so right now it sits with a coat of polyurethane on it until I pick up some spar varnish. Happened much faster than I read about so one lesson learned.

 

Polo park mall, Amazon?