Hand made hunting knife

[cOOter]

Next day - Watched a few videos on how to tell mild steel from high carbon, and realized that I'm working with mild steel.   The file test was a flop, as it turned out my file was blunt.

There was no way I was going to spend the time hand filing the bulk off mild steel, as the finished product isn't going to be that flash. So I set up a basic holder, pulled out the grinder and went to town not caring too much if things went south.




Who needs a jig or belt sander anyway. All by eye with the ugliest grinding disc I could find. Even length ways strokes and just let the weight of the grinder do its thing.

No rush. Get on ebay and by a cheap Chinese knife if you're in a hurry. Having the item well secured so it doesn't move around distracting the meditation moment, is key as well.



As this is mild steel, I changed the bevel angel from the template design. The angle in the template would make the blade too thin for mild steel. Both sides in 30 minutes with a course disc. The idea is to leave 1mm or 2mm on the edge and play with that later with a hand file.



1 minute with a single cut hand file (old man had one that actually works)
Grinder marks be gone 



About 45 minutes to this point today.
I'm gonna hate working with high carbon steel if it takes any longer.



Considering it's been all eye ball so far, I'm not that far out. (I could not see one side while doing the other) Got most of the two edges down the center, and where the bevels start and stop on each side worked out near spot on. Need to drill a few holes for the handle and some extra to rid some weight.

Now I gotta get a forge of some sort together and see if a heat treat quench in cold saline salt water (google it) will skid a file off the blade a wee bit more. Probably not, but I need to make a forge anyway. Gotta find some free dark walnut for the handle scales. Ow well, it's all practice for the real stuff next time.

To be continued ...