As before we start with the heavy grits and work our way through the finer grits. Now we just need to polish it up to give it a nice shine. It is pretty close though so I am going with it. Move the flame! This knife has started the wheat color but could go a little bit further. Try to keep it even along the length of the blade. Slowly and with the flame further away, heat the blade up until it turns a wheat color. Once the knife has cooled clean it up with emory paper. To around 500 degrees F.īut how do we know when it is at the right temperature? We know this by the color of the steel as it heats. This softening is called tempering.Īnd we temper it by heating it up just a little bit. But hardened means it is also brittle and susceptible to shattering when being used so we want to soften it up a bit. Any kind of oil will do vegetable or motor oil, used or new. Once it is at the desired temperature quench it quickly in oil. You know it is at the right temperature when a magnet no longer sticks to it. We do this by heating up the blade to red hot.
But in this tutorial I am going to use a plumbers torch.įirst we harden the knife. There are a few different ways to do this and you can use the forge. We need to heat treat this knife so it is strong and durable and will hold a nice sharp edge.
#Railroad spike knife tutorial series#
This picture shows the correct type of file (Mill file) see how there is just a series of cutting lines parallel to each other? There is no crosshatching. You don't go back and forth with the file.ĭo the filing to get the knife to it's final shape. And with the mill file you only file in the forward direction. You don't use a bastard file (it has a crosshatch). Note about the file: You use a file called a Mill file. If you don't have a belt sander you can do all of this shaping and cleaning work with a file. This second belt is around 120-150.Īnd at any time during this process you can also use a file to shape it. We do heavy and rough work first and move consecutively down to the medium then finer work. This is for the same reason we switched hammers at the forge. I started out with a heavy grit and moved on to a medium grit in this picture. We will do that by hand.Īnd during this process I actually switched belts. We are cleaning it up and doing the final shaping. We are going to use whatever power tools we have in order to do two things. Just a little bit of work left to do to finish off this knife. Ok! The Forging is done and this is what we have. In this part of the tutorial we finish off making the knife. My name is Will and if you have questionsĬontribute projects or ideas you can contact me Make a Railroad Spike Knife - Part 2 Some do's and don'ts from a first time knifemaker.
#Railroad spike knife tutorial how to#
How to Make a Sword - an overview of the process.
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