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How to make a knife from steel cable. DIY rope knife. Forging a knife from a file

Today, even with such a large assortment of different knives of excellent quality from famous manufacturers, hand-forged knives are still very popular. This is not surprising, since such knives have a special energy and attractiveness. And if the blade itself is made of alloy steel and with skill, then such a knife is priceless. From in various ways When making a knife with your own hands, the most labor-intensive is forging a knife with your own hands. It should be noted that forging a knife allows you to create the most durable and high-quality blade that will last for decades and at the same time retain its qualities. Forging a knife with your own hands is a task that requires the craftsman to have a high level of tool skills, knowledge of metals and their properties. For those who have decided to forge a knife for the first time, the recommendations described below will help you make your first blade.

How to choose knife steel

A high-quality homemade knife is distinguished by the correct selection of steel for it; the cutting and strength characteristics of the knife itself will depend on this. To choose the right steel, you need to know and understand what properties the steel itself has. To forge a knife with your own hands, you need to focus on the five main properties of steel - wear resistance, hardness, strength, toughness, and red-hardness.

Hardness- this is a property of steel indicating its ability to resist the penetration of another harder material into it. Simply put, hard steel resists deformation better. The hardness index itself is measured on the Rockwell scale and ranges from 20 to 67 HRC.

Wear resistance- resistance of the material to wear during operation. This property directly depends on the hardness of the steel itself.

Strength indicates the ability to maintain integrity under the influence of various external forces. You can check the strength by bending or with a strong impact.

Plastic- the ability of steel to absorb and dissipate kinetic energy during impact and deformation.

Red fastness- this is an indicator responsible for the resistance of steel to temperatures and the preservation of its original qualities when heated. The minimum temperature at which it can be forged depends on how resistant the steel is to heat treatment. The most red-resistant steels are hard grades, for which the working temperature of forging is more than 900 °C. It should be noted that the melting point of steel is 1450 - 1520 °C.

All these properties are interconnected and the predominance of one of them leads to the deterioration of the other. Moreover, this or that property of steel depends on the content of various alloying elements and additives in it, such as silicon, carbon, chromium, vanadium, tungsten, cobalt, nickel, molybdenum.

The presence of certain alloying elements and their proportional use in the manufacture of steel, knowledge of the properties that alloying elements and additives impart, made it possible to create steel for specific purposes and needs. These steels each have their own markings. At the same time, domestic and foreign steel grades are designated differently. For convenience, the steel grade indicates the main composition of one or more alloying elements. For example, steel grade U9 indicates its carbon content in tenths of a percent. An analogue of steel grade “U” is steel 10xx, where “xx” is the carbon content. And the smaller the value, the smaller its content. Or steel such as X12MF indicates a high content of chromium and molybdenum, which indicates the stainless and high-strength properties of the steel.

Domestic brands, which are often used when forging knives at home, include all steels marked from U7 before U16, ШХ15, 65G, R6M5, X12MF. From foreign analogues steel can be distinguished O-1, 1095 , 52100 ,M-2, A-2, 440C, AUS, ATS-34, D-2. Each of the above brands is used in the manufacture of knives, various tools and spare parts. For example, steel grades R6M5, U7-U13, 65G are used for the production of drills, drills, cables, springs, bearings, and files. Therefore, it is from these items that folk craftsmen make hand-forged knives.

Of course, you can find other products made from one or another steel. To do this, it will be enough to read the full description of the steel grade and its use in the Steel and Alloys Brand, and then use a product made from it to forge a knife.

To forge a knife, you will need a certain blacksmith's tool, which can be purchased at the store. But you can also use a non-professional tool:

a hammer of 3 - 4 kg and a hammer of smaller weight up to 1 kg;
blacksmith's tongs or ordinary pliers, but without insulation on the handles, as well as an adjustable wrench;
vice;
an anvil or its homemade analogue from an I-beam;
grinder and welding machine;
grinder;
bake.

If everything is more or less clear with a conventional tool, then some explanations need to be made regarding the furnace. The thing is that in an ordinary fireplace it is difficult to obtain a temperature of more than 900 °C. And the workpiece will take forever to warm up there. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the hearth a little. If you have not previously at least hardened metal, you will have to make a small furnace from scratch from thick-walled metal. Then attach a pipe to it, through which air will flow using a fan or an old vacuum cleaner. In this simple way, you can get a fairly reliable crucible for bringing workpieces to a temperature of 900 - 1200 ° C. Regular fuel is used as fuel. charcoal, preferably one that gives as much heat as possible and burns longer.

Before starting the work itself, you need to do sketch the knife itself.

In fact, a knife is a fairly simple object, consisting of a blade and a handle. But each of these elements has a whole set of components. In the photo demonstrating the design of the knife, you can see all the elements of the knife and what they are called.

You also need to know about some basic blade profiles in order to make the most suitable sketch. The photo below shows the profiles of the knives.

Having chosen the most suitable profile for you, you can safely begin creating a sketch. Of course, experienced craftsmen do without sketching, but for a beginner it is still important to make a sketch and keep it before your eyes during the forging process.

Forging a knife from a drill

Drills have become very popular when forging knives due to the alloy steel R6M5 used in them, which is durable, easy to sharpen and wear-resistant.

When choosing a drill for forging, one thing to note is important point. Large drills consist of a working spiral part made of P6M5 and a shank made of ordinary steel. Small drills are usually made entirely of P6M5. When forging a knife from a large drill, you must immediately determine which steel is which and where the boundary between them is. This can be done quite simply, just by sharpening the drill a little along the entire length. Where there is ordinary steel, the sheaf of sparks will be large and yellow-orange in color. But where there is alloy steel, the sheaf will be sparse and closer to a reddish tint. The procedure described above is necessary in order to determine where the blade of the knife will begin and where the shank will begin. Having finished with this, we move on to the forging itself.

At the beginning light a fire in the stove, turn on the blower and wait until the coals get hot enough, after which place the drill in the crucible. But we do this with the help of pliers and in such a way that the shank remains mostly out of the fire.

Important! When forging a knife for the first time, you may not immediately determine when the metal has heated to the required temperature. As a result, more than one drill can be damaged. Therefore, before you start forging a drill, you can practice a little with heating and forging metal on ordinary fittings. In this case, it is necessary to remember what color the metal was and when it was forged most softly. It is also worth remembering that in sunlight, even metal heated to 1100 ° C will look dark.

As soon as the drill will heat up to the required temperature, which is more than 1000 °C, it is immediately necessary remove from the crucible, and clamp the bottom of the shank in a vice. Then take an adjustable wrench, hold the top of the drill with it and make a circular motion, straightening the spiral. Everything must be done quickly so that the metal does not have time to cool, otherwise you risk breaking the drill. If you couldn't do it in one go, that's okay. Just reheat the drill and repeat the procedure. The result should be a relatively smooth strip of metal.

The next step would be forging drill And rolling metal to an acceptable thickness. Everything is quite simple here. Having heated the metal to the required temperature, we take a heavy hammer and begin to level the metal with strong but uniform blows and give it an even shape. The result should be a strip of metal about 4 - 5 mm thick.

Important! When forging metal, you must constantly monitor the color of the workpiece. As soon as it begins to fade, acquiring a cherry color, we immediately return it to the forge. It is better to heat the metal one more time than to break it under a hammer blow.

Further the edge of a knife is forged. Everything is a little more complicated here. The fact is that it is necessary to give a rounded shape and at the same time maintain the required thickness of the blade. All the work is practically jewelry and will require a certain dexterity. Forging is performed in such a way that gradually rounding the tip, the blade is gradually drawn out in length. The blows must be strong, but careful. A beginner may not succeed the first time, but a little practice will improve everything.

The next step would be forging the cutting edge of a knife. This is a rather important and difficult stage. This will require a lighter hammer and preferably one with a rounded head. Starting from the middle of the blade, we gradually move the metal down to the cutting edge. We try to make the cutting edge as thin as possible. At the same time, we make sure that the blade itself remains straight and even. We apply the blows very carefully and try to apply only as much effort as is required to slightly deform the hot metal. We remember the color of the workpiece and, if necessary, send it back to the crucible.

After we managed to forge the blade and the tip, move on to forging the shank. The work itself will be much simpler than when forging a blade. First, we heat the round shank of the drill and then roll it out with strong hammer blows. Depending on the sketch, the shank can be either narrow or wide. Here, who already likes to make the handle of a knife. Some people make simple overlays, while others make a stacked handle.

Upon completion of forging, let the metal cool gradually and then let's move on to polishing. On grinding machine We remove excess layers of metal and unevenness, making the knife perfectly smooth and shiny. When sanding, up to 2 mm of thickness can be removed, and the knife will become much lighter and thinner. You can also sharpen the knife at this stage. Finally, we harden the knife. How this is done will be written below.

Forging a knife from a drill video review:

Another popular material for forging knives is the bearing, namely its inner or outer rim. Moreover, the internal one is even preferable. All work on forging a knife from a bearing is almost identical to forging from a drill. With some exceptions.

First, we cut out the blank from the bearing rim using a grinder. We try to take the length with a reserve, so that there is enough for the knife and another 1 - 2 cm left. Secondly, at the initial stage of forging, the cut blank should be welded to the reinforcement bar. And in this form, heat and forge. Thirdly, if in the case of a drill the workpiece was rolled out from round to flat, then for the bearing race it simply needs to be aligned. And the further steps for forging the blade itself and the shank are completely similar. The only thing worth noting is that it is still more convenient to make a knife with applied handles from the bearing.

Forging a knife from a bearing video review:

In search of suitable steel for a quality knife, many people use springs. The metal of this car part is highly elastic and durable, which makes it an excellent example for hand-forged knives. In fairness, it should be noted that a knife from a spring can be made by simply cutting out the profile of the knife with further sharpening and hardening. But still, for the knife to be truly reliable, it is better to forge it, especially since the thickness of the spring is quite large, and for good knife it should be reduced.

We begin forging a knife from a spring by cleaning off rust with a grinder and marking the plate. Only a small part of the spring will be needed, so mark it and cut it off using a grinder. Next, we weld the workpiece to the reinforcement and heat it up. Then we gradually forge it, bringing it to the required thickness. We forge the tip and cutting edge; how to do this is described above using the example of forging a knife from a drill. Having achieved the desired result, we leave the knife to cool gradually and then grind and sharpen it.

Forging a knife from a spring video review:

Forging a knife from a file

Wear-resistant and durable steel can be found in various metalworking tools, and a file is a prime example of this. Making knives from a file is quite a popular activity. Moreover, the blades are extremely durable with an excellent cutting edge. But forging a knife from a file has its own characteristics.

First of all, you will need to clean the file from nicks and possible rust. This can be done using a grinder. Next, if necessary, cut the workpiece from the file to the required length. Then we weld it to a piece of reinforcement and put it in the furnace. Having heated the workpiece to the required temperature, we begin to roll the workpiece to the thickness we need. Then we make the point and cutting edge. It is best to make the shank of a knife from a file under an overhead handle.

Forging a knife from a file video review:

Forging a knife from a rope

Making a knife from steel cable is quite rare. Since, unlike all the workpieces described above, the cable consists of scattered wire fibers, and it is quite difficult to forge them. In addition, the steel of the cable does not have such high characteristics as the steel of a drill or file. Most cable knives are forged because of their unusual pattern on the wedge, vaguely reminiscent of Damascus steel. In order to make such a knife, you need to put in a little more effort than when forging from a regular steel bar.

Forging a knife from a cable begins like regular forging. There are just a few little secrets. Firstly, this concerns the shank. Many craftsmen make a knife shank from a cable in the form of a finished handle. It looks very unusual and beautiful. And here there are two approaches to making a handle. Take a thick cable and then weld its end, making it a monolithic piece. Or make a handle in the shape of a loop, and forge a blade from the ends. Secondly, forging a cable is a difficult task due to the scattered wires that make up the cable. To make a knife, you will need to weld them together. But this is a whole art and you shouldn’t expect that you will get a knife out of a cable the first time. Welding can be done in two ways. The first is to electric weld along the large grooves. The second is to perform forge welding. The second option is more complicated and at the same time preferable.

After the cable has been treated with borax on all sides and it has heated up from 900 to 1200°C or more, we remove it from the furnace and begin to forge it. We strike with a heavy hammer, but at the same time we try to keep the cable fibers together. The difficulty of forging a cable lies precisely in this. But with practice you can achieve acceptable results. In the end, the cable can be heated and forged as many times as desired. But at the same time, every time you heat it in the forge, sprinkle the cable with borax. The result is a monolithic piece of steel consisting of many layers, almost like Damascus steel. After which all that remains is to forge the blade of the required shape. Videos demonstrating the forging of knives have repeatedly shown exactly how to roll out a blade and create a cutting edge and point.

Blade hardening and tempering

As noted earlier, hardening a knife is one of the most important stages its manufacture. After all, the performance characteristics of the knife depend on how correctly it was performed. The hardening process itself is performed after the knife has cooled and been ground on a sharpening machine.

It starts with heating it from light red to orange. After which the knife is lowered into water or oil. In this case, 2 - 3 tablespoons of table salt per 1 liter are added to the water, and the water temperature should be 18 - 25 ° C, the oil 25 - 30 ° C. Hardening is carried out quite quickly and for everything to go well after hardening, the blade must be released. The steel hardening itself occurs in the temperature range from 750 to 550 °C. The moment of hardening can even be felt when the steel begins to “tremble and groan” in the liquid. As soon as the process ends, the blade must be removed and allowed to cool naturally.

Blade release performed after hardening. The process itself involves weakening the internal stress of the steel, which makes it more flexible and resistant to various types of loads. Before tempering, the blade should be cleaned of possible scale and then heated again. But the temperature during vacation is much lower. The knife itself must be held over the flame and observed. As soon as the entire surface is covered with a yellow-orange film, remove the knife from the heat and let it cool naturally.

Sometimes quenching and tempering are done with oil or water, and sometimes through oil into water. This hardening is done very quickly. First, the blade is lowered into oil for 2 - 3 seconds, and then into water. With this approach, the risk of doing the hardening incorrectly is minimal.

Forging a knife with your own hands seems like a simple task. In addition to the fact that you will have to swing the forging hammer quite a lot, even without experience in the matter of forging metal, you may not be able to forge a knife the first time. Therefore, you first need to get good at it and practice a little, and then start forging a knife.

Buying a knife made of high-quality steel is, of course, not a problem. If there is not enough assortment of regular or branded blades, you can find a specialist who works on an individual order.

However, you can go another way - make a knife yourself. You most likely won’t be able to forge the perfect blade the first time, but who knows...

A homemade knife made from cable is a worthwhile undertaking; the result can be a high-quality blade with a visible pattern on the blade, formed by mixing layers of metal during the forging process.

Material selection

In our time, only true connoisseurs of this craft engage in blade making. However, even a novice blacksmith and anyone can try to forge a homemade knife.

The easiest way to do this is from a piece of thick reinforcement, an old file or a piece of a car spring. It will be a little more difficult to unforge the drill or bearing race. You can get an interesting result from a spun chain from a chainsaw or car engine.

Another material that, after forging, can become a high-quality blade is cable. Its cores are made of carbon steel, capable of holding an edge well after hardening. If you manage to preserve the braided pattern after forging, you can get a very original blade, vaguely reminiscent of wild Damascus steel.

What do you need to know to figure out how to make a knife from rope? Two important nuances: the first is whether the properties of the high-carbon material will be preserved during processing; the second is whether a visible pattern will appear on the blade, gracefully turning into a sharpened edge.

Damascus steel

Previously, sharp, flexible and reliable blades with a patterned pattern on the blade were called damask blades (according to one version, from the province of Fulad in Persia, where they were made). Such characteristics and visible effects were achieved using various methods.

Steel could be smelted in a crucible by metallurgical casting, experimenting with the composition of the material. Another option is to “weld” steel strips of different hardnesses in a forge and then forge the resulting workpiece. Blades forged by blacksmiths using a special technique began to be called Damascus.

They differ precisely in the manufacturing method and technology, and not in the characteristics and degree of expression of the pattern. Having unforged a knife from a cable, you can try to create a blade with your own hands that vaguely resembles such material. And although the design on the blade is not an end in itself, it is still distinctive feature Damascus steel.

Blacksmithing tools and materials

To forge a knife from a cable with your own hands, you need to master the craft of a blacksmith at least at a minimum level. To do this, you will need a pair of hammers: one massive (up to 2 kg), the other lighter (up to 0.5 kg) for fine work, pliers, an anvil and a homemade furnace (forge crucible) with forced air supply.

The manufacturing process cannot be done without an angle grinder or electric welding. You will need a vice and the fuel for the crucible can be charcoal from rocks that produce great heat, because the workpiece will have to be heated to a temperature of over 1200 ° C.

For better “welding”, you can use borax as a flux. It removes scale and prevents carbon from burning out of the material. It is also necessary to prepare the oil for hardening and ensure safety precautions.

Being able to use someone's blacksmith shop or business forge with a mechanical hammer will make the task much easier.

Preparatory operations

To make a knife from a cable, first of all you need to sketch it out on paper. Then you will have to find a suitable material. It is necessary to check it and at least remotely determine the carbon composition in it.

It depends on this whether the future blade will be hardened, whether it will hold an edge, and whether it will be possible to carry out forge “welding.” The test is carried out for sparks from a moderately dense orange sheaf will mean that welding is possible, the steel contains about 1% carbon, which is enough for hardening.

Next you need to cut a piece of cable to the required length. At this stage, the method of manufacturing the handle is determined. It can be made from a single piece of cable without forging. The knife will look original, but have decent weight.

Another option is to electric weld a reinforcement rod to a section of cable. It is convenient to hold on to such a handle when heating the workpiece in the crucible and processing it with hammers. You can then make a handle on it or, by riveting it, install decorative overlays.

Before starting work, the cable is tightened with steel wire clamps in several places. This is done so that during the heating process the thin wires do not unravel.

The workpiece is placed in the lit crucible and allowed to heat up to 800 °C. At this stage, the cable strands are released (annealing), the material becomes pliable. Additionally, oil and dirt burns out.

After cooling, the workpiece is clamped in a vice and one of the ends of the cable is welded using electric welding. Using an adjustable wrench, it is “tightened” as we weave to maximum density. The other edge is scalded while simultaneously fastening a piece of reinforcement for ease of work.

The wire clamps are removed, the workpiece is heated to 1200 °C, and generously sprinkled with borax. This is necessary for better penetration. After reheating, forge “welding” is performed. Using a heavy hammer, the cable is broken flat and periodically sprinkled with borax.

The workpiece is constantly heating up. The more often this is done, the more intensively the forging occurs, the better the material is “welded.” After rough processing, they move on to forging the blade, the future cutting edge, and the shank. At this stage, a smaller hammer is used more, giving the workpiece an outline reminiscent of a sketch of the future blade.

Complexities of technology

It is necessary to constantly monitor the temperature of the workpiece, not allowing it to cool. Working with a heavy hammer, especially without proper practice and experience, can easily damage the curls of the cable in places where a distinct weave pattern should remain. Unwanted hits with the edge or corner of a sledgehammer on a heated workpiece leave deep dents that cannot always be ground off.

During operation, the process of carbon burning out of the metal is inevitable. There are craftsmen who forge a knife from a cable on dense wood placed on the plane of an anvil. When it comes into contact with heated metal, it smolders, and the oxygen in the air at the point of contact is burned, which reduces the degree of carbon burnout from the material. In addition, by unforging the cable on a tree, you ensure that the workpiece cools more slowly, so you can do a larger amount of work in one cycle.

Special approach

Forging a knife from a cable is also possible using another technology. There are craftsmen who, before forge “welding,” pack an annealed and compacted cable blank of the required length into a piece of stainless steel pipe. Its diameter is selected in such a way that the cable fits into it very tightly, with some effort.

Both ends of such a case are welded by electric welding, fusing the ends of the cable with the pipe. The workpiece is heated to a temperature of 1200-1300 °C and in this form is unforged. Alloyed stainless steel The pipes with the cable are not welded, but serve only as a protective cover against uneven forging. In addition, the hot cable does not come into contact with air oxygen and the carbon in it burns out minimally during forging.

If you use this Hydraulic Press, then forge “welding” can be significantly simplified. After heating to 1300 °C, the case with the cable inside is placed under load and left until it cools. If you use dies, you can immediately form thickenings under the neck for the transition from the blade to the handle and the butt of the shank. During the next heating, the shape of the blade is finalized by hammering through the case.

After cooling, the pipe is cut off with sandpaper from the end where the tip will be. The case is carefully opened using a chisel. Further processing of the workpiece occurs on an emery wheel. The excess areas are pre-cut and the blade beveled without final sharpening.

Heat treatment

Blade hardening is just as important as the choice of steel. According to technology, a knife made from a cable after forging has tension, it must be removed. To do this, the workpiece is heated to 800 °C and allowed to cool.

Hardening is carried out by heating the blade to 1200 °C. It is lowered point down into heated oil and held motionless. The blade must then be released. It is cleaned of carbon deposits, heated to 200 °C and dipped into oil again.

Some craftsmen harden knives through oil (lower for two seconds) and then place them in salted water.

Etching and finishing work

After heat treatment, the cable knife is polished, and the final finishing of the blade blade and the shank for attaching the handle are made. To develop the design, the workpiece is dipped into a solution (5%) and left for etching. Treatment time depends on the desired effect and can be up to one hour.

If before this you stick a stencil on the blade with the manufacturer’s logo (initials or any design) cut out on it, as a result it will be imprinted on the steel and will indicate the authorship of the blade. After this, fine grinding is done with fine-grained sandpaper and the blade is polished.

Before this operation or after, the selected type of handle is installed. These can be overlays made of valuable wood with an interesting texture, stacked washers of various materials in any sequence, or, for example, a piece of deer antler.

It may not be possible to make such an original and skillfully made rope knife (photo above) the first time, but if you want to master the craft of blade making, you should strive for this result.

In search of the idea of making perfect instruments, craftsmen try to use the most unusual materials and available means. The blacksmith realized one of these homemade finds. He showed how to make his own forged knife from metal cable without sketches. If you do it according to pre-prepared drawings and drawings, thinking through everything down to the smallest detail, this is what craftsmen who specialize in making knives do.

Two videos from the “Kovko Kova4” channel show the technology of making a knife from such a durable steel material as cable. The first video is cable welding. The second is about knife forging.

To weld a cable and make a forging for a knife from it, you must first prepare the material. There is a rope in the center of the steel coils, you need to remove it, it gets in the way. To do this, you will have to partially unravel the coils. In place of the rope, 8 mm wire rod is installed.

To prepare for welding, prepare 2 trims. We weld the edges with electric welding. Then we put them together and weld them together again. We also attach a handle that is convenient to hold. In the middle between the routes, 2 pieces of 8 mm wire were welded on both sides. The master didn’t do anything extra. Flux - borax. Sprinkled the heated workpiece. And back into the fire. Watch the video for everything else.

A blank of welded cable. Dimensions shown. If you cut the forging into three equal parts, clean it and reassemble it, you can weld it again. How to do it several times, changing the location of the scraps. The master himself did not set such a goal, but simply wanted to make a knife from a cable. Therefore, the workpiece was divided into two parts. These will make 2 knives. On the cut of the forgings I noticed some dark spots. Most likely this is the norm when welding a cable.

This shows the size of the workpiece after hammer forging. Before doing this, remove the scale with a brush. No cracks or pores were noticed. A forging for a knife will be made from it. The blade and handle will be formed. The bevels will be made on the cutting part. The rest of the work on finishing the knife should be done on sharpeners and grinders.

Buying a knife from a cable is almost ready. But if desired, it can be further shortened. The very length of the blade. The blacksmith left everything as is. The handle will have two linings. Fastening with three rivets. Three holes were made accordingly. A dark stripe appeared on the blade itself, visible to the eye. A small pair was seen on the tip. But during processing, all this should be ground off. Overall, the rope product turned out well.

Nowadays there is a fairly large assortment of different good quality knives on sale. However, hand-forged knives are very popular. Such products have a special energy. DIY knives can be made in different ways. The most difficult method is the hand forging option. It is worth understanding that forging makes it possible to make a durable blade of excellent quality that can last quite a long time. a large number of time without losing its qualities.

Knife forged from durable material, can last for many years without breaking or losing its qualities.

In order to forge a knife, you will need to have some knowledge about metals and their properties. In addition, you need to thoroughly master the forging tool. For people who decide to make this product with their own hands for the first time, it is important to familiarize themselves with some recommendations.

How to choose the right material for making a knife?

Figure 1. Design of a forged knife.

To make a high-quality blade, you need to choose the right steel for it. The cutting characteristics of the knife and its strength will depend on the choice of material. To select the correct metal, it is important to know what properties such a material has. You will need to focus on 5 main properties of steel:

Wear Resistance - Steel's resistance to wear and tear during use. This property will depend on the hardness of the material.
Hardness is a property of a material that indicates its ability to resist the penetration of solid materials into it. It is worth knowing that solid material is less subject to deformation. The strength index can be measured using the Rockwell scale.
Strength - the ability to maintain integrity when exposed to atmospheric forces.
Plasticity is the ability of a material to absorb and distribute kinetic energy upon impact and deformation.
Red resistance is the resistance of a metal to high temperatures and the ability to retain its properties during heating. The minimum temperature for forging steel will depend on the resistance of the material to heat treatment. It is recommended to choose hard grades for which the operating forging temperature is greater than 900°C. It is worth knowing that the melting point of this material is approximately 1500°C.

All these characteristics are interconnected. The predominance of one of them leads to the deterioration of the others. Each property of a material will depend on the content of alloying elements and additives, which include silicon, tungsten, molybdenum and others.

Figure 2. Types of knife profiles.

The presence of all alloying elements and their use in the required proportions in the steel manufacturing process, as well as knowledge of their properties, allows us to create steel for the required purposes. Each of these steels has its own marking. It is worth noting that Russian and European brands have different designations.

TO Russian manufacturers, which are quite often used in the process of forging blades with your own hands, include steels marked U7-U16, R6M5, X12MF and others. European grades include steel 1095, M-2, A-2 and others.

A detailed description of the metal grade can be found in the “Brand of Steel and Alloys”.

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What tools are needed to forge a knife with your own hands?

To forge a blade, you will need to have a special blacksmith tool, but you can also use amateur tools:

Hammer 4 kg.
Hammer up to 1 kg.
Vise.
Machine for point.
Stove.
Anvil.
Welding machine.
Bulgarian.
Blacksmith's tongs or ordinary pliers.
Adjustable wrench.

Forging tools: hammer, vice, adjustable wrench, blacksmith's tongs, chisel, tamper.

You should know some nuances regarding the stove. You will need to reach a temperature of approximately 1000-1200°C, which cannot be done in an ordinary oven. In this regard, it will be necessary to improve the stove. The structure is made of metal with thick walls, after which a pipe is attached into which air from the vacuum cleaner will be supplied. Coal is suitable as fuel.

Before making a knife you will need to make a sketch. A knife is a simple object that consists of a blade and a handle, but these elements have many components. In Fig. 1 you can see a sketch of the structure with all its components. Existing types profiles can be seen in Fig. 2. Once the appropriate profile has been selected, you can proceed to creating a sketch. Professionals do not always use drawings, but beginners will need them.

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How to make forged knives from a file or cable?

The file is made of wear-resistant steel, and therefore quite often of this instrument knives are made. Such blades will have a good cutting edge.

A knife forged from cable is inferior in its characteristics to others, but the blade has an unusually beautiful pattern, reminiscent of Damascus steel.

The first step is to clean the tool from scratches and rust. This action can be done using a grinder. If necessary, you will need to cut the workpiece to the required length from the file. After this, the product is welded to a reinforcing rod and inserted into the stove. The product must be heated to the required temperature, after which it will be possible to begin rolling the product to the desired thickness. Next, the tip and cutting edge are made. It is recommended to make the shank of the knife from this tool under the attached handle.

The cable must be split until it is red, then removed from the oven and sprinkled with borax. After this, the cable must be heated to 1000°C, removed from the oven again and started forging. The blows are applied with a hammer, and it is important to try to keep all the fibers together.

The end result may be a strip of steel that consists of several layers. It will be possible to forge a knife of the required shape from it.

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We forge a knife from a drill ourselves

Drills are often used to forge knives. This is due to the fact that these products are made of R6M5 steel, which is suitable for blades. She has good level durable and easy to sharpen.

You should know that large drills consist of a working part made of R6M5 steel and a shank made of ordinary steel. Small drills are in most cases made from P6M5.

A file knife has excellent cutting properties.

If you plan to forge a knife from a large drill, you need to immediately determine where each type of steel is located. To do this, you need to sharpen the drill to length. In places where ordinary steel is present, a large number of sparks will be generated. With an alloy steel drill point, there will be few sparks. This procedure will need to be done in order to decide where the knife will have a blade and where the shank will be.

Forging is performed as follows:

First of all, the fire is lit in the stove, after which the blower is turned on. Next, you need to wait until the fuel starts to burn strongly. After this, the drill is placed in the oven. This must be done using pliers so that the shank is located outside the fire. If forging is performed for the first time, it is quite difficult to determine the first time whether the metal has heated to the desired temperature. In this regard, more than one drill will be damaged. In order not to spoil a large amount of material, it is recommended to first practice heating and forging on reinforcing bars.
You will need to remember what color the metal was and when it was easy to forge. It is also worth considering that in sunlight, even metal heated to 1000°C will not be light.

After the drill heats up to a temperature of more than 1000°C, it will need to be removed from the stove, and then secure the lower part of the shank in a vice. After this, you will need to take an adjustable wrench, press it against the top of the drill and straighten the spiral using circular movements. All actions will need to be done quickly so that the metal does not have time to cool, otherwise the drill will break. If you can’t complete all the steps in one go, you will need to reheat the drill and repeat the process. The end result will be a relatively smooth strip of metal.

On next stage You will need to forge the drill and roll the metal to the desired thickness. To do this, you will need to heat the metal to the required temperature, take a heavy hammer, and then level the steel with strong blows, giving it the required shape. The end result will be a steel strip approximately 3-5 mm thick. During the forging process of the material, you will need to constantly monitor the color of the product. As soon as a dull color appears, the workpiece will need to be returned to the forge.

Next you will need to forge the tip of the knife. It is worth knowing that the product will need to be given a round shape, while maintaining the required thickness of the structure. Forging should be done in such a way that the blade is slightly pulled in length as the hole is made. You need to hit carefully.

The next step is forging the edge for cutting. To do this you need to use a light hammer. The metal moves down to the edge, and you need to start from the middle of the blade. The cutting edge should be thin and the blade should remain straight. All blows must be delivered carefully. It is important to monitor the color of the product.

Next, the shank is forged. First of all, the shank of a round drill is heated, after which the product is rolled out with strong blows of a hammer. The shank can be narrow or wide. Everything will depend on the sketch drawn up.

After the metal has cooled, it will be possible to grind. You will need to remove excess metal to make the knife even and give it shine. After grinding, the product can become 2 mm thinner, resulting in the knife having less weight. At this stage, the blade can be sharpened and hardened.

Making a knife from steel cable is quite rare. In order to make such a knife, you need to put in a little more effort than when forging from a regular steel bar.

So, having chosen the method of creating the handle, we proceed to forging the knife. To do this, heat the cable until it turns bright red. Then we take it out and sprinkle it with borax. Then we send it back to the crucible. This is a simple way to prepare for forge welding. Borax is a salt of tetraboric acid and is used by craftsmen to weld individual layers of steel. Essentially, it is a flux that facilitates the melting process and protects the molten metal from oxygen and eliminates metal oxides. Borax can be found in the public domain without any problems.

Tempering a blade begins with heating it from light red to orange. After which the knife is lowered into water or oil. In this case, 2 - 3 tablespoons of table salt per 1 liter are added to the water, and the water temperature should be 18 - 25 ° C, the oil 25 - 30 ° C. Hardening is carried out quite quickly and for everything to go well after hardening, the blade must be released. The steel hardening itself occurs in the temperature range from 750 to 550 °C. The moment of hardening can even be felt when the steel begins to “tremble and groan” in the liquid. As soon as the process ends, the blade must be removed and allowed to cool naturally.

The blade is tempered after hardening. The process itself involves weakening the internal stress of the steel, which makes it more flexible and resistant to various types of loads. Before tempering, the blade should be cleaned of possible scale and then heated again. But the temperature during vacation is much lower. The knife itself must be held over the flame and observed. As soon as the entire surface is covered with a yellow-orange film, remove the knife from the heat and let it cool naturally.

Sometimes quenching and tempering are done with oil or water, and sometimes through oil into water. This type of hardening is done very quickly. First, the blade is lowered into oil for 2 - 3 seconds, and then into water. With this approach, the risk of doing the hardening incorrectly is minimal.
Forging a knife with your own hands seems like a simple task. In addition to the fact that you will have to swing the forging hammer quite a lot, even without experience in the matter of forging metal, you may not be able to forge a knife the first time. Therefore, you first need to get good at it and practice a little, and then start forging a knife.