Knife Class

Went to a class Saturday and got this knife started.

It begins as a piece of 1095 steel, we drew a pattern on it, cut it out and then ground it to shape.

The teacher showed me how to flat grind it on a 72 inch belt sander. It was harder than I thought.

Then we got all the scratches out of it and heated it cherry red in his forge. Its hot enough when the steel becomes demagnetized. You test it with a magnet attached to the end of a rod. Then the knife comes out and the edge is quenched in an oil bath. That makes the edge hard but the rest of the knife retains flexibiity. He showed me how a file just skips off the blade after the quench. When I got it home, it went for two 2 hour cycles in the oven to temper it. Then I soaked it in muriatic acid to get the scale off. Now a lot of handwork to get the grinding marks out and work the edge down to something that can be sharpened. Then handle and sheath. Got some shooting in yesterday. Very windy but it went ok.