Made a practice knife last night.

[alloyguitar]

Lately I've been teaching a buddy how to use some of the tools in my garage, so, as an easy project, we're making knives out of an old sawblade. Sawblades aren't a good kind of steel for this, and I know that, but these are more for instructional purposes than actual use, so oh well.

This is how mine turned out. The scales are leftover cutoffs (walnut/oak stripe) from an sks I've been converting to ak mags and doing walnut furniture on. Turned out pretty decent to have started with an old sawblade that'd been sitting outside rusting for the last few years. Lol

I had issues when it came to getting the bevel right. I have a wet grinder designed for sharpening chisels, but the guides on it were nowhere near the shape I needed, and the only belt sander I have is 3" wide, and I don't have finer grit belts for it, anyway.

I have some leaf springs (5160 spring steel) laying around, so the next one will be made out of those and will get micarta scales I believe.

 

[DaveyCrink]

very nice, how long did it take?

 

[billyboyr6]

Most saw blades will make pretty descent knives. What kind of saw blade was it?

 

[down3green]

.

That's a good look!

.

 

[alloyguitar]

Well it's a miter (chop) saw blade (the kind that has the carbide teeth attached to what I think is a High Speed Steel blade), which I've been lead to believe is a bad choice of blade steel, but I could be wrong.

As far as how long it took, I had about 4 hours in that one, with the exception of the finish on the scales and waiting for it to dry.

A lot of that time was explaining how to use the tools and whatnot, so it could be replicated much quicker, I'm sure. I'll be sure to post his once he gets it finished.