# estate sale find: new old stock forgecraft project



## millionsknives (Apr 25, 2014)

Estate sale find here. The best condition Forgecraft 10" I've ever seen. Basically new old stock, barely ever sharpened or done carefully with stones. It has 2mm more height than my other forgecraft, and the heel isn't oversharpened. Then again, the spine is sharp, and it could use some thinning. Where does improvement stop and destroying history begin?





  








beffti2.jpg




__
millionsknives


__
Apr 18, 2015








Ordered spalted oregon maple burl, I should have enough scales for 3 knife rehandles. I guess I need to find 2 more worthy projects.





  








Pep9je7.jpg




__
millionsknives


__
Apr 18, 2015







Still shopping for spacer material and mosaic pins.

Also got a belt sander and drill press this weekend. Bring on the crafting projects!


----------



## rick alan (Nov 15, 2012)

Thin to the ribbing, just break the sharp edges, it will still look original and for all intents and purposes be so with a renewed patina.  Not to mention cutting like a dream.

Rick


----------



## millionsknives (Apr 25, 2014)

That's about what I did to my current forgie, but it was used enough that I didn't think twice about doing my own work on it.. It was actually very easy to thin. The ribbing at the top is at a slightly different angle, making a natural stopping point.

This one got polished with the stone slurry from thinning on each stone and later on sandpaper up to 3M trizact 5k paper. I don't really care about taking knives to mirror polish, because I'm just going to scratch them up again, but I do like at least an even scratch pattern.





  








11099994_10102082747903319_6887133625670668321_n.j




__
millionsknives


__
Apr 19, 2015








Right now it has a blue patina from steak night. Bought this one used, but plenty of life left. The new one I'm rehandling is going to be a gift.


----------



## brianshaw (Dec 18, 2010)

That's a pretty knife and an even prettier piece of wood. Should be a beauty when you finish!


----------



## millionsknives (Apr 25, 2014)

Busy busy summer. Finally got some time for crafting. Here's some work in progress.

First I drilled out the old brass rivets and took off the old handle. Real coarse sandpaper all over the tang to clean it up and rough it up for epoxying.

Drilled a bigger hole for the 1/4" mosaic bling pin. I only used one pin because 1) it draws more attention 2) The second hole I tried to drill actually had much harder metal than my drill bits, even the special cobalt one i bought... shhh it's intentional

Fit it all together with the pin in to make sure it all lined up. Traced and rough cut the stuff: Scales, white spacer, green spacer. Roughed up all surfaces with a box cutter (sand paper wasn't enough for the liner material). Epoxied it altogether with G Flex epoxy, a boating epoxy that is okay with moisture and flexing without cracking. Next comes the final shaping of the handle Then finishing and oils and wax.

If you like big blocky handles, it's actually not bad right now





  








OaNOtyy.jpg




__
millionsknives


__
May 30, 2015











  








tYkx9Ha.jpg




__
millionsknives


__
May 30, 2015











  








Jzt8y1T.jpg




__
millionsknives


__
May 30, 2015








It's my first western handle so I was overly cautious and cut the scales too big. Next time i'll cut them smaller and this will go a lot faster.


----------



## millionsknives (Apr 25, 2014)

Now that I see what someone with skills is doing, I'm not that scared of thinning too much:

http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/showthread.php/23011-Forgecraft-Hi-Carbon-Reduex

and this classic http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/showthread.php/17729-Pimp-My-Forgecraft

My next one will be a wa conversion maybe, but I'd need a grinder and I'm collecting too many tools already


----------



## millionsknives (Apr 25, 2014)

Hey! This is starting to look like a knife or something. Pretty comfortable, tapered inwards so the front is narrower. I think I'm about done shaping it. Just need to sand it by hand with increasing grits then finish it (and thin and sharpen and etch and...)





  








IMG_20150530_231954.jpg




__
millionsknives


__
May 30, 2015












  








IMG_20150530_232007.jpg




__
millionsknives


__
May 30, 2015








Kind of want to make it more round, but also I'm thinking I should quit while I'm ahead. I didn't enjoy this project so much. Basically shaping the thing freehand is nerve wracking. If I get another vintage knife it'll be a wa handle conversion. Sorry I'm not sorry.


----------



## rick alan (Nov 15, 2012)

Dremel-sized fine rubberized abrasive drums/wheels, such as you can get online at WT Tool, will give you greater control and take away the stress. They can be easily shaped also as they wear rather rather quickly if used roughly.

I can't insert pictures from my computer here but the shaping I did to the Rosewood handle here:

http://www.cheftalk.com/t/81804/victorinox-forschner-as-starter-knives

was done with a fine Dremel sanding drum, still it was too rough and removed material too fast ( and I should have used some tape to protect the blade).

Look closely and you'll see that the complex radius at the front is not completely fair, but I could have done a much better job if I had switched to the fine abrasives after initial roughing.

You can also make fine sanding blocks out of skinny sticks, shaped any way efficacious for a particular task, to do finish-shaping work, using double-sided transfer tape or spray adhesive, etc, to mount the sandpaper. Kind of a like gross approximation of jeweler's files. You can use 80 grit paper here for shaping, it's not as though your abrasive is moving at hundreds or thousands of feet/min.

Rick


----------



## millionsknives (Apr 25, 2014)

It's mostly good now.  I'll try to round it out a bit more with 60 grit paper by hand as I'm finishing.


----------



## millionsknives (Apr 25, 2014)

whoomp! there it is





  








IMG_20150607_103920.jpg




__
millionsknives


__
Jun 7, 2015


----------



## brianshaw (Dec 18, 2010)

OMG... I'm in love!


----------



## millionsknives (Apr 25, 2014)

BrianShaw said:


> OMG... I'm in love!


Just wait until I thin, sharpen, and etch it! Turned out pretty good considering I haven't touched any woodcrafting stuff since shop class in highschool.


----------



## brianshaw (Dec 18, 2010)

I thought you were over lasers. Ha ha. How much are you thinking of thinning? I only think about polishing mine a bit and sharpening. Doing too much to the patina worries me since patina takes a long to rebuild.


----------



## millionsknives (Apr 25, 2014)

I do like big heavy knives, but even those need to be thin behind the edge.  Anyway, this one is not for me, it will be a gift.  $80 in parts and I learned a lot from this project.  I want it thin enough to cut carrots easily for the WOW factor.  Based on another one i thinned, the angle changes pretty abruptly half way up where those 'saw blade' pattern start. So thinning kind of works it self out with that set angle. It can kind of become a wide bevel knife.

If you look at the pictures, it's new old stock, so there's not much patina to talk of anyway.

On the ones i've polished, patina comes back slow, but so does rust.  I think the whole thing is monosteel (guess 1095 steel).  It's on the less reactive side compared to different carbon cladding on J knives.


----------



## rick alan (Nov 15, 2012)

Ahaha, it's never going to be a "wide-bevel gyuto" in the sense that pros think of them. The Geshin Heiji is a great example of a WB, it tapers out about 6deg inclusive from the edge and you can see what that means in term bevel width and blade thickness. I think your Forgie with the same bevel would probably amount to around an 1/8", still good for going through carrots though, and allowing some food release.

I did a solid-model layout a while back and came up with about the 6deg angle for the WB, 4deg looked about right for a midweight, and laser coming in at under 3deg inclusive [from the edge].

That's a great hunk of would, and coffin shaped handles are my favorite in terms of utility. Ordinarily I wouldn't think you'd want just epoxy holding the handle, to the steel for everything forward of that rear rivet, though I think it is often done, but I suppose there is at least one good sized hole in the handle to effectively form an "epoxy rivet."

Rick


----------



## brianshaw (Dec 18, 2010)

Back in my distant youth I built a couple of knives and always drilled a hole for an "epoxy rivet" if not using real rivets. I'd rather do that than risk epoxy failure by trying to glue to just steel, but honestly I never tried that so maybe it's just neurotic worry on my part.


----------



## rick alan (Nov 15, 2012)

The other thing is to use minimal clamp force.  Epoxy needs .005" thickness for maximum strength, and then there is the epoxy that the wood soaks up.  In the case of stabilized/impregnated woods the latter is, of course, a non-issue.  In gluing wood a small amount of fiber fill is often used to create a reliable gap, on hard materials an appropriately coarse mineral fill.

There are also antioxidant coatings, particularly for aluminum bonding, not positive but I believe there is also something for carbon steel.

Stainless is another story.  It has a comparatively week bond with epoxy, no additional surface treatments I know of to fix this, so the joint requires more surface area.  So a full compliment of rivets may be called for here.

Rick


----------



## brianshaw (Dec 18, 2010)

What's the deal with Gorilla Glue. Looking at a knife supply website I was surprised to see that listed with epoxy. I used GG once on an outdoor project. It expanded and oozed at the seem but held quite good holding wood to wood. What's the application in knife making?


----------



## millionsknives (Apr 25, 2014)

I wish I knew this before!  I clamped it pretty hard.


----------



## brianshaw (Dec 18, 2010)

Don't worry too much. You have a couple of epoxy rivets don't you?


----------



## millionsknives (Apr 25, 2014)

Yeah there's the original pin up top that had a hole I tried to widen, and a third one in the middle I made just for an epoxy bridge.  I roughed up all surfaces with 60 grit sandpaper and then further with a box cutter.


----------



## rick alan (Nov 15, 2012)

I only just remembered these facts as it's been a while since I did any serious epoxy bonding, sorry.

But it's not jet aircraft you gluing together here (many of those wings are glued together BION), so it may hold up just fine.  And like said, you have the epoxy rivets to help.

I was part of an unsuccessful startup offering a bonded aluminum bike frame, looked into boat building and designed some structural wood stuff too, like 3-wheeled car frames.

If you don't go right away and ask the pros on KKF about what they get away with I probably will eventually.

Rick


----------



## panini (Jul 28, 2001)

Hey Knife Guys,

I just had to pop on to tell you I am fascinated by reading all the knife posts. So much so that I am almost finished with my third welding class at the local CC. It was a prerequisite. You need 90 hours before I get into the blacksmithing and forging classes. Today was exciting. They acquired a 90 lbs. power hammer and it arrived today with crane. The people in blacksmithing are all long timers.

I have just sat around and watched some really beautiful blanks being made. When one of the ladies found out I was a chef she gave me quite a bit of metal. A good chunk of Damascus 1095 and a whole lot of O1,D2, and some 154. Can hardly wait to post some of my trials and tribulations.


----------



## millionsknives (Apr 25, 2014)

@panini that's exciting! I found a class at an art school over here. I missed it this time around, but it'll come back in the fall hopefully. The instructor is a named a Master smith by American Bladesmith. there's only a hundred or so in the country. His work doesn't have a kitchen knife focus, mostly outdoor hunting type knives, but I would learn a lot here for $900. This is the first I've heard of welding as a pre-requisite for any smithing class though. I guess knowing forge welding ahead of time would definitely help.

http://pcecatalog.massart.edu/sprin...c8/viewclassdetails/545b905af087f6a76f1d2275/


----------



## panini (Jul 28, 2001)

Mastersmith, way cool!

The journeymen here talk of a Mastersmith specializing in knives in California. Training with him supposedly carries a lot of clout. Who knows? Maybe I'll head out there in the future.I'm almost retired and I'm pretty sure this is going to be my retirement hobby. The test for Mastersmith is supposed to be crazy. cutting a 1" rope with a knife you made of Damascus steel.

Well the blacksmithing class limit is 5, with only 3 opening usually. I guess they figure that if you stick it out in welding they will reward you plus it's a very nominal fee. The blacksmith there requires you to make your own forging tools before starting a project.


----------



## brianshaw (Dec 18, 2010)

That's really cool! But good luck making your own anvil. Har Har


----------

