Forging a railway spike knife. (How to)

[tracker]

Here are the photos of my afternoon forging attempt number 2.

A railway spike.



This is the forge parts, getting ready to light the forge.



Lighting the BBQ beads.



The blow pipe and the airmat blower. Notice the end of the pipe has been hammered flat to increase airspeed to the forge.



My improvised 'bellows' goes into the forge.



First I square off the end to get something to get a good grip on.



Head goes into the forge to heat up.



I want a 'hammer' style pommel on this knife so I start by flattening the sides of the head.




Now I start squaring up the round spike.



And finish squaring the bar.



All squared off and ready to start moving steel forward for the blade.



The blade starts to take shape.



The blade has some form and now I can heat the handle for the twist.



Two heats for one complete twist in the vice.



Working the blade into shape including forming the tip.



All finished forging and ready for the files.

[tracker]

And here's the finished knife. It is a camp knife with a hammer style pommel.





Thanks for looking,

Mick.

[Stickbow Hunter]

Excellent, thanks for sharing the process with us mate. It turned out to be a rugged looking knife.

Jeff

[Gringa Bows]

do the finished knives hold a good edge and do you think old files are worth playing with..................Rod

[tracker]

Rod, I'm just experimenting matey.. all I know is they are sharp, hacking away at wood doesnt seem to hurt them at all... but I'd think that the steel in a file would be a lot better. Kim and others would know better than me.

Mick.

[kimall]

Very nice Mick you have a nack for it thats for sure.The steel in the rail spikes will never be as good as a higher carbon steel but I have recepie here for a SUPER QUENCH that will get the steel hard enough to make a servicable knife.Often it is better for the finished knife to be a bit softer anyway as most people struggle to sharpen a higher carbon blade.IMHO.
Spike knives are cool though and most people love the fact they come from a spike.
MOST of the time file steel is better but you will have better luck with older files some of the newer ones are rubbish.
Cheers KIM

[otis.drum]

tempering the spikes once in the finished shape should allow them to hold an edge well. heat till glowing then emerse in sump oil until cool to touch. repeat several time.

someone else may have other ways to temper

[clinton miller]

i'm no blacksmith, just a humble boilermaker. you can harden steel...to what degree i don't know..... by heating it with an oxy touch set with a carburising flame (more acetylene than oxygen). that black stuff that comes off and floats around the workshop from an acetylene only flame is carbon. heating steel with a flame with excess carbon (more acetylene than oxygen) allows the steel to absorb some of the carbon. carbon is what makes steel hard but also brittle.

at least that's what i remember from the metalurgy theory from trade school.

i guess one could try this, then quench like otis said.

[tracker]

This knife has been tempered. I heated it up in the forge until a magnet would no longer stick to the blade and then quenched it in a tin of sump oil. After it had cooled down it was placed into the oven on a firebrick at 200 degrees for an hour and then allowed to cool down again. Then you clean it up and sharpen it. They are not very hard when they first come from the forge without tempering.

I didn't take any photos of that bit... I think there is a whole art to just the tempering from what I've been reading.

Mick.

[pdccr]

I read somewhere that some people use water and urine to temper...not sure about this.

[tracker]

I read somewhere that some people use water and urine to temper...not sure about this.

I read that a REAL Toledo sword was tempered in the body of a chained slave... I am short of slaves so I am sticking to the sump oil at the moment.. though the urine thing sounds interesting... I am always interested in stuff that is free/cheap.

Mick.

[otis.drum]

oil is used because it cools it slightly slower than water (or urine) i think. which from memory allows a more even cool.

[tracker]

oil is used because it cools it slightly slower than water (or urine) i think. which from memory allows a more even cool.

That makes sense matey.. but it's too late.. I've already started weeing in a bucket.

Mick.

[Gringa Bows]

[pdccr]

oil is used because it cools it slightly slower than water (or urine) i think. which from memory allows a more even cool.

That makes sense matey.. but it's too late.. I've already started weeing in a bucket.

Mick.

haha

[bigbob]

For the real purists or professionals making custom knives, using sump oil is considered a no no as it contains too many impurities.Also heating the spike to glowing hot [ provided it is a med. to high carbon steal] and quenching it will harden the blade, making it very hard to get an edge. Once it has been hardened,depending on the Rockwell hardness required, it is usually then heated to a straw colour on the working edge usually by indirect heat, such as laying the blade on a shovel or similar and heating it, allowing the heat to transfer to the blade It is then quenched in the oil, by tying the handle and lowering it into the quench so the blade makes contact both sides simultaneously with the quench. This prevents the blade from warping as can happen if one side makes contact before the oposite side.Just my 2 cents worth for what its worth.

[hazard]

Make sure you put a peg on your nose when you dip it in the Urine! but If you want to apply it directly I would recommend standing back a bit ......you souldn't want anything scorched....or a "Poly Pipe"

[Nephew]

Hey Tracker, I put up a link to this thread elsewhere but attributed it to Kim! Sorry 'bout that, it wasn't intentional, next time I'll pay proper attention to what I'm doing!

[jindydiver]

Great work Mick

Those spikes aren't very high carbon and you wont get them super hard no matter what you do. If you can quench it fast enough you can make a serviceable edge though. One trick is to make sure the oil is already warm and use a thinner oil like olive or vegetable oil. If you use cold oil it boils around the blade and the gas doesn't allow the oil to take away the heat quick enough. You could also use solidified cooking oil from the takeaway. Just go and ask them for an old drum and use it like it is for a quench. You quench by cutting into the oil with the heated blade. It gets the edge cold quickly and you just keep going in till the knife is cool enough for the quench to take.

[bigbob]

Yeah Mick I forgot to mention about the warm oil to prevent 'shock' and that vegetable oil is a good alternative.Didnt know what grade railway spikes are relative to carbon percentage.I used to make a good filleting knife out of the horizontal 'cold saw' blades [ mechanical hacksaw] Found that for ease of work it was hard to beat the ol' O1 carbon stock, as when it is still in the as you buy it annealed state you can do what you like with it but hardens to what ever Rockwell you want with a judicious use of heat. Pity it will rust up without care, ie not wiping off finger marks etc. The knife making talent displayed on this site is absolutely first class and a credit to all.

[wal]

Cool Tracker , thanks for that , and a good bit of info through out, . I have just started to mess around a bit with knike making and stuff like this is great.

Cheers

[woodie]

I love to use old files as they are readily avaible from work, from the scape bins. But I do have a few spikes that are heading towards the forge when I pull my finger out and finish making it.
Nice work on the knife by the way.
woodie

[kimall]

You may not get a response from Mick as this thread is from 2009.
Cheers KIM

[tracker]

Lol... funny how threads can come back to life...

I've done the odd bit of forging since this thread was posted. The only changes are that I use two air pipes running off the same old airmat blower, one on each side of the brake drum and I found an old pile of coal near the train tracks in town. Covered in Kikuyu...

The coal gets much hotter than the BBQ beads. Now I have moved to New England I will have to source some new coal.

Also, I'm not afraid to let the steel get really hot... hotter the better really to work it.

Good luck to anyone who has ever thought they'd like to try a bit of smithing... or making a knife or an axe. I say give it a go. You might be good at it.

Like Kim or Jindy...

At the very least you'll enjoy it.

Mick.

[rmcpb]

If someone does read this thread there is a limit on how hot you can make your steel. A forge can burn your metal (you will know this by the sparks). For low carbon steel you can go up to an orange/yellow heat but old files are better at orange as the higher carbon lowers the heat at which it burns.

[nonforgetful archer]

well done great work