Knife from the rope with your own hands

To buy a knife from quality steel, of course, is not a problem. If there is not enough assortment of conventional or branded blades, you can find a specialist working on an individual order.

However, you can go the other way - to make a knife yourself. From the first time to forge an ideal blade, most likely, it will not work out, but who knows ...

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

Material selection

Only true connoisseurs of this craft are engaged in the manufacture of blades today. 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 an automobile spring. Harder it will be harder to unharness a bit or bearing race. You can get an interesting result from the chain of chains from the chainsaw or car engine.

Another material, which after forging can become a quality blade, is a cable. Its veins are made of carbon steel, capable of keeping the tip sharp after quenching. If you can save the woven pattern after forging, you can get a very original blade remotely resembling wild Damascus steel.

What do you need to know to find out how to make a knife from a rope? Two important nuances: first - whether the properties of high-carbon material will remain in the process of processing; Second - whether the visible pattern on the blade will appear, elegantly turning into a sharpened point.

Damascus Steel

Earlier, sharp, plastic and reliable blades with a patterned pattern on the blade were called damask (according to one version - from the province of Fulad in Persia, where they were made). Such characteristics and apparent effect were achieved by various methods.

Steel could be smelted in a crucible by metallurgical casting, experimenting with the composition of the material. Another option is to "weld" different hard steel stripes in the forge furnace and then to unhook the resulting workpiece. Blades, forged by blacksmiths on a special technique, began to be called damask.

They differ precisely by the method of production and technology, and not by the characteristics and degree of expression of the figure. Having cleared the knife from the rope, you can try to create with your own hands a blade remotely resembling such a material. And although the drawing on the blade is not an end in itself, it is still a distinctive feature of Damascus steel.

Forging tools and materials

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

You can not do without the Bulgarian, the grindstone, electric welding. You will need a vice and a wrench. Fuel for the crucible can serve as charcoal from rocks that give a great heat, because the preform will have to be heated to a temperature of over 1200 ° C.

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

The opportunity to use someone's forge shop or the smithies of an enterprise with a mechanical hammer will greatly simplify the task.

Preparatory operations

To make a knife from a rope, first of all you need to make a sketch or sketch on the paper. Then you'll have to find the right material. It is necessary to test it and at least remotely determine the composition of carbon in it.

It depends on it whether the future blade will take a hardening, whether it will keep the point and whether it will be possible to hold the forging "welding". Verification is made on sparks from the grindstone. Moderately dense orange sheaf will mean that welding is possible, the carbon in the steel contains about 1%, which is enough for hardening.

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

Another option is to weld the rod of the armature to the length of the cable with electric welding. For such a handle it is convenient to hold, heating the workpiece in the furnace and treating it with hammers. On it then you can make a dial-up handle or, rivet, install decorative lining.

Before starting work, the cable is pulled together with steel wire clips in several places. This is done so that the thin wires do not become dislocated during the heating process.

How to forge a knife out of a cable?

In the fired crucible lay the workpiece and allow it to warm up to 800 ° C. At this stage, the wires of the rope are released (annealed), the material becomes supple. Additionally burns oil and dirt.

After cooling, the workpiece is clamped in a vice and one of the cable ends is welded by electric welding. With a wrench, it is "twisted" as we braided to the maximum density. A different edge is cut along with the fastening of the piece of reinforcement for convenient work. Wire clamps are removed, the workpiece is heated to 1200 ° C, copiously copied by brown. This is necessary for a better cook. After reheating, forge welding is performed. With a heavy hammer, the cable is unhooked along the plane, periodically sprinkled with brown.

The workpiece is constantly heated. The more often it is done, the more intensive forging, the better the "welded" material. After rough processing, they pass to the forging of the blade, the future cutting edge, and the shank. At this stage, a hammer of a lesser mass is used more, giving shape to the workpiece, reminiscent of the sketch of the future blade.

Technology Challenges

It is necessary to constantly monitor the temperature of the billet, not letting it cool down. Working with a heavy hammer, especially without proper practice and experience, you can easily damage the curls of the rope in places where a distinct pattern of weaving should remain. Unwanted hits on the edge or angle of the sledgehammer on the preheated workpiece leave deep dents that can not always be stitched. At work, the process of burning carbon from metal is inevitable. There are masters who unhook a knife from a rope on dense wood, laid on the plane of an anvil. When it comes into contact with the heated metal, it smolts, oxygen in the place of contact is burned, which reduces the degree of carbon burn out of the material. In addition, when you unhook the cable in a tree, you achieve that the workpiece is cooling down more slowly, you can do more work in one cycle.

A special approach

Forging a knife from a rope is also possible by another technology. There are masters who, before forging "welding", pack an annealed and compacted wire rope of the necessary length into a piece of stainless steel pipe. Its diameter is selected in such a way that the cable enters it very tightly, with some effort.

Both ends of this case are welded with 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 unscrewed. Alloyed stainless steel pipe with a cable is not welded, but serves only as a protective cover from uneven forging. In addition, the red-hot cable does not come into contact with the oxygen of the air and the carbon in it burns minimally when forging.

If you use a hydraulic press, you can greatly facilitate forging "welding". After heating to 1300 ° C, the case with the cable inside is placed under load and left to cool. If you use matrices, you can immediately form thickenings under the neck to move from the blade to the handle and the shank of the shank. At the next heating, the shape of the blade is modified by the forging through the case.

After cooling, the pipe is cut off on the emery from the end, where the point will be. The case is carefully opened with a chisel. Further processing of the workpiece takes place on an emery wheel. Pre-cut excess sections, make the slopes of the blade without final sharpening.

Heat treatment

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

Hardening is performed when the blade is heated to 1200 ° C. He lowered the point down into the heated oil and held motionless. After this, the blade must be released. It is cleaned of carbon, heated to 200 ° C and again lowered into oil. Some masters harden knives through oil (lowered for two seconds), and then placed in salted water.

Etching and finishing work

After heat treatment, the knife from the rope is ground, the blade blade and shank fin are finalized for fixing the handle. To display the pattern, the workpiece is lowered into a solution (5%) of ferric chloride and left for etching. The processing time depends on the desired effect and can be up to one hour.

If before that, a stencil is applied to the blade, on which the manufacturer's logo (initials or any figure) will be cut, as a result, it will be printed on the steel and will testify to the authorship of the blade. After this, fine grinding is carried out with fine-grained sandpaper and polishing of the blade.

Before or after this operation, the selected type of handle is assembled. It can be lining from valuable species of wood with an interesting texture, type washers of different material in any sequence or, for example, a segment of the horn of a deer.

Such an original and skillfully made knife from the cable (photo from the top) is made from the first time, maybe it will not work, but if there is a desire to master the craft of making blades, this result should be sought.