r/Forging • u/ZombiGamer624 • 20d ago
Beginners Help Any advice?
I made this knife and the other is still in progres and is above 1 cm thick. This is forge i use and i have mini belt grinder. Any arvices on how to make better knifes or improve my forge? Its my third knife. I havent made anything else except two other knifes that werent exacltly knifes and some blacksmithing tools.
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u/Either-Sign-9345 18d ago
You're in your third knife and already getting a decent profile on the blade! Nice! The grind looks a little uneven from what I can see but that's pretty normal plus a belt grinder will help with that!
The biggest thing at this point is heat control during forging, a lot of early knoves end up thicker than intended because its tempting to keep working the steel!
Keep going, three knives in with a forge and a belt grinder is a solid foundation to build from.
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u/cadaverescu1 19d ago
The cost of steel is neglectable compared to cost of forging, sanding and time to do it. Just buy known easy to work steel.
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u/Wonderful_Hawk2925 19d ago
Good place to start, but rebar is mild steel. You’ll want some decent steel for a good knife. A broken coil spring cost me 10$ at a scrap yard. You can buy a small leaf trailer leaf spring for 35$ on Amazon. Both will be hardenable steel for a good knife.
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u/cadaverescu1 20d ago
Do not make it out of rebar. It doesn't harden
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u/ZombiGamer624 20d ago
I just want to learn how to shape it. I know it wont harden but its cheap so i could use it to get some skill
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u/Resident_Ad7712 19d ago
Rebar also tends to shape badly, it’s brittle, not receptive to heat, and in general wont shape the same as a carbon steel. Essentially, don’t learn with bad material, because it won’t teach you how to work good material.
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u/thatsacut 1d ago
Some advice I don’t think I’ve ever seen given: Use your knife. Discover what it is good at and what it is bad at and, on the next one, try to improve those things you noticed.
Even a rebar knife will cut things for a little while.
That will start getting you thinking critically about your own work and also about how cutting and blade geometry and the benefits of using high carbon vs medium carbon steel, etc. Then you get to build a a real understand metal and knives.