Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote

A couple of weeks ago I started working on a new blade, using 52-100 bearing steel, I got it shaped the way I wanted it than heat treated it the first time. I brought it up to 1450 F quenched it in 125 F oil. Put it in my vice and kept it straight let it come to room temperature then did a crio treatment. I repeat this after it has spent 24 hours in crio then bring it to room temp and start the process again, for three times, that takes three days. I then bring it up to 350F and hold it for an hour then quench it so now hopefully it has a small grain structure is tough and hard but not brittle. I then finish grinding taking care not to get it hotter than I can hold in my bare hands. I got that part done today and laid out the handle scales on some purple heart. I cut them out fitted them and shaped them, then put them in to heat them to 350 F which makes the purple pop and changes the light brown to a rich purple. I next put it in some wood stabilizer till they sink that will be in three or four days. It doesn't involve a large amount of time doing any of the steps, but it takes time during each step waiting for the process to do what it is supposed to do. Now if I don't make a mess of it by the end of next week, I will have a finished knife. This is like calling, hunting or trapping coyote they both take patience to get the job done and end up with satisfactory results. You can't really take short cuts with either and expect good results in the end. But then now days I don't get in a rush to do much it's about enjoying what I'm doing here and now.
 
DSheetz said:
A couple of weeks ago I started working on a new blade, using 52-100 bearing steel, I got it shaped the way I wanted it than heat treated it the first time. I brought it up to 1450 F quenched it in 125 F oil. Put it in my vice and kept it straight let it come to room temperature then did a crio treatment. I repeat this after it has spent 24 hours in crio then bring it to room temp and start the process again, for three times, that takes three days. I then bring it up to 350F and hold it for an hour then quench it so now hopefully it has a small grain structure is tough and hard but not brittle. I then finish grinding taking care not to get it hotter than I can hold in my bare hands. I got that part done today and laid out the handle scales on some purple heart. I cut them out fitted them and shaped them, then put them in to heat them to 350 F which makes the purple pop and changes the light brown to a rich purple. I next put it in some wood stabilizer till they sink that will be in three or four days. It doesn't involve a large amount of time doing any of the steps, but it takes time during each step waiting for the process to do what it is supposed to do. Now if I don't make a mess of it by the end of next week, I will have a finished knife. This is like calling, hunting or trapping coyote they both take patience to get the job done and end up with satisfactory results. You can't really take short cuts with either and expect good results in the end. But then now days I don't get in a rush to do much it's about enjoying what I'm doing here and now.
Click to expand...
Pics!
 
DSheetz said:
A couple of weeks ago I started working on a new blade, using 52-100 bearing steel, I got it shaped the way I wanted it than heat treated it the first time. I brought it up to 1450 F quenched it in 125 F oil. Put it in my vice and kept it straight let it come to room temperature then did a crio treatment. I repeat this after it has spent 24 hours in crio then bring it to room temp and start the process again, for three times, that takes three days. I then bring it up to 350F and hold it for an hour then quench it so now hopefully it has a small grain structure is tough and hard but not brittle. I then finish grinding taking care not to get it hotter than I can hold in my bare hands. I got that part done today and laid out the handle scales on some purple heart. I cut them out fitted them and shaped them, then put them in to heat them to 350 F which makes the purple pop and changes the light brown to a rich purple. I next put it in some wood stabilizer till they sink that will be in three or four days. It doesn't involve a large amount of time doing any of the steps, but it takes time during each step waiting for the process to do what it is supposed to do. Now if I don't make a mess of it by the end of next week, I will have a finished knife. This is like calling, hunting or trapping coyote they both take patience to get the job done and end up with satisfactory results. You can't really take short cuts with either and expect good results in the end. But then now days I don't get in a rush to do much it's about enjoying what I'm doing here and now.
Click to expand...
1682722837486.jpeg

On behalf of Mr. Dave

Thanks

Buck
 
I am a fan of shorter blades because I don't use my knives for chopping as I have a few axes for that and if I find the need to open up a pelvis they have a growth line in them that opens pretty nicely and not too hard. This blade is 41/4" long x 7/8" wide, the handle is 4 3/4" long, the scales are 1/4" thick each so it will be around 5/8" thick overall so it should be pretty comfortable for most hands, male or female. Most of my fixed blade knives have that design for the handle it works well in the kitchen for me as well as in the field. I make them for fun and have not sold any of them but do sometimes give them away. I did make a special designed one for a Navy corpsman to deploy to Afghanistan for a fixed blade to cut clothing open with a sheath to fasten to web gear. He said he loved it and it worked well for him. Now that made me proud and happy. He said Well it might look like a butter knife, but I will tell you it's as sharp as I have ever had a knife and seems to hold an edge.
 
Dave, I've played around with knife-making enough to understand a little of what you're talking about, but not enough to be any good at it. My EDC and hunting knives are self-made and work well but are pretty crude. So far I've just worked with store bought Damascus billets, but I have some high grade stainless billets I'm going to try. CPVM 35 VS if I remember right. A very fun and challenging hobby! I look forward to seeing your finished product.
 
My favorite stainless steel is 440-C for knife blades. I have used some AEB-L it's a little harder to get heat treated then the 440-C . I bought some less expensive folding knives that had 8CR13MOV blades that I made blades for till I figured out how to heat treat the 8CR13MOV and get it to hold a fairly good edge. I enjoy doing it probably because like working with coyotes it is a challenge, and I don't ever think I will stop learning new aspects of it. When I was 42 I broke my neck the neurosurgeon finally decided that maybe I wasn't just complaining, after 3 months still working, and said that he would go in fix it and be done in less than an hour, 4 hours later I came out of surgery. He had his back to me when I woke up and asked him well how did it go, he jumped turned and said you should still be under, but then went on to tell me you should have been dead from what I found, I spent two hours picking bone fragments out of your nerves where it should have stopped your heart. He told me you have maybe 10 years of work time left your body is over 80 years old now, I worked for twenty-three more years before I retired and still haven't stopped, I've just slowed down. That is the way so many of us are we just keep going and going like the little ever ready bunny. And enjoying every minute of it. You all have treated me well and are patient with my ramblings thank You all. We will just keep on visiting and learning from each other rambling on about coyotes and other things that aren't controversial just fun and interesting.
 
DSheetz said:
A couple of weeks ago I started working on a new blade, using 52-100 bearing steel, I got it shaped the way I wanted it than heat treated it the first time. I brought it up to 1450 F quenched it in 125 F oil. Put it in my vice and kept it straight let it come to room temperature then did a crio treatment. I repeat this after it has spent 24 hours in crio then bring it to room temp and start the process again, for three times, that takes three days. I then bring it up to 350F and hold it for an hour then quench it so now hopefully it has a small grain structure is tough and hard but not brittle. I then finish grinding taking care not to get it hotter than I can hold in my bare hands. I got that part done today and laid out the handle scales on some purple heart. I cut them out fitted them and shaped them, then put them in to heat them to 350 F which makes the purple pop and changes the light brown to a rich purple. I next put it in some wood stabilizer till they sink that will be in three or four days. It doesn't involve a large amount of time doing any of the steps, but it takes time during each step waiting for the process to do what it is supposed to do. Now if I don't make a mess of it by the end of next week, I will have a finished knife. This is like calling, hunting or trapping coyote they both take patience to get the job done and end up with satisfactory results. You can't really take short cuts with either and expect good results in the end. But then now days I don't get in a rush to do much it's about enjoying what I'm doing here and now.
Click to expand...
How cold is your Cryo process?
 
I use dry ice in cyrawool insulation, so it gets down to around -210 F. A lot of people use dry ice chips in acetone but for me the way I do it seems to work best. We have a place in Casper that does it commercially and they use liquid nitrogen, they do rifle barrels and other things that people want stress relieved. I have one rifle barrel that was nitrided for wear purposes that also was cryo treated for stress relief, I don't know about it yet as it only has a couple thousand rounds through it, I do know that at least 30 thousands thickness is harder than my head. We used nitrided bolts on steam turbines and high pressure steam valves as well as steam valve stems, they worked well for that. I was tasked with drilling some 416 S.S. pins that were nitrided one time and I sharpened a carbide masonry drill bit to drill them. The General Electric rep. asked me if I would be done by the end of the next day. I told him I already was he didn't believe me till he saw the guys pouring liquid nitrogen into the holes to shrink the pins for removal. How the h546 did you do that was his question they must not have been GE pins because you can't drill the nitrided ones that fast. I always had fun doing things that I was told couldn't be done lol, I never did tell him how I did it. When I lay the blades on the dry ice, they make shrill screaming sound and vibrate bouncing around.
 

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