Good afternoon, all.
I know, i know, i’ve read 40 posts and internet sites explaining all the reasons why you can’t make a serviceable blade out of steel from the lumber and hardware store. I understand the reasons and the role carbon plays and all that
Okay, i lied, i don’t. But i do realize sometimes you’re smart to take somebody’s word for something.
But the reason for this post is the true fact that a lot of people here don’t always take somebody’s word for how-come-you-can’t and then just have some success in doing it anyway.
So what i want to know is how you made hardware store steel into something you carry into the woods and how it’s working for you. Photos are great.
Thanks for all the responses,
don
Don,
Thanks for introducing this topic. I have seen photographs of frontier knives made from barrel hoops and wagon tires, and I doubt these were or even could have been heat treated. However, they all showed signs of use. Native people made knives of bone and even cane, here in the south, which were arguably softer than iron. Stone can be flaked to a razor edge, but it is brittle, and blades are necessarily short. An iron (or mild steel) blade could be made longer.
I may be out of my depth here, but it is my understanding that the oldest known way of carburizing (i.e. putting carbon into) a piece of iron was by hammering it into the surface. In post #2,
malcolmf described this, as well as the process of folding and laminating the metal to get the carburized material into the center. I may be wrong, but I understand this to be "double shear steel." One interesting thing about old Indian trade knives is that many of them were sharpened on one side only. Generally, if you hold the knife in your right hand with the point up and the cutting edge to your left, the surface facing you would be beveled. My old friend Bill Plitt, who used to do conservation, restoration, and reproduction of Native American artifacts for museums, suggested this was because the cheaper trade knives were only case hardened. They were not folded and laminated as
malcolmf described. If you sharpen the surface-hardened blade on one side only, this leaves a small line of harder, carburized metal down at the cutting edge. The core of the blade was still soft.
However, whether early trade knives were only carburized on the surface or were through-hardened, I believe they were softer than the steels we are accustomed to now. Lots of old Indian knives were worn down to a sliver. Osborne Russell described meeting a band of Sheepeater Indians who had an old knife in this condition,"...nearly worn to the back...," in
Journal of a Trapper (p.31)
:
I have an old stainless butcher knife in my kitchen that used to belong to my mom. This knife has seen daily use for at least 60 years, and it still has plenty of steel left. A soft steel knife would need more frequent sharpening, and would therefore wear more quickly, like the one Russell described. Edwin Thompson Denig, a trader at Fort Union on the upper Missouri, described the knives typically carried by the Assiniboine as "...of English manufacture, a logwood or Brazilwood handle, and
soft steel blade about 8 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide, sharp on one edge..." (bold text mine).
The Earl of Southesk, who crossed the Canadian plains in 1859 and 1860, described the knife carried by one of his men in
Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains (p. 214):
Note that the knife could be sharpened on almost any "smooth stone." I believe he was probably describing a Hudson's Bay Camp Knife, like this one:
Charles Garrad did extensive archaeological research on the Petun people, or "Tobacco Nation," of Canada. One of his monographs was
"Iron Trade Knives on Petun Archaeological Sites." In the second paragraph of the introduction to this paper, he states, "All Petun area trade knives are believed to be made of
iron. W. Douglas Bell... described the knives at the MacMurchy... site as
steel, but pending examination of these artifacts, he is believed to be mistaken." Therefore, Garrad did recognize the difference between iron knives and those made of steel.
So, we have documentation of softer metal being used in trade knives, but who would be crazy enough to try that with a knife now ?
The answer would be yours truly.
The knife below was made from a blade blank I bought some years ago from GoKnapping.com. It was forged in a smithy in India or Pakistan or Bangladesh out of some mystery steel, but obviously something with minimal carbon content. Here is the knife I made from it:
The handle is cut from a palmated section of weathered caribou antler, with ten-penny nails for rivets. The handle is a little wider than the tang, which is why the rivets are off center. I filled the gap in the underside of the handle with a mixture of antler dust and epoxy.
The next picture shows a raw blade blank above the knife I made from its sibling. The little triangular sliver of metal in the photo is the piece I cut from the upturned point of the blank, to give it more of a "clip point" configuration.
These blades are soft enough that you can easily cut them with a hacksaw, files, or regular high-speed drill bits. In fact, I cut the tip with a hacksaw. It was easy. These blades come with a black, smutty finish that I removed with a wire brush and steel wool, and hammer marks are clearly visible.
And yes, I have actually used this knife. I have used it a number of times for breaking up kindling for a camp fire, and I have used it in food preparation. I have done some easy splitting of small stuff, using the knife with a baton, but not much. I suspect the back of the blade would mushroom or peen over if a baton was used very much. Yes, it dulls quicker than most of the knives we are accustomed to using, but about 90 seconds of quality time with a file puts a functional, meat-cutting edge right back on it.
I made this knife as an experiment, after reading those references above (and some others) that described knives of soft metal. I found it gets camp chores done. It dulls rapidly but sharpens easily. I have plenty of "better" knives, but this one works. Is it "as good" as a properly heat treated carbon steel knife? I'll be the first to tell you it isn't, but the bottom line is that it works. Many people condemn soft steel blades as useless or even deny their existence, but my research and personal experience suggests otherwise.
Best regards,
Notchy Bob