knife out of a meat cleaver..............

[bob1961]

i have a comercial grade cleaver that i think would make a good heavy bowie type knife that's 1/4" thick and enough material fer a 9" blade....any thoughts guys..............bob

 

[paulvallandigham]

The blade is way to heavy to use. But, if you want a big, clunky Bowie Knife, it will do that. I made one years ago from an old flat truck spring. It is most unwieldy, and wears out my wrist trying to use it. I switched to using an axe for heavy work, and use a smaller bladed knife for the cutting work.

 

[LRB]

You are going to have a hard time cutting it out without harming the temper. If you intend to re-heat treat it, yeah, you can make it work, but you would likely be better off just making what you want from a piece of good steel. If you have the means to regrind the cleaver, and heat treat it when you finish, then you should be able to just build what you want from scratch, and save the cleaver. Even if you could cut a Bowie from the cleaver without harming the temper, you may find the steel softer as you near the spine. That would depend on the original heat treat.

 

[hawkeye1755]

You can start with these simple knifes:

or when will making a masterpice, make such ones

:hatsoff:

 

[bob1961]

how much heat is generated with a plasma cutter to take out the temper....some welding shops in the area should have one that can cut out the pattern on it when giving to them..............bob

 

[LRB]

I have no experience with plasma cutters. The welding shop should be able to tell you.

 

[paulvallandigham]

The plasma cutter is going to anneal the metal around the area you cut. I would simply anneal the butcher knife blade completely, cut it to shape, grind it, or hammer forge it to the size Bowie knife you want, then harden it, and then temper it again. For a fighting knife that also looks good on your belt for show and tell, I much prefer a double guarded blade, 1/8" thick, and 1-1 1/4" wide at its widest, and 8=10 inches long. Put a nice piece of antler on the tang for your handle, and you will be the envy of your club. The longer, thinner blade is much easier to sharpen, cuts well, and makes an intimidating pig sticker. Just remember not to take a knife to a gunfight!

 

[anvil1231]

how much heat is generated with a plasma cutter to take out the temper....some welding shops in the area should have one that can cut out the pattern on it when giving to them..............bob

I have used a plasma cutter in the past to cut out knife blanks and it does anneal the metal as Paul said but it also burns it to the point of being real brittle at the edge of the cut. To correct this you draw your pattern about 1/16 inch larger and then grind it back to the size you want....anvil

 

[blacksmithshoppe]

Dan Winkler cuts his Blade Blanks out of big saw mill saw blades with a torch, granted he forges out the blades from there but is doesn't appear to hurt the steel. I don't see why a plasma cutter would do any harm. You could reheat treat the blade with a torch set, and then draw it back in an oven. Would be a great learning experience.
Jeff

 

[crockett]

I have a truck spring but there's a bit of a curve. The metals is about 3/8 thick, maybe a bit less, but it is the only source of steel I know of for a really big bowie. Did you have any warpage problems with the blade?

 

[paulvallandigham]

The spring I used came from a 1940's vintage truck, and it was considerably thinner than the springs used on cars and trucks since the 60s. In fact, the springs we looked at in junk yards from 1950s vintage cars were all 3/8" thick, too. Much too much metal to use in forging a Bowie Knife, much less to make one using stock removal methods, as I did. ( File and grinder) No warpage, but then we laid the blade across dry sticks at the bottom of a 5 foot tall pile of dead branches that we burned. Most of the heat was above the blade, but we wanted the heat from that white hot group of coals that collected at the bottom, and we wanted the coals to be on both the top and bottom of the blade for thorough heating. It did work. Today, I would find someone with a furnace to anneal the stock rather than build a stick fire, and have it burn for three days! My family was anything but rich, and we made do with what was available. Even my dad was not sure we could make enough heat with our fire to anneal it, but it did. Before the annealing, we could not cut the spring with a hacksaw. Afterwards we cut away the stock that did not meet our ideas of what a bowie knife should look like. Once I had the rough outline, I began using the grinding wheel to define the outline better, and to put all the bevels on the blade. I used draw files to finish the bevels, and square the tang. It took more than a week of working after school, and in the evenings to do all the grinding work. Dad would come down and check my progress, and give pointers every so often. The filing work took another three weeks to finish.

 

[shmrck1]

Undertaker,
Yep, those are simple enough, should
be simple for any beginner :rotf: :rotf:
snake-eyes :hmm:

 

[chipper]

I've made a bunch of knives out of used machette blades. I heat up the metal, burn off the old handle and anneal back using wood ashes. I then cut the design out with a hand held grinder I bought at harbor frieght for $15.00. I try not to get the blade too hot. You can see the metal turning color if you get it too hot. Be sure to do pleanty of nomalizing heats, at least 3 before you do the hardening or it will crack, then temper to your hearts content.
Good luck....