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Blacksmith Knife Tutorial
Blacksmith Knife Tutorial
by Tim Lively
I'm calling this a Celtic Kitchen Knife but it's really just a blacksmith's knife or as
the French call it - brut de forge.
I started with some leaf spring from a 57 Dodge half ton pick-up. Leaf spring from
US made cars and light trucks from the 1950s and 60s are made of a high carbon steel
alloy called 5160. This alloy is an excellent choice for almost any kind of knifemaking.
5160 has 0.56 - 0.64 carbon, 0.75 - 1.00 manganese, 0.15 - 0.35 silicon, 0.70 - 0.90
chromium. It has great edge holding abilities and can withstand prying sideways
better than most high carbon steels. I heat the steel in the forge to a non-magnetic
state and hot cut a chunk about 7 inches long and about 2 inches wide. Here I just cut
off the eye end of the leaf spring.
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Blacksmith Knife Tutorial
With the next heat I make a cut down the middle of the steel but I only go about
3/4ths of the way through.
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Blacksmith Knife Tutorial
With the next heat I bend the chunk of steel to about a 90 degree angle with the cut
side out.
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Blacksmith Knife Tutorial
Next heat I pour water down the inside of the fold. Just enough to harden the thin
area. Then I lay it on the anvil with the cut side up and give it a swift smack with the
hammer. This causes the steel in the thin area to break fairly smoothly giving me two
blanks of 5160 steel 7 inches long and almost 1 inch wide. The reason I do this instead
of just cutting all the way through is that it leaves a cleaner cut and that makes it alot
easier to clean up the edge with a file. For about the last 6 years Ive been making all
my knives without the use of electricity so I don't use a grinder. Anything that I can
do that makes less filing work for myself the better. The scarfed edge you get from
cutting all the way through is alot of file work.
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Blacksmith Knife Tutorial
I take one of the blanks Ive created and cut an angle on the end like so. I dont know
how many degrees the angle is, I just guess. You can see in the photo that I started a
cut and then decided it needed a little more. I use a thick copper saddle I made to
cover the anvil in all my hot cutting to protect both the anvil's face and the hot
cutter's edge. I just cut all the way through on small areas because it doesnt really
take that much filing since it's a short cut.
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