Railroad spike knives

so this is what inspired this video this is a railroad spike knife i made a couple of days ago on pure whim i was waiting for some lacquer to dry the fire was on because it's freezing in here to try and keep the place warm and i thought you know what i'll have a go and i was just playing at it so i didn't do a video and it actually turned out really rather well so i had to post it on instagram and people saying oh we've done a video but i haven't so i'm going to do one now making a slightly different style knife but again out of a railroad spike someone gave me some of these must be a couple of years ago now and i've never used them this is the first time i've used one on this particular knife so let's give it a go what we got now this is an old one i have got some new ones somewhere but i couldn't find them so oh one will do what i'm going to do with this one is a slightly different handle the other one here i just literally just twisted from the square but on this one what i'm going to do i'm going to slit down each side all four sides just run a chisel down and then twist it and i'm going to do that first before i do the blade which i did the opposite way around on the other one i did the blade first and then the handle and we'll do it the other way around this time see if it makes a difference so i'm just doing this by eye [Music] it's just roughly i'm gonna go roughly halfway that should give me enough to hang on to don't get me blooming hold fast to work that's got it um yeah if i do roughly halfway that should give me enough to hang on to and a reasonable sized blade that's got it [Music] yeah that'll do i'll do that another three times we'll be laughing one thing i did find when i made the other one the other day a lot of people say oh it's rubbish steel and it's no good for knives or anything i'll tell you what it was damn tough to to forge um and like with the rebar um people say that's rubbish but i found a chart the other day which describes what sorts of rebar there are and you can get a really tough one and someone did say that there are several grades of these spikes as well so whether i've got some tough ones i don't know i still you know it's not like tall steel but it's a damn sight tougher than mild steel that's for sure just open them back up again because they've got a bit squashed whilst doing the other ones that's it that'll do let's give her a twist i'm just gonna do [Music] i don't know perhaps one twist i did one twist on that other one and it came out quite nicely so i'm gonna try one twist on this one i think that'll probably do it gone too far back on now there we go that's it little tweak i might just have to tighten that bottom bit up a little bit all right so there we go now what i'm going to do is put a shoulder on here with my guillotine tool just so that when i start hammering i hopefully won't damage the twist um so i can get quite close up to it put that right up close to the start of the twist you see it's just started a nice little shoulder just keeps it square up against the handle part it's easier than trying to risk it with the hammer and edge of the anvil a bit warm give it some beans although that's coming down quite nicely that i'm really having to give that some that's a fairly hefty hammer and i'm giving it plenty now the style of knife i'm going to do with this one is i think what they call a tanto style so it's basically going to be fairly parallel all the way down and then the very end sort of almost a 45 degree angle up at the end that's the plan whether it'll work or not i don't know just redo the shoulder because i've got down to the thickness that i put in originally now i've discovered why you should have done or why i should have done the handle after the blade because it's difficult to set the blades back down and keep it so level with the top of the handle without damaging the handle a bit tricky so i would recommend do the handle after the blade which is what i did on the first one i made see what i mean it's sticking up a bit you can see there and i want it down level really so i'm gonna have to have a little think about how i'm gonna do that it's blooming freezing here at the moment i haven't had any snow but it's forecast and today which is the following day from when i made this knife it hasn't come above freezing all day and it's dark bloody miserable i'm really hitting that even though my anvil is on rubber it's still making the camera shake that is some tough stuff see i'm trying to get the shape that's what i'm going to try and do now is you get that right down to a point i should have put the camera at the side instead of right in front of me but you can see what i'm doing basically just hammering it back into itself that front edge because it had got a bit thin and also a bit out of shape that's a bit more like it it'll give us enough to play with when we're grinding keeping it straight if i can so that's the sort of shape now this is where i'm going to try and also get the blade it's not in the middle of the handle get my spiked tongs on it and i'm just trying to knock the blade again without damaging the handle this is another reason for doing the handle afterwards it's going slowly but all right i've got it basically up the middle now i'm just gonna try and run the flatter over it this is going to end up on the floor more times than anything where you can really do with that a mate to work a sledge for you all right i'm gonna call it that i think there we go i'm gonna just do some rough grinding now the back edge i'm going to keep completely flat so that's what i'm doing now is just flattening the back off taking the worst off actually no i know i think that's the that might be the edge i'm going to bevel i can't remember now you'll have to wait and watch and see because i've forgotten no it wasn't that was the back so now i'm putting the bevel on i've increased the angle on my bevel jig a little bit because i don't want this um bevel to go right to the top and you want it to go about halfway up so don't ask what angle i've put because i've got a clue i've just done it by eye as with all my stuff it's all eyeballed mostly there you go that's what i was aiming for about halfway up it's not totally straight but now this angle on the end i think i'm going to struggle with i'm going to try and do it by eye to start with i really need to be able to no that's not the way i need a way of reproducing it i think that's going to be the way so i can judge where it is on the tool rest get it the same each time so that's just about what i want let's change the belt get a little bit finer on it all right so that's pretty good now it's not done but it's on the way little focus come on focus focus i've left the back pretty much uh as it was just taken the edge of it i want to put a little semi-circle in here tidy that corner up because it looks unsightly so i'm going to do it with the die grinder which is what i did with the my last one and they look quite nice you can see how hard that is that's sparking rather well with this carbide bit now that doesn't do that with mild steel and that hasn't been hardened yet either always little shards they're like needles i hate them right that looks a bit better a little bit uh neater so now let's harden it now i've done most of the work on it now i'm going to harden this but i'm not going to bother tempering it because as i said earlier the steel isn't good enough to to warrant a temper but it's good enough that you can harden it um having only done two or done one so far like that i've discovered for certain you leave it to just cool and almost a kneel it's not very hard but you can harden it and that's all i'm gonna do because it doesn't go brittle hard so there's no point tempering it just doing it slowly just to try and keep it straight and i want it to warp there you go let's give her a clean up this wheel is like a bit like a scotch brite they're really good i use them for all sorts of things there's a ha they're 180 grit [Music] they're pretty long lasting i buy two or three at a time i come from china i think there's a i think there's a link in my on my amazon page where you can get them from they take a little while to come because they do come from china and now we're out of europe it might take a bit longer but uh well worth getting oh no just put a little bit of an edge on it if i can now this is going to take some time yeah that's pretty good [Music] so there we are that's just about it as you can see the bevel isn't quite straight but you know it's my first one first tanto style with that type of bevel and it's only taken me well the video is 20 minutes it's probably taken me two hours or something ridiculous hasn't taken long i don't sell them or anything so i just sit in my drawer at home it's proof of concept really as much as anything just goes to show what you can do out of a railroad spike i'm quite pleased with it there's lots of things i would do differently i might have smoothed that back off a little bit more and i'll definitely do the handle after the blade next time so there you go number one which i was really pleased with that sharpened up really well thanks for watching we'll catch you on the next one

Channel: Gary Huston

Views: 25,120

Rating: 4.927928 out of 5

Keywords: Gary Huston, UK, blacksmith, farrier, welder, smith, forge, hammer, tongs, DIY, anvil, horseshoe

Id: aUlpRKY7bc4

Length: 20min 2sec (1202 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 31 2020