Fredeen Blades

Hey,

I'm new to the forum and bladesmithing. I found the Fredeen videos on youtube as I was looking around. The videos gave me a lot of background on some stuff I need to know, but I think I'm still lacking expertise knowledge in certain things. I'm not entirely sure about everything I need know. Where are some places where I could gain all the knowledge a beginner needs.

Thanks for all your help.

Welcome Baker,

Glad you found my videos, and glad you decided to join the forums here.

There are many many places on the internet to find information on bladesmithing, and there are many good books on the subject as well.

But if you want to gain "all" the knoweledge a beginner "needs", you won't be able to get everything from reading/watching, you can only pick up some things through experience and trial and error, and actually doing these things yourself.

As far as resources for research on the subject, firstly, you've found one here. Part of the purpose of this website is to educate people on the subject of bladesmithing and I'm happy to answer questions you have, or at the very least point you in the right direction so you can get the information on your own. I'd also be happy to give you some other websites with information on bladesmithing as well.

However, the topic of "bladesmithing" is very very broad which makes it difficult to provide information, seeing as I don't know what you know, or what you still need to brush up on. If you let me know specific topics you are struggling with (forges/equipment/tools, basic forging techinques, grinding, heat treatment, etc), I'll be able to give you more specific and in depth answers/sources.

It would also be good to know where you are currently at in your learning efforts. Are you still just in the research stage? Have you tried experiemting and physically putting any of your research into practice? Have you started gathering some basic tools and equipment? etc. This will help me guide you along and help you find the next "steps" to take.

Again, welcome, and I wish you luck with your endevors to learn,

So glad I'll have a little more help than what I've had!

Origonally I had looked more at using the stock removal method, but when I actually started watching what goes into forging a blade it looked much more interesting and as if you could do so much more with forging. When you use the stock removal method it seems too easy and quick. Forging seems more personal. I think that's how I would summ it up.

As for experience and any testing, no. I haven't been able to aquire any metals to begin working with. I have built myself a small forge, although it's really more of a fire pitt out of rocks. I basically just raised the platform slightly using dirt and then put down two layers of rock. I did try and connect a tunnel under the rocks coming up in the center so I could fan the fire. It's sealed with dirt.

As for knowledge, I know of stock removal and bladesmithing, but I had not realized the term carried so much behind it. I know very little about the atom sized effects. I believe I have the basic process of how to do things. As in, heat of the metal, pound into shape, harden, and anneal.

Thanks again for your help. This is really exciting for me.

I would say your assesment of bladesmithing vs stock removal knife making is correct.

In terms of making a usable, functional, and aesthetically appealing knife, both methods are viable ways of making a good blade. The stock removal method is the simplier of the two however, and perhaps "easier." It still takes a large amount of skill to produce a good blade using the stock removal method, but in terms of the required skill sets, bladesmithing requires many more skills. A bladesmith has to have the same grinding, finishing, wood working, and leather working skills as a stock removal maker, but on top of all of this, a bladesmith must also have the skills of a blacksmith (blade forging, forge welding, tool making, etc). I try not to down play stock removal knife making too much, as it does take legitimate skill to make a good stock removal knife, and there are very good stock removal makers out there, but I chose the path of bladesmithing because it does take that extra skill, and extra knoweledge, and in my opinion is a far better method to make a knife, and helps to set my work above someone who just takes some steel and grinds a blade from it. Plus, as you mentioned, bladesmithing allows to do so much more than stock removal knife making. As a bladesmith I can do things like make my own pattern welded steel, or integral bolster blades for example, which are things that a stock removal maker cant do.

If you are looking for sources of good steel to learn on, look for some old leaf springs. These can usually be had at the scrap yard relativly cheaply, and you can also contact a suspension shop that does leaf sping re-arching, and they will usually have old springs that they will sometimes give you (if you explain what you are doing with them), and they also have cut offs and drops of new 5160 stock that they will give to you or sell to you at a good price. Leaf springs are made of 5160 steel, which has about .6% carbon, and has chromium for additional hardenability. It makes a great knife, and is very forgiving in the forging and heat treating processes, which makes it great for beginners. You can also look around for some coil springs off of old trucks/cars at the scrap yard as well, these are *usually (not always) a decent blade steel (either 5160, 1060, or sometimes 1095). Old files are also good for making blades from (these are usually 1095). Don't get new files though, as they are usually case hardened, look for the cheap old rusty ones with the worn off teeth at the pawn shops/flea markets, these can usually be had for next to nothing. Course if its a good file, and the teeth are good, might as well use it as a file. Those are probably your best sources for steel to learn on. There are other types of junk yard steel that you can make blades out of, but they aren't as friendly to beginners.

If you are interested in learning more about metallurgy and heat treatment and what is actually going on inside the steel's atomic/crystaline structure, I've got a 25 page paper/article I've written on the subject (including pictures, and diagrams). Its not the most indepth explanation, but its definatly well above basic (but I tried to make everything accessable to the beginner), and goes into some decent metallurgy. Its definatly not something you'd want to try to absorb in one sitting, but it might give you something to chew on for awhile and help give you a serious leg up on most people. I'll work on posting it under the tutorial section sometime soon (I've been needing to anyway).

I'll also browse through the favorites and post some forge information for you. I'm not sure how well your current forge will work (without being able to see how you've arranged the tuyere and firepot). I don't know which type of forge you would prefer (some prefer coal/charcoal, some propane). For the purposes of bladesmithing, a propane forge is great, and its what I use exclusively (plus I'm in an urban setting, so coal smoke would probably not go over too well with the neighbors). They aren't horribly expensive or difficult to build either. I'd say for about $150 and a little scrounging, you could probably build a pretty nice one. I can send you information on both types though.

I'll also post some other websites/ forums that you might want to check out. And don't forget, google and a good few hours of time can also give you some good info too, so be sure to keep researching on your own. That will help you develop what questions you need to ask, and help you understand the answers better.

Graham

I think most of the skills I will probably have to work on to aquire. There is an elderly gentleman at my church who, I believe, uses the stock removal method. I had spoken to him about this and he gave me two books to read. The first one explained much more about the forging method, but at the time I was set on using the stock removal method (Although at the time I didn't know too much of a difference between the two). The second one spoke more about the stock removal method. I never completely finished both books (Which I now regret).

Finding steel to use has been one of my chief problems during this. I was never good at finding resources. I will definitively be on the look out. Speaking of steel, the difference between the types of steel is something I'm still negligent about. Thanks for all this info. It really helps.

Any information you can give me, I would be most grateful for your help. Please send me any information you deem necessary for a beginner.

Thanks again.

Sorry for the delays in getting this out, been super busy this weekend finishing up a commission and getting a couple other orders ready to ship.

I've updated the tutorial page a bit. Posted the article on Metallurgy and heat treatment  for you to take a look at. Like I said, it is more advanced, so you might not understand a lot of it at this point in time, but it will at least help you become somewhat familiar with some of the terminology, and some of the process and what is going on. Feel free to post any questions that arise.

Some other links you might be interested in:

Propane forges:

http://www.arscives.com/bladesign/forge.tutorial.htm

http://ronreil.abana.org/design1.shtml

http://metalcast.boorman.us/reil_1.html

Coal/Charcoal forges:

http://www.artistblacksmith.com/articles/coal_forge_plans.htm

http://www.anvilfire.com/index.php?bodyName=/21centbs/forges/brkdrum1.htm&titleName=anvilfire.com%20Blacksmithing%20FAQs%20

http://www.beautifuliron.com/forge.htm

Here's a chart on the AISU-SAE Steel Classification system.

Basically what you'll want to know from the chart what the numeric classifications stand for. For example, 1095 stee. The 10XX series steel is a plain carbon steel (denoted by the 10) with 0.95% carbon (denoted by the 95). So for the 10XX series steels, the 10 says its plain carbon, and the following numbers denote fraction of a precentage of carbon. If you had a steel like 5160, the 5 denotes that it is a chromium steel alloy, the 1 denotes how much chromium, and the last two numbers (in this case 60) denote how much carbon (.6 % in this case). You should be able to pick up the rest from the chart as necessary. My appologies for the chart being so small, Photobucket is refusing to let me increase the size of my picture uploads, just copy and save the picture of the chart on your computer and zoom in for a better look.

This chart also does not include other types of steels that fall under a different classification system. There is a letter classification system for other steel alloys as well (W-1,W-2, O-1, O-2, A-2, etc.) The letter classifications stand for the quench medium needed for the steel, W being water hardening, O being oil hardneing, and A being air hardening (there are other letter designated steels like S5, which is a "shock resistant" steel, or D-2, or T-2, M series, etc, but these arent really common blade steels, so they arent something to worry much about).  

Also things to note about blade steels. For a good blade you want a high carbon steel. "High carbon" means that the steel has at least 0.5% carbon. If it has any less carbon, it will not harden enough to have good edge holding capabilites. However, with blades, you can also get into strange alloys and super high carbon steels that arent really suited for a knife (lest not without really specialized heat treatment).

For similicities sake, here is a list of good blade steels (and forging steels, some "blade steels" can not be forged or arent forge friendly), most of which I use (or have), and these are the most common among bladesmiths:

1050

1060

1075/1080

1084

1095

5160

52100

W-1

W-2

O-1

Generally when selecting a blade steel, think of the knife and its intended uses and functions. If the knife will be a shorter blade that wont need to flex much, and wont be beaten around and needs to stay very sharp, choose a steel on the higher end of the carbon spectrum, that will get harder for edge retention. For a knife that will be beaten around, used for chopping wood, other heavy uses, or is longer and needs to be able to flex, choose a steel that is on the lower end of the high carbon scale, or an alloy (like 5160) so that the blade will not be quite so hard and as a result be extremly tough.

Here are a couple books that you might want to check out (if the library doesnt have them and you don't want to buy them, ask the library about an ILL or "inter library loan." But if you can afford them, might as well buy them as they will be good to have around):

Wayne Goddard's "$50 Knife Shop"

"The Wonder of Knifemaking" by Wayne Goddard

Jim Hrisoula's "Complete Bladesmith: Forging Your Way To Perfection "

"Pattern-Welded Blade: Artistry In Iron" by Jim Hrisoulas

"Step-by-Step Knifemaking" by David Boye

Ed Fowler also has a few books that are supposed to be decent.

Maybe someday I'll write a book or two on the subject as well (if I gathered up all of my posts made on forums, and emails written, etc, I'd probably be pretty close, lol ).

I guess I'll call it that for the moment. There's alot there for you to look over and absorb, so I don't want to overload you.

Let me know what questions arise after looking at some of this stuff, or anything else you want discussed further.

Graham

Hey, Just one question right now. I got bored the other day and I ground up a knife from a file that we had laying around and I was wondering if you could anneal the spine with propane. I haven't gotten my forge together yet, so that's why I haven't forged anything.

Thanks.

I assume by anneal, you actually mean to temper the spine. (Tempering is not hardening, it is the process done after hardening to slightly soften the blade to remove brittleness and impart toughness).

And yes, you can do this, a simple propane torch (like the kind plumbers use to sweat pipes) will work. Hopefully when you ground the file you did not over heat it. If the steel turned colors when you ground the file, that means you have potentially over heated it and will have "softened" it too much to produce a viable blade. If you reached any colors on it beyond a straw/brown color, it has possibly been over heated.

My recomendations would be this: first, throw the blade in the oven/toaster oven, set at 375 F, for about 2 hours. Pull the blade and let it cool slowly in the air. Repeat this one more time. This will temper the entire blade, but most importantly set the temper for the edge. After this, if you want to further temper the spine to impart additional toughness, then you can torch temper the spine. To torch temper the spine, suspend the edge of the blade in water, leaving the spine exposed. Heat the spine (straight down on the edge, not from the side or you can warp it). Watch the "temper colors" run, they will start at the spine and slowly move towards the edge, heat the spine until it is a nice blue color, and the colors have ran close to where the edge is at (up to the water).  Let it cool in the air. You can then lightly sand off the oxides that have formed (the colors), and repeat this up to 2 more times.

Yes, I do mean temper. I had thought that the term would be anneal.

I don't believe I overheated it. As I worked, I recalled that you would sand it and then dip it in some water, so that's basically what I did the whole time I ground it down.

As the edge is suspended in the water, you do want the tip to be in the water as well. That would make it all be at a slight angle, right?

Thanks.

Right, you basically want all the parts that you don't want to accidently overheat suspended in the water, including the tip.

Annealing is the process of softening the steel by transforming its microstructure into a completly pearlitic state. This must be done by heating the steel above critical temperature (~1500F) and then cooling the blade very slowly. Tempering is done after the blade is hardenend, which does slightly "soften" the steel but in a different manner. Tempering allows some of the carbon atoms trapped in the hardening martensetic structure to escape, allowing the steel to relax some and relieve stress, which imparts toughness.

Another thing you can do to check the performance of your blade after tempering is to do an edge flex test. Basically you get a brass rod and clamp it in a vise. Put an edge on the blade, and then place the "side" of the edge (your edge bevel angle) on the brass rod and apply some pressure. You should be able to see the edge flex. Draw the edge across the rod and watch it as it flexes. If it flexes and then returns back to true, you have a good temper. That means it will hold a good edge, without chipping out. If the edge begins to chip slightly, that means you need to temper more. Stick it back in the oven for another hour or two, but at a higher temp (say 400F if you started at 375F). Then do another edge flex test. If it keeps chipping, keep upping the tempering temperature by about 10F until it flexes and returns to true. You won't have to re torch temper the spine after this as the lower tempering temps will only effect the edge, and not the spine which will have been tempered at a higher temp by the torch. If the edge folds over and doesnt return to its original position, that means you have over tempered the edge and made it too soft. This is a bad thing as the only way to fix it would be to re harden and re temper the entire blade again. 

Also, When I attempt to put the handle on I'll need to be able to drill through the tang, but since it's so hard I can't penetrate it with my drill. Will this be solved in the tempering process?

Thanks.

You'll have to torch temper the tang separately from the blade. Just suspend the entire blade in water and leave the tang exposed. Heat with the torch until you reach an almost blue grey temp. Let cool in the air. Do this multiple times. That should hopefully soften the tang to the point where you can drill through it. If this doesnt work you'll have to take it to more extremes. Try to bring the tang to a dull red color and allow the tang to cool very slowly. This means not in the air, as in thin cross sections 1095 (most likley what the file was made of) will actually cool fast enough to air harden. Put the tang in a bucket of ash, vermiculite, or even some sand.... I suppose you could also through the blade into a 400F oven immediatly afterwards as well. That should hopefully be enough to get the tang soft enough to drill into. If not you might have to buy a cobalt drill bit, or a carbide drill bit. Even if you didn't need to drill into the tang, it will still need tempered, as you won't want it "hardened" to the point where it could have brittle failure. 

Yesterday I took the afternoon to soften the spine, and I spent four and a half hours trying to turn the whole spine to the correct color, but the last inch or so wouldn't change color. I looked at that particular bit for about a half hour with it staying golden. I just wanted to know if this will be a problem later? I probably would've stayed longer, but I had to go to church.  I was using a propane tank and the knife was suspended over about a gallon of water.

Also, I've noticed that after sanding off the colors and everything, if the knife was shoved in the dirt it would come out with dirt stuck in tiny scratches that I guess are from the sandpaper. I figured that I should take some 220 and polish it in circular motions until all the scratches are gone and then move to 320 and do the same. Some friends of mine suggested that I also use grits like 600 to 800. What do you think?

Thanks.

What do you mean by the "last inch or so"? Would that be up near the tip, or down near the tang (I'm going to assume near the tang due to the additional mass). I don't think that should be too detrimental to the blade performance. If you oven tempered it like I suggested and drew the spine a bit further with the torch you shouldn't have too many problems. Unfortunately those little propane torches can be a bit on the weak side for some of these jobs. An oxy-acetylene setup is great for that kind of work (among many other uses), however, seeing as that setup is expensive, you might look into MAPP for the torch. It burns a little hotter than straight propane.

As for the blade scratches and finish, thats a tricky thing to explain in email. Firstly, if you are sticking the blade in the dirt, you will be scratching the blade when you do this (dirt is composed of small crushed up pieces of rock and organic matter. The rock can be things like quartz, which is harder than steel and will scratch it). If you want to put a really good finish on a blade, you'll need a whole bunch of patience. I hand rub most of my blades, that is I put a hand sanded finish on them.

To hand rub a blade, start with a moderately aggressive grit, say 220 grit, and then sand in one direction, perpendicular to the grind scratch pattern on the blade. So if your grind scratches go from the spine to the edge, you'll sand along the length of the blade. If they go along the length of the blade, you'll have to sand across the blade, spine to edge. You'll want to sand in that direction with that grit until all of the other scratches are gone (sanding perpendicularly to the other scratches helps you really see when you have sanded them all out). Then once you have gotten the blade to an even 220 finish, step up to a higher grit, say 320 or 400 (you could even go 500, but you'll be sanding for a long time). At this grit, change the direction you are sanding so it is perpendicular to the 220 grit scratches, and sand until all of the 220 scratches are gone. Then step up to a higher grit, change the direction you are sanding, etc, until you get to the finish you want. When you are at the finish you want, sand only along the length of the blade, and dont sand "back and forth" sand only in one direction. Start at the tang of the blade, and pull the sand paper in one smooth motion to the tip of the blade, and so forth. This will prevent "hooks" in the finish, which form if you stop or change directions while sanding.

I find that 500 grit produces a pretty decent finish. It looks quite good, its much less labor intensive to get to the 500 grit finish, and if the blade gets scratched from use, its also easy to touch up.

Sorry, I meant the last inch of the tip. I haven't finished the tang, but I'm going to so I can put on the handle.

Speaking of the handle, I have another question. When I was thinking about putting on the handle, my original plan was to drill through (using the correct method so everything is alligned) and then put the nail through and hammer it down so it spread over the handle. Is there an alternate and better method that you could suggest?

Thanks.

The tip should be fine, so long as you don't try to use it as a pry bar or screw driver

When it comes to pinning the handle in place, I'm not a big fan of peining over the pin. If you pein the pin, it will expand against the handle material, thats not a bad thing, as its what you want to secure it, however wood and other handle materials tend to crack and split very easily (some more so than others) so if you accidently take one too many taps on the pin, you'll end up cracking your handle, which means you have to pull it all apart (usually after you've pinned the whole thing, and have epoxy all over everything starting to cure :roll and start over and refit the handle. I prefer just to epoxy my pins in place. I grind a few grooves around the pin (in the middle where it will be in the handle), and roughen up the pin a bit with some coarse sand paper, and then let the epoxy keep it in place. I find this works quite well, and nothing ever wants to come apart, and no worries about splitting the handle. Just leave the pins a bit long, so they stick out past the handle, and then you can grind off the pins flush when you do the final shaping on the handle.

You can try to pein the pin if you want, just be really really careful, and you'll want to stop just as soon as it looks like its expanded enough to hold it in place.

I haven't quite finished my knife, but I wanted to ask about something else. I found a railroad spike and I had seen knives that had been made out of them. My granpa said that they lack carbon, though and that I would need to add it. He said to heat it up, flatten it out, pour sugar on it, fold it over, and weld it back together and to do that a lot. He doesn't have specific knowledge of the subject, but he has an overall self education from reading lots. What do you think?

Also, if I wanted to make it stainless steele I would have to add another element (I forget what it is right now). I heard this on the internet from a Japanese sword maker (I think, either that or an experienced sword maker) and I was wondering if this was true and how that would be done?

Thanks.

Your grandfather is correct about railroad spikes lacking the carbon content necessary for a good performing blade. Even the rail road spikes marked "HC" for "High Carbon" only have about 0.3%-0.35% carbon, which is quite low (0.50% being roughly the minimum cutoff for a "good" blade steel).

His recomendation of heating the spike, and adding sugar does have some theoretical merrit, however, is impractical to execute in that manner for a few reasons. Firstly, what he is basically suggesting is something known as case hardening. Steel (or Iron) is a material which allows for the diffusion of carbon. By placing steel directly in contact with a source of higher carbon, there is a gradient which exists. Due to the gradient, carbon will flow from the higher source, into the lower source (the iron/steel), and diffuse into the steel's structure. This will occur so long as there is a carbon source which is "greater" than the precentage of carbon in the steel. This takes a very long time to occur though. Carbon will diffuse at room temperatures, however it is so very slow that it is pretty much insignificant. Heating the steel can speed the process up a good deal. Generally carbon diffuses at a rate of .002-.007 in. per hour (depending exactly on temperatures and the difference in the carbon gradient). As you can imagine, if you had a rail road spike that was thinned to 1/4", coated with sugar on both sides, the carbon in the sugar would have to travel 1/8" (from both sides) to diffiuse into the steel completly, and at a rate of .007 in. per hour, it would take roughly 18 hours of continuous heating for this to occur (thats the "optimal case" and it would actually take a good bit longer for the steel to reach a complete homogenous carbon state). Since its not exactly practical to keep steel heated for days on end at a constant temperature to allow for carbon diffusion to occur, generally the process is only used to create an outer "skin" or "case" of high carbon steel around an inner core of lower carbon steel/iron. Hence this is the process known as case hardening.

Your grandfather's suggestion of folding and rewelding the spike knife after case hardening and repeating multiple times is theoretically a decent idea. That would definately help distribute the carbon into the billet much faster, and create more of a homogeneous steel in much less time. However, there is one major thing that makes this completly impractical, and that is the effects of oxidization on heated steel. When steel his heated, the rate of oxidation that it undergoes increases with temperature (think of it as super fast rusting). This oxidization forms forge or fire "scale" (oxidized iron on the surface of the steel), which breaks off durring the forging process. As the steel oxidizes and the scale breaks off, the mass of the steel is decreased (again think of super fast rusting "eating" the steel). The longer you have the steel in the forge, and are forging it, the more scale will form, and the more steel you will loose. When pattern welding and making a damascus billet, its not uncommon for up to 25%-50% of the original billet mass to be lost to fire scale (more is lost on higher layer billets that have significantly more forging time). Also, in order to forge weld steel, you need quite high temperatures (2000F and up) which increases the rate of oxidization, and you also need a flux to facilitate the welding, which in turn is quite caustic and also "eats" some of the steel mass. In order to significantly increase the carbon content in a rail road spike to the point where it would be suitable for a good knife, using the method suggested by your grandfather, would take quite a few folding and re-welding procedures, plus soak time for the carbon addition (after adding the sugar coating). So you would loose a significant ammount of the steel mass to oxidization and fire scale. Seeing as most rail road spikes don't have too much steel available to make a knife out of in the first place, by the time you finished with your "carbon addition" you wouldn't really have much steel left at all. Certainly not enough to do a knife out of, even a very very small one.

So in theory your grandfather is right, but in the practical sense, it would not really work.

I have a better solution for you however. It is a process known as San Mai. San Mai involves taking a high carbon core (for the edge of the blade) and wrapping a lower carbon (or iron) steel around the high carbon core. Basically, you take a piece of good high carbon steel, split the end of your railroad spike open (or other iron/steel material that is not suited for edge holding), insert the piece of high carbon steel into the split and forge weld it in place. This creates an inner core of high carbon steel which will protrude at the edge of the knife and allow good hardenability for good edge holding. This is a much simpiler method, and will produce superior results to trying to "add carbon" to a rail road spike. 

However, all this said, forge welding for the very beginner is not something that comes very easy. You will need good foundational blacksmithing skills long before you will be able to successfully forge weld on your own. You might want to hold off on this until you have developed good basic forging skills and a good working knoweledge of how steel behaves under the hammer, and then start trying to learn the process of forge welding, and then you can try some san mai on a spike knife.

You can still use a plain old rail road spike to make a "knife" out of. It will definately give you some good practice, but it will not harden that much and as a result never have the performance characteristics of a good blade (which may or may not be important to you at this time). And often with spike knives, people collect them for the "appearance" or sentimental ties to rail roads, not to use as a knife, so the appearance of the spike knife can often be much more important than the performance.

As to the stainless question:

Stainless steels are made by adding alloying elements durring the smelting process (molten state of the steel production). These elements can be chromium, nickel, maybe some molybdenum (not necessirly for the "stainless" quality, but to control other properties), or a combination of these. You aren't going to be able to forge weld these alloying elements into a billet and make a stainless steel though. They resist diffusion and don't generally want to weld to steel by themselves. You can weld pure nickel to steel, but it will not want to diffuse into the steel/vise versa very easily. Over a very very long time at elevated heat it will, but again, that is much more theoretical than practical. Folding a nickel and high carbon steel billet numerous times will also not truly result in a homogenous steel (in theory, with enough folds it could, but again, that is not something that can be practically physically achieved). This can result in a blade steel that is somewhat resistant to oxidization, but it won't be a true stainless steel (and it will also have some performance draw backs) Additionally, just the addition of nickel or chromium to a simple steel does not necessarily make it stainless, you must reach certain specific percentages for it to be "stainless", and adding additional alloying elements into a steel will greatly change its performance, things beyond the scope of most folks' comprehension, and really best left to the metallurgists who actually smelt the different alloys.

The other thing to remember about stainless steels, is the vast majority of them are air hardening, and not super plastic at high temps. This means that most stainless alloys are not suitable for forging, and those that "are" are a big pain to try to forge. Not to mention, most people lack the heat treating equipment necessary to properly heat treat stainless (requires very precise control over times and temperatures). So if you want to work in stainless, you will be doing stock removal, and will need to pay to send the blade off for professional heat treatment (unless you buy some expensive equipment). Also, stainless steels do lack in performance in comparison to a good high carbon steel. Not to say they can't make a decent blade, but most will not have the edge holding capabilities or thoughness of a good high carbon blade steel (that has been properly HT'ed of course). 

The best bit of advice I can give you in this aspect is rather than trying to take one thing and make it into something else and trying to re-invent the wheel with inferior materials, it is much easier, and cheaper, to just get the right steel for the job. If you want to use stainless, buy some stainless (in a "decent" blade alloy). If you want to make a good performing blade, use good high carbon steels suitable for blades, ect. Don't use the wrong mateirals for the job or you will not get the desired results. The execption being if you are trying to do something specific (like a rail road spike knife) in which you want to retain a certain look of the parent material, and in that case, don't over complicate with the methods you use to improve the performance of the material.

I finally finished my first knife! I couldn't drill through the tang, so I glued it on and wrapped wire around it to hold it in place. Hopefully it will be sturdy, although next time I think I'll use the hidden tang method.

I think that you should be able to see these through this link.

http://tinypic.com/r/ng21s4/6

http://tinypic.com/r/15xmwkn/6

If these don't show up hopefully I can find some way to upload them.

It's also nice and sharp as well. My brother-in-law gave me a set of diamond sharpeners which work pretty well. I sat down with it for about ten minutes and I was able to shave with it.

A couple other things I wanted to ask about. I started working on the sheath, but since I don't have any leather and no one sells any around here I'm using wood for it. I want to put some nice designs into it, but one of the problems is that if I do put some designs into it, it probably won't be very visible. I can do the job without power tools, I just need to know how to make it more visible. I was thinking that you could burn the wood and sand around the designs to keep them black and then stain it, but I don't know if the charred wood would affect how the sealer takes to the wood. Also, if I were to use a power tool, what would I use? And lastly, when I was making the scabbard I was using the hidden tang method (I tried cutting it in half and doing it that way, but things were not working out), but the problem is that my drill bits are not as long as the blade and consequentely, I had to cut a portion of it off and finish drilling that way. When it is together I'm going to sand it down so the two pieces fit, but I'm trying to think I could put them back together. All I can think of is to use wood glue (which I really don't want to do because I want it to be nice and sturdy). I can't use nails because I'll be shaping the wood and they would get in the way. Is there anything you can suggest?

Forgot to post this in my last reply, but I wanted to learn about some of the patterns you could do in blades and how to do them.