Knife making?

[Mijamen78]

For those of you thank make your own knives, how do you temper your steel or do you buy blades that are already tempered? I do not want to buy a oven if I am not sure I want to go that deep into it.

[Bucksaw]

I am currently using a high carbon sawmill blade for mine, and I dont bother tempering them. I know a lot of the guys on here buy the softened stainless and then when the blade is shaped, have it heat treated. When I finish with the saw blade, Im gonna try the preshaped blanks that you see on some of the knife supply stores online, and just focus on making and shaping handles, and finishing before I move on to doing some hardening or heat treating.

[Puggy625]

I've been buying my ATS-34 stainless steel from Texas knife supply, cut out the knife/shape it, sand it to where I like it and have shipped 3 knives to them for heat treat/cryo and temper. Still waiting on them to return to see how they turn out. It adds to the price of making knives, but till I see if I am going to really get into it, I just have to eat the extra money. If you buy the right carbon steel, you can do the heat treat yourself with a homemade forge. I just haven't gotten that adventurous yet.

[Jason Fry]

I agree with puggy. Buy stainless bar stock and outsource your heat treat, or buy 1084 and learn to do it with a charcoal forge or a torch.

[Mijamen78]

If a buy an already hardened blade, is it impossible to reshape and make minor design changes

[LeanMachine]

Most common process for hobby knife makers is heating with a torch and quenching in oil. I would not want to cut and bevel a piece of hardened steel.

[Jason Fry]

If a buy an already hardened blade, is it impossible to reshape and make minor design changes

You'll be limited to minor profile changes. You won't be able to drill new holes in the hardened steel without special equipment.

[Puggy625]

Got 2 knives back from heat treat today (after a 2 day fiasco at UPS, not Texas Knifes fault). Took some scotchbrite to the blades to get the scaling off and they look pretty good for my first ones. I will do some sanding on them tomorrow and hopefully start attaching the handles, maybe get them completed by Friday or Saturday. I'll try and post pics when they are done.