Hello to all lovers of working with steel, today we will consider how to make a knife for a chef. A good knife should be made of carbon steel, which will not rust, will be resistant to scratches, and the blade should be sharp and should keep sharpening for a long time.
Excellent steel for the manufacture of knives is steel grade K110. Such steel has 1.5% carbon in its composition, which makes it possible to harden the blade to high hardness. And also in steel there is up to 12% chromium, which prevents the oxidation and rusting of steel. Thanks to these and other additives, K110 steel also received the excellent qualities necessary for the manufacture of a high-quality kitchen knife. The knife itself is made quite simply, if you are interested in the project, I propose to study it in more detail!
Materials and tools used by the author:
Material List:
- a blank of steel K110;
- a tree for the handle;
- brass rod (for the pin);
- epoxy or other glue;
- not enough for wood impregnation.
Tool List:
- belt sander;
- grinder;
- drilling machine;
- sandpaper;
- files;
- oven and hardening oil;
- grinding stones;
- A device for etching the drawing (optional).
Manufacturing process homemade:
Step one. Main profile
First of all, we need to find a knife template, it is best to search the Internet for ready-made templates for kitchen knives. If you know exactly what a kitchen knife should be like to make it convenient to use, you can draw the design yourself. The template is cut out of paper or cardboard, and then the marker is drawn around the template on steel. After that, you can go to the cutting, for the author uses the grinder. We cut out only an approximate profile so far, we will finish it by grinding.
Step Two Grinding work
Next, we proceed to the grinding work, we need to process the blade along the contour, the author uses a home-made grinder to work. Also, rough grinding work can be carried out using a grinder and grinding disks, usually the final work is carried out manually, with files and sandpaper.
In addition, the author also decided to make descents on the knife, all this is done by eye. But sharpening the blade is not yet necessary, its minimum thickness should not be less than 2 mm. If the steel is thin, it will burn out during hardening and the blade will be damaged.
Step Three Heat treatment
As a heat treatment, the author hardened the knife, or rather, only its blades.To do this, the blade is heated to a red glow, and if the temperature can be controlled in the furnace, it should be in the range of 1030-150 ° C. With proper hardening and tempering, the hardness of steel is 63 HRC.
The author immerses a heated blade with a blade in oil, as a result, the blade turns out to be very solid, and the blade itself will be resistant to cracking. Of course, according to all the rules, it is customary to let go of tempered K110 steel, the tempering temperature is 300-400 ° C. We check with a file whether it turned out to harden the steel, the metal should not be scratched.
Step Four Fine grinding
After hardening, the steel will be in scale, we process the knife on a belt grinder, the author does not grind the metal to a shine, as planned, he is a bit dark with a touch. Finer processing is carried out manually with sandpaper. We need paper with fine grain, and to make it work well, use soapy water. Thanks to water, the abrasive is cleaned of dust and works great.
Step Five Handle
We proceed to the manufacture of the handle, and the handle will be solid. To begin with, we are looking for blocks of beautiful wood. In the workpiece, we need to cut a dull slot hole under the knife shank, here we need the help of a drill or a drilling machine. We drill a series of holes, and then bore the hole using a special small file. If desired, the slot hole can also be burned by heating the shank of the knife.
We set the handle blank on the blade, here we need good glue, it is best to use epoxy. And so as not to smear the blade with glue, wrap it with masking tape. We also drill a hole in the handle
When the glue dries, we arm ourselves with a woodcarving knife and cut off excess wood from the handle, setting the desired profile. Next, we grind the handle, here you can handle it manually using sandpaper, and rough processing can also be done on a belt grinder.
After fine processing with sandpaper, impregnate the handle with oil to protect it from water. Now the knife is almost ready.
Step Six Sharpening
Well-hardened steel can be sharpened well, for sharpening to a blade state we use grinding stones, they need to be moistened with water, so they are cleaned. You can also use a special manual grinding machine, such are sold in China. The author’s knife was very sharp, he easily and cleanly cuts paper, not to mention anything about the products.
Seventh step. Picture
If desired, a drawing, an inscription and so on can be applied to the blade. The author applies the drawing electrically. We paint over the metal section and cut out the drawing, and then salt solution and electricity come into play. The longer the reaction, the deeper the pattern will be.
That's all, now the knife is completely ready. It looks great and has excellent cutting characteristics. I hope you enjoyed the project and found useful thoughts for yourself. Good luck and creative inspiration, if you decide to repeat this. Do not forget to share your ideas and homemade things with us!
