FYI: 2 day Hammer-in in Tuscola, TX
June 24-25, 2022
Tuscola, TX
$40 to attend (free for TX Knifemakers Guild members. Coincidentally, dues to the TKG are also $40 
)
https://www.texasknifemakersguild.com/tkg-annual-meeting-and-poor-old-borton-hammer-in/
Unfortunately we are having an open forge on the 24th at 7PM. I am also engaged in another event on the 25th, but I appreciate you putting this up. I would love to go to a Texas Knifemakers Guild event sometime. If you’re going take some pictures and post them please.
Last night Joe mentioned to me that you might have some plasma cutter knife pattern files. If this is true would you be willing to share them?
I believe my patterns are already up on the Blacksmith Committee drive.
Note that if you cut these from circular saw blades, carbide and diamond saw blades are likely mostly mild to medium carbon steel - not high carbon.
Also, plasma cutting can strip carbon from the Heat Affected Zone (HAZ). You should plan to grind back from the cut line to remove the bulk of the HAZ to have a maintainable edge. Waterjet cutting is a superior method for cutting out knife blanks.
A good manual option is to print the patterns, cut them out, glue/tape them to the blank, spraypaint to transfer the pattern, cut out with angle grinder, and refine the shape on the KMG.
Yep, I’m fully aware of all of this. Still very good advice. Cutting them with the angle grinder wastes a lot of material usually. I cut several on the bandsaw in the machine show though and that worked pretty well. I don’t have access to a water jet do you?
The circular saw blades I have are not the ones with carbide tips, but regular high carbon steel blades. (Several of them are actually pretty old saw blades.)
As far as the patterns on the blacksmithing committee drive, I too downloaded Dan’s open source patterns. In fact they are the ones I used to cut the blanks on the bandsaw. I was thinking maybe you had already converted some of them to DXF format or SVG.
Lastly, I have a 3/16 x 10 x 48 piece of 1095 I bought at the Crossroads even I’d like to cut on the plasma cutter.
One way or the other I want to experiment with the circular saw blades before cutting the 1095.
Thanks for you feedback and quick reply. I always respect your advice.
