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Would like to be able to reprofile grinds, polish blades, and potentially even make some knives from scrap steel. What would be the best bench grinder set up for someone who intends to use it once in a blue moon for projects?

Is knife making an expensive hobby? On average how much did you spend on machines/materials?

How's my grain look? This is cut then broken off from the handle and it looks SUPER fine to me. I still have final heat treat to do yet, I only normalized the steel so I could cut and grind easier. I think this is steel is 5160? Not 100% sure I just know it came off a truck suspension.

Is this a bad thing? I noticed this problem with 440c and aebl, the metal is magnetic before heat treat but afterwards they are not. I follow the directions for the ht from alpha knife supply (where the steel was purchased) although I’m using parks 50 to quench and 450 degrees for one hour to temper. They have very little magnetism afterwards (won’t stick to a strong magnet).

I’m guessing one or both of those things may be the issue? I recently got some 1 inch thick aluminum billets to use for a plate quench which I believe is the correct way for most stainless steels. Sorry if this is obvious I’m still learning.

Just a little one I decided to make. 1095 and black walnut. Still needs a lot of work but it's looking pretty good so far.

A friend of mine asked recently if I would help him. His grandfather fought in WWII and came home with these as trophies from dead Nazis. My friend got these after his grandfather passed and has had them for several years. He is Jewish and no longer wants these, but did not want to sell them because of who would probably be interested in buying these things.

They aren’t historically significant or rare enough for a museum to want them donated, so he asked me if I’d want to turn them into something different.

So what I plan on doing is:

• grinding off the Nazi symbols and slogans on them
• probably spitting on them
• cutting them into pieces
• throwing it into some acetone
• putting them into a canister with 1084 powder and other steel bits and making a billet out of it
• then probably cutting that billet in half and putting some 5160 I have as the core to make a knife of some kind

The only thing I don’t know is: what to turn it into. My first thought is a Ka-Bar, or a few, since I like the idea of turning a Nazi knife into a thing that killed Nazis. Are there any other ideas in that similar vein?

The friend is ok if I destroy them or if I turn them into something else so that’s why I’m ok doing a canister Damascus out of it. I’ve only done a few so I either destroy the knives and get usable steel out of it or I just destroy them.

Also: I did not realize Wüsthof was one of the companies still around that made stuff for the Nazis in WWII. Should have figured but was surprised.

Also also: do not ask to buy them.

Fourth try. San Mai billet.

I’m planning on making a nice little knife out of an old file. Do you guys think I should anneal it first?

Any tips?

It’s my fourth ever knife, but the first one I’m making all on my own.