Project Information
For the Lumberjocks 2017 Knife Swap I forged this pair of kitchen knives and sent them to my buddy ToddJB. In a funny twist of events, he gave me the bicycle chain originally… well before I knew my swap recipient. And now the chains are returned back to him in a slightly altered form.
I started by heating bicycle chain layered on top of a 1080 steel backer to nearly 2400 deg F then hammering them together to forge weld into a single solid billet of steel. I then forged out the tang, the knife profile, and a bit of the bevels before going to the grinder. After rough grinding, I heat treated these in the forge and kitchen oven, corrected a major bend in the bigger blade, and then did the finish grinding. After the knives were shiny, I acid etched them to bring out the pattern.
The bigger knife has a 5" diameter hollow grind on the chain side approaching the cutting edge. The edge is single bevel (made for lefties like Todd), with the cutting edge entirely made up of 1080 steel since the bike chain steel is unknown. The back is solid 1080 steel with my logo etched on.
The smaller knife has chain on both sides with a 1080 core, which didn't work out as well as I had planned. There ended up being a bit of chain on the cutting edge, so I did an interrupted water quench briefly on the edge only then proceeded with the usual oil quench. This hardened everything, including the chain bits.
The handles are redheart finished with arm-r-seal, then buffed and waxed. The bigger knife handle is a solid piece of wood using hidden tang construction with just epoxy to hold it in (should be fine for kitchen use). The smaller knife is also hidden tang, but is made with a sandwich of two pieces each hollowed out halfway with a router plane. It is pinned with brass. I used a high-strength flexible epoxy mixed on a lab scale for accuracy (west system g/flex).
Laying out the chain:
![]()
Forge welding:
![]()
Rough-forged knives (bananas from hell):
![]()
After rough grinding:
![]()
Warp after heat treatment:
![]()
After correction:
![]()
Etching my logo:
![]()
The result of logo etch:
![]()
The final pattern:
![]()
Planing some redheart for the handles, looks like bacon shavings:
![]()
I started by heating bicycle chain layered on top of a 1080 steel backer to nearly 2400 deg F then hammering them together to forge weld into a single solid billet of steel. I then forged out the tang, the knife profile, and a bit of the bevels before going to the grinder. After rough grinding, I heat treated these in the forge and kitchen oven, corrected a major bend in the bigger blade, and then did the finish grinding. After the knives were shiny, I acid etched them to bring out the pattern.
The bigger knife has a 5" diameter hollow grind on the chain side approaching the cutting edge. The edge is single bevel (made for lefties like Todd), with the cutting edge entirely made up of 1080 steel since the bike chain steel is unknown. The back is solid 1080 steel with my logo etched on.
The smaller knife has chain on both sides with a 1080 core, which didn't work out as well as I had planned. There ended up being a bit of chain on the cutting edge, so I did an interrupted water quench briefly on the edge only then proceeded with the usual oil quench. This hardened everything, including the chain bits.
The handles are redheart finished with arm-r-seal, then buffed and waxed. The bigger knife handle is a solid piece of wood using hidden tang construction with just epoxy to hold it in (should be fine for kitchen use). The smaller knife is also hidden tang, but is made with a sandwich of two pieces each hollowed out halfway with a router plane. It is pinned with brass. I used a high-strength flexible epoxy mixed on a lab scale for accuracy (west system g/flex).
Laying out the chain:
Forge welding:
Rough-forged knives (bananas from hell):
After rough grinding:
Warp after heat treatment:
After correction:
Etching my logo:
The result of logo etch:
The final pattern:
Planing some redheart for the handles, looks like bacon shavings:
Continue with Google
