local source for steel? Knife Making

[mfalkner]

Jim Tatum makes a fine blade.

+1 on this

[teul2]

Jim Tatum makes a fine blade.

Never heard of him, where is he located?

He's retired and in Brandon. I worked with him at Tower Loan back about 10 years ago. And in that time, that knife has cleaned many a deer and duck. Only have to sharpen it about every other deer if I do it right. It holds an amazing edge.

[SB]

I didn't find a web site for Jim Tatum. Does he have a website or is there a way to view his knives?

[teul2]

Scott, when I worked with him, he only made a few as time allowed. It wasn't something he made a great deal of or advertised very widely as I think he had all the demand he needed from word of mouth.

[dukhntn]

Terry Vandeventer is in the local area too. I've got a couple of hunters he made for me and they are first rate.
http://www.vandeventerknives.com

[edub20]

anyone know somewhere in the jackson area that sells soft(the white) firebrick? I need about 4 of them in order to build a small Mapp/propane fired forge.

[edub20]

So above is the pattern I decided on. For the first attempt. I sketched it out then cut off excess 01.

Here it is being ground down to profile it

and here is the profiled knife minus some file cleanup that I still need to finish.


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[mfalkner]

Looking real good so far. I used to use bench or belt grinder to get rough bevel on the blade, too, but I kept a can of water handy to keep temps down in the stock.

[Wildfowler]

Totally cool!!

Thanks.

[edub20]

I did some filing work on it last night to make it more uniform. I hope to get some time this weekend to start actually working on the bevel with my homemade jig. I'll post up some pics of that once I get started.

[edub20]

It's coming along now. Got some learning to do on the belt sander though. I nixed the file method as I was having trouble with evenly removing metal and getting my desired results. It's definitely looking like a knife now however.


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[edub20]

Since I'm waiting on my forge materials to arrive I went ahead and made a old timers style sharpfinger clone. I always wanted one of those old originals that I watched my grandfather use skinning deer and stuff...


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[edub20]

In case any one is interested above pictured is the knife scales I cut out from heart pine. I couldn't take any pics of me heat treating due to not wanting to burn my house doesn't but that process was fun.

Above is me finalizing sanding the scales down to profile.

Here is a pic of me forcing the patina on the blade using regular mustard for about 20 min ties dabbed on with finger to achieve the pattern.
here is the finished knife shaving hair sharp and ready to do work.


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[hdforester]

Very nice. Looks like fun. But "will it keeel?" Some will get that.

[edub20]

Very nice. Looks like fun. But "will it keeel?" Some will get that.

I had never watched forged in iron until about a week ago. pretty neat show.