turning a rail spike into a knife
 

How to turn a rail Spike into a knife, I gotta say, this is insanely cool and I want one to give to a friend.... I might try and make one. I got about 150 rail spikes lol

Making a railroad spike into a precision cutting instrument using just a few tools. [VIDEO]

Wonder what kind of coals he is using.

Looks like regular bagged stuff

It looks like the regular stuff, but I also have access to Regular Coal (Joys of working around steam engines) I dont know if the regular stuff gets hot enough, but it looks like he was running air through the system too as a makeshift bellows so, that'd make it hotter

Wow! I would have thought that a railroad spike was way too soft to make much of a knife.

In my younger years I made a couple out of old leaf springs. I know that old files also made good knives.

I assumed that railroad spikes were cast, but maybe they are forged. Does anyone know?

Isn't that piece of steel heat treated?

I would think that the impurities in that steel would make it quite useless as a knife.

I've always had a yearning to start with ores and make a tool out of bronze in the backyard, imitating early human techniques.

Sounds doable as long as you have a way to heat it. I like taking on things like that. Sounds like fun and educatonal.

Depends on the age. the old old ones, most of them were hand made, after machines, some of them were still hand made, others were cast and final shaped by hand. now they might be stamped out. not sure

That kid is a decent smithy!

Railroad spikes are a damn fine pieces of carbon steel and make great knives. You can easily put a shaving edge on a well made one...thing is, they're relatively soft and that edge goes away pretty quickly so, you need to keep a steel or stone close by for big cutting jobs.

It looks like he's using a vacuum on blow for air to his forge and the fuel is regular charcoal briquettes. That BBQ pit won't stand up to much of that use but what the he11, you're making a knife.

A year or two ago, Thing One cranked out a few custom knives for X-mas gifts...the grips were funky but those blades are awesome. He used old files and, IIRC, some spring steel. He built a small forge out of bricks and used a hair dryer for the blower. I think he used charcoal briquettes for fuel.

Now, I save all the discarded mower blades and springs just for him if he ever gets the time to do some more blades.

Yes, you need bellows/fan/blower to heat the coal/fire up hot enough to soften it.


www.folkschool.org - take a class on it :)

-John

Do you remember Dr. Bellows on the I dream of jeanie tv series? :D

He never tempered it. That thing will be as brittle as glass. Maybe he doesn't want to give away all his secrets. Also he should have done the final sharpening on a stone and checked the edge with paper.

Kid's doomed to a life of capitalism. Figured out how to make money on his own. Where did our government go wrong with this kid?

Old spikes make great knives. Most of my knives are carbon steel. I'd like to get one of that kid's pieces but can't find much info on him. If anyone does, please post it here.