Knifemaking Hack : Drilling Hardened Steel Tang
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- Опубликовано: 25 фев 2020
- Sometimes you need to drill a hole in a knife tang that's already been hardened, or it's squealing your drill bit after forging. Here's how to deal with it.
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Развлечения
I free hand sharpen my drill bits, I got a cold steel drop forged bowie and thinned the handle and drilled more holes and made all holes much larger & put a real good plastic rubber grip from Pittsburgh forge 12 in. Crescent wrench.
Try Carbide masonry bits. I always use a good masonry bit to drill out taps and other glass hard steel. I stay away from solid carbide drills since they are really hard and brittle and a bear to remove if you beak one. Get a quality bit that has the tip ground sharp. Use a drill press and go slowly. Learned this when I broke off a tap in a friend's Honda motorcycle part. Drilled center out of tap and picked out the pieces. Try it on a worn out file before you attempt it on something you want to save. The trick is to use a decent masonry bit that is sharp. Masonry bits have a mild steel body with a small carbide tip brazed into it. They handle a fair amount of shock and flexing. Milwaukee, Bosch, or Dewalt bits in the sizes you need for knife handles can be had for around $5. Stay away from the no-name imports that aren't sharp and use inferior carbide.
Just had this problem with a full-tang hunter I'm working on (complete newbie, blade fresh from the forge - drilled four holes for the bolster with no problem, but then burned out two bits further down the tang). Thanks for the advice!
Thank you! I'm an artist not a bladesmith, but last night I decided to do a quick little project because I wanted a new kitchen knife and ran into the impossible task of drilling holes in the tang. I thought after all the forging and whatnot the steel would have been soft enough. I was mistaken. Armed with this knowledge, I will sally out to my workshop and see if I can replicate your results. Thanks again!
I work in captured machine shop and occasionally i need to work with hardened steel cutting plates. I always dreaded needing to drill and counter sink the corners of these plates to be able to mount them to their bolster plates. NOW, with this knowledge I was able to easily drill the holes I need by annealing only the corners. Thank you so much.
Wow. I wish I had checked with you early this morning.
Awesome, very helpful and well done. I'd like to drill mounting holes in a hardened steel sprocket, but wasn't sure how to do that. Thanks to you, now I know!
Wasn't thinking and cooked my cobalt bit.
Really helpful tip. Thanks!
Just re-watched this. This is probably the single most useful video (for me, at least) that you’ve ever made. Just went out and spheroidized an 8670 knife that was annealed but 1/4” cobalt bits just couldn’t get through it. I was filing some tight corners in the profile just fine but drilling wasn’t working. 2 heats to dull red, air cooling in between, and it was soft. So helpful
I drilled through a forged scythe handle today using a Milwaukee Tin drill bit and a Bosch Cyl9 ......using low rpm works well, cant heat the scythe
Thanks for your help, keep the good work.
You bet, thanks for watching!
Thanks for a GREAT tip!
Thanks. This helps ma alot. Ruind a few drill bits trying to drill holes.
This just helped me get a part drilled on a piece of John deer equipment. Thank you.
Awesome! Thanks for watching
Clamp two pieces of steel/iron to the blade to draw heat from the blade while heating the tang.
This has been such a problem for me! I normalize and normalize, and sometimes I still can't drill through the tang. I just broke three drill bits about 5 mins ago, which led me to your video. I can't wait to try it. Now I have hope! Thanks!
Awesome! Let me know how it goes!
Great tip, love the video great job!
Thanks man, thanks for watching!
@@FireCreekForge no problem, always gotta support fellow blacksmiths
Excellent thanks
Helpfull for me. Thank u
Thank you you r the only one who showed me with out the bullshit slow drilling farce.
Thank you!
Great idea
Thanks man
Kool idea
Great video. I think when I have tried this, I heated it too much.
Hi. Great channel. I’m a beginner knife maker, made a few, just stock removal at this point. Haven’t forged anything yet, but getting closer to that goal. I am making a knife from a file. Took a bit of doing because I didn’t want to mess with the heat treat but I do have a profile for now. I would love to pin the scales on it, but it’s obviously way too hard to drill. My question is, can I soften the steel by either a couple of cycles in the oven and annealing the whole thing? I know I would have to do that eventually to soften the steel a bit to make it a useable knife. Or would you suggest blow torching the handle directly to soften it while the blade is in water. Probably an easy question for you to answer but I don’t want to just jump in. Thank you. Also should I wait until it is fully annealed before I try and grind in the bevels? Again thank you.
I would temper it in an oven for two hours first. Probably 400F. After that you can heat the tang to a dull red where you want to drill, keeping the blade cool.
@@FireCreekForge Wow, thank you for the super fast reply. Great advice and thank you so much again. After the oven cycles, I can drill the tang, grind in the bevels and no need to re-heat treat, correct? Just want to make sure.
I don’t know much but if I had to guess if that drill bit locked up in that blade and made that blade spin it could have turned out very bad. Just food for though for the future
What if you heated only where you are drilling by chucking a piece of hardened rod (the diameter the hole will be) then pressing it down hard, with no lube, at the presses highest speed, exactly where you will drill a hole?
After heating it back up and the drill bit won’t work,,,,try a masonry bit. Works for me.
Dang!
Does that work with HSS steel?
I need to drill D2 steel for a thumb stud, so I think this would ruin my blade.
I need to find something that will cut without changing the steel. It is only one small hole so I'm okay with ruining my bit if I can just get through it with a small bit.
Maybe a pencil torch without quite going red hot, with a carbide or diamond dust coated thing?
I love this knife but I want a thumb stud for easy opening.
A carbide bit may be the best option in this case, but I haven't tried it
@@FireCreekForge I'll let you know how it goes
Stellite. High speed/feed. Burn through.
When it cools back down though, won’t it deform the piece, or even offset the hole at all?
no, the hole is drilled after the steel is cooled back down
Very hard to judge if its above austenising temp by looking at the color of the hot metal. You are at least very close I would guess?! Gunsmiths do this often to get through case hardening when putting scope bases on old rifles.
It is below austenitizing; if you get up to austenitizing temp you the create pearlite, which you don't want in this case..
Would a propane or map gas torch be hot enuogh to do this?
Yes on the MAP gas torch
and I'm thinking of buying an EDM machine for that😕