I was going to start this video with that joke from Crocodile Dundee
"that's not a knife..."
"that's a knife" but then I looked at the knife I had made and went 'did I just make
a Crocodile Dundee knife by accident' on closer inspection there are numerous differences
and I did not just do that thing. So I have a better descriptor for the knife I made which
I will be sharing later on in the video. anyway here's blacksmithing this is Spike Martin
of Bearded Pig Forge in Kent he's been a blacksmith for seven years and we made him turn off the
lights to get this really cool shot with the grinder. And I contacted him like hey I'd
like to come and spend two days making a knife and also bring a cameraman and he was like
sure! so having eventually successfully navigated my way through 76 acres of Quex Park we got
to work this is the sort of shape that I... I saw and I went yes I want to make one that
looks like that. you'll see how it turns out! Day one was making the knife blank which is
what the metal knife shaped part is called so you will note as we go through that while
I concentrated fairly hard on getting the shape of the knife blade roughly correct I
did not really focus on the handle at all which is why it just looks bit strange? but
here we are first order of business after choosing the shape heat up the gas forge which
normally has bricks on the back but look at this awesome shot yes this was also purely
for the aesthetic but really can you blame me? Anyway you take your rectangle of steel
a reasonably large rectangle of steel in my case you heat it up in the forge until it
glows and then you start by shaping the point of the knife by hammering in on the end of
it at 45 degrees until it starts to go pointy. 'You want it level on the end...that's perfect.
And hammer in at 45 on that corner. Dull red to grey, back in the heat.
OK
It's a start! It's a start.
the most important thing for safety in a forge and this is basically what Spike told me in
the safety briefing is that you have to remember that fire is hot anything you put near the
fire will get hot anything you put in the fire will be hot and it will remain hot for
quite a long time
I mean, you're doing great, so... Thank you
OH! Oh, I said it.
There we go!
so he specifically told me if you drop your work don't panic don't try and catch it just
step back from it let it fall and then pick it up with the tongs it will be fine and as
you can see i did that so good listening past Jill so when it looks slightly pointy to shape
the curves you need to hammer down one side of it until it reaches approximately the right
shape as you can see being demonstrated by Spike and slightly less efficiently by me
after you've shaped the blade to your liking in this fashion you start work on the handle
which is the point where i started to flag like mentally and physically a little bit
and also the point where i stopped paying attention to what shape I had originally intended
to make the thing to make the handle you have to start by hammering an indent at the bottom
here and that took quite a long time and so when spike said would you like me to do a
little bit I said yes please so in 10 minutes he did what would have taken me about half
an hour "I am just literally doing the same thing that you were doing there's no trick"
workshops are no place for being too proud to ask for help that is just unsafe the next
step after you've shaped the handle and please do remember to think about what handles look
like and don't be me is to put in the guide marks for the pins that will go in and then
actually hammer the holes for the pins which is a two-person job unless you want to hold
the tongs with your legs which I don't recommend there followed some correction of the knife
blade which was slightly askew and there we are
"Now it looks like a thing! "now it looks like a knife! A thing! a thing-knife"
and that took a whole day that was pretty much day one although there was also one minor
incident which I haven't mentioned hmm
You see this really nice light grey thing? Yeah?
That's the bit of the hammer you removed when you hit there
Oh I'm sorry!
oops thoughts on the day?
I'm really excited that it started off as a rectangle and now it's it sort of looks
like a knife It does look like a knife
I mean it looks like a knife that you pulled out of a 3000 year old bog but you know still
recognizable as a knife yeah okay
and can you give us your uh on her performance today, as a smith?
um nine out of ten? worked really well happy with that?
I'll take that
You can't get perfection, there's no way Also I did break his hammer You just break
my hammer a little bit
A little bit is okay it's okay you're a student you're allowed yeah so tomorrow just like
do a little bit of clean up grinding obviously i'm not going to touch this it's still incredibly
hot maybe bring this curve in a little bit more same with this one just to give yourself
a bit more neatness anything in here same thing a little bit on the handle probably
take that corner off and then along the flat side if you want to be shiny put a bevel on
it heat treat it get it hot burst into flames very good fun. Quick safety briefing just
before we do that okay and then uh we can put your handle on
on to day 2 well it's reasonably early in the morning and we're about to start the
second day yesterday I did a lot of heating and hammering and heating and hammering and
heating and hammering and today we're going to be using the grinder so lots and lots of
that and then by the end of the day I'm hoping that i'm going to have a real knife and I'm
really excited about it I have to say most use of the grinders looks pretty much the
same you gently press the bit you want to make smooth and shiny against the rapidly
rotating belt and if it's metal you get dramatic sparks and those sparks look extra swish if
you turn off the lights as demonstrated earlier "so all of these crescents they're hammer
marks they're the edge of your hammer where you've not come in flat"
and so you try and make the surface smooth and shiny and get rid of things like hammer
marks, say The grinding process unsurprisingly makes your knife blank very hot so you have
a bucket of water next to it so you can cool it down when you need to otherwise it would
start burning your hands I burned my hands twice also the sparks were a bit owch so I
got some latex gloves on which helped so after some time grinding when the knife blank is
looking how you want it you can put it back in the forge and possibly straighten it out
a little bit and then you put it back in the forge and then you take it out and you just
hold it "so what's this doing is this is reducing the grain structure like the internal molecular
bonds of the steel" normalizing when you heat it up and then just let it cool down again
makes it more ductile and then you heat it up again and then you plunge it dramatically
into a bucket of oil to quench it there are flames it's neat this makes it less ductile
it smells like food
yeah so I used to do it in vegetable oil a mix of vegetable and rapeseed oil um it
made my workshop smell like a chip shop which was quite nice actually. So what that's hard-
what that's doing that's rearranging the chemical bonds um and it brings everything closer together
it gives what we look like we look for a fine grain structure all those things are pulled
very very tight that makes it tougher and stronger it also makes it incredibly brittle
so what we're gonna do in a bit is a process called tempering where we make it a little
bit softer just so it's less likely to chip
this would be a bad time to drop it that's what you're saying probably would survive
i could probably be right
give it a shot no
it was so shiny it was so shiny that light gray you can kind of see underneath it that's
an indicator of martensite a hardened state of steel
so then you grind it again to make it all shiny which takes considerably less time
than previously just to point that out followed by more heat treatment
so what i'm still doing is heating up the spine
the idea is to oxidize the steel until it turns this sort of straw yellow bronze-ish
color possibly with some blue along the spine apparently the other way to get that oxidation
is to put it in an oven but blowtorches are quicker and also more fun and then you dunk
it in the oil again anyway thereafter once it's cool enough to handle again the fiddliest
possible part of the process starts which is putting on the bevel i.e. making it have
an edge you have to get the knife and then put it very close to the belt and then tip
it ever so slightly and then move it along at exactly the same angle it's not the easiest
thing I've ever done I'm going to be honest with you but I did it yeah it's looking really
good we just need to get a nice handle set up
not bad for a first knife no really not no smooth clean normally people end up with
loads of hammer marks all the way along here
I taped it up to protect myself from the edge and now we're on the home straight making
the handle you get two bits of wood marker pen you draw you sand you put some holes in,
Spike also thoughtfully included a hand guard and you can see the little spacer that he
has added for me because we were talking about my youtube channel and I explained about the
whole murder dress and stabbing experiments thing and he was like well you need a hand guard then!
isn't it pretty though? I think most of what contributes to the Crocodile Dundee impression is the
underside brass handguard and just the sheer size of the thing
yeah bit chunky yep so you probably want to start taking some off the outside edges and
then it was time for my old friend epoxy five-minute epoxy this did not quite go perfectly as planned
what you do is mix up the five-minute epoxy and then you have well five minutes to get
everything on and lined up nicely
so this is where they might need a little bit of a wiggle
mm-hmm
to help things align because they are quite long
I can't see what I'm doing
Yeah, so just turn it, make it...where you need it to go
Oh! Ooh.
Okay.
It's all right
How out does it look? I can't tell
Don't squeeze it if your thumb's under it suddenly shuts you have a sore thumb
the second one is a little bit off like the middle one and I can't..
just need to poke in the right direction? help?
this is one of those things you go that's not gonna work and then it does
score one for the blacksmith and the five minute epoxy nobody panic then you clamp it
and you wait and then you can finish it off. That finishing
off thing took another couple of hours
and in the middle of that the cameraman had to leave because you know there were other
places that he had to be
are you proud of it I am I 'm so proud of it like look I made this thing it took
a large amount of hours it did look rather rough at that point because I hadn't done
very much work at all in smoothing the handle but after probably another hour of sanding
and finishing and holding it in my hand to see if it was comfortable or not here we are
I've got to tell you I really love this thing and then i showed it to my friend and he was
like it looks like an ORC KNIFE JILL and I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or perturbed
that I had tried for a sort of elegant Persian inspired thing and instead got something that
looks like it was made by a dude with bat wings coming out of his head oh well next
time I will pay closer attention to my chosen design and maybe I'll start with a smaller
piece of steel who knows the nice thing of course is that because I made it I spent a
lot of time holding it in my hand to see whether or not it felt comfortable it's it's really
really comfy. Spike usually does a knife making workshop but I wonder if we could persuade
him to make a dagger next time if you like that idea please do leave a comment because
sometimes I have grand ideas for projects and nobody else is really into them so let
me know either way and if having seen this one you want the somewhat
extended version of this video you can use the blue join button underneath the video
on youtube or you can go to patreon.com/jillbearup both of these have basically the same things
youtube gives you a little badge patreon takes less of a cut so it's cheaper your call the
extended version does have a fair amount more talking I was you know enthused if that's
not your thing then you may enjoy some of my previous creation projects like that time
i turned myself into warrior princess barbie yes it's a little strange but yes that's okay
if you've made it this far in the video probably so are you so take care and I'll see you next
time