Andre, I take the blades to a shop about an hour away. I draw the blades I want on paper and then the waterjet programmer inputs all the measurements into the computer. He also inputs all the measurements of the handsaw or circular sawblade. Then the blade is placed on the waterbed and secured in place. He directs the jet nozzle to a starting point on the sawblade and then the computer starts the cutting.
Prior to all this I test the hardness of all the old sawblades by laying them on my concrete garage floor. I use a tungsten steel punch with a fine point and I whack them with a 3 pound sledge. If it makes a dimple easily I then sell the blades to an artist. If the steel is good and hard and the punch cannot make much of a depression in it then I know I'll be satisfied with the knife blades it will produce.
The reason I decided to go the waterjet route is because cutting with the water and ground garnets mixture at 900 miles per hour at the nozzle does not affect the heat treatment of the steel. I can then grind my edges on the belt sander making sure the steel never gets hot. In the beginning I did get a few blade tips too hot and took away their temper on the very thin kitchen knife blades, so those knives have a somewhat rounded tip. They still work fine because I sharpened the rounded tip. The thicker circular sawblades for hunting blades are a bit easier to keep a point on. I have found that many of the circular sawblades that have carbide tips are not good for my intended use because some of the companies have used a softer steel. They can do this because the carbides tips provide the hardness necessary for cutting.
The average 3-4" hunting blade blank or dagger costs me roughly $8 each. The kitchen blades are about $10. I could buy already made blades for a bit more than this but for some reason my knives sell better since I started going this route. I think when a customer knows the complete history of the materials you use and a factory is not involved it creates a bond with the knife, although the sawblades were certainly made in a factory. Several customers have said the re-purposing of the steel and the good edge holding is what they like about their knives and knowing it will last them a lifetime. Is this steel the best available for knifeblades? Are my handles the best? Hell no, so I guess it's the story that sells them.
Tom, whenever I have a good supply of blade blanks I do sell them.
Barry, the cutout sawblades do become artwork after I spray paint them flat black.
Here's a kitchen blade set in blackened antler. The hole in the blade is one that was used for a screw to hold the handle on when it was a handsaw.
Two crosscut red oak/crotch walnut handles over a sweetgum handle. The old block of wood they are sitting on is red oak from a barn teardown in Georgia. The oak in the handles came from this block. It was from a very tight grained tree, check out how close the annual rings are.
I used the oak/walnut handles for hunting knives that I will be selling at an upcoming show. The small blades are woodcarving blades that I made from the excess tangs. These blades were made in Finland, I did not make them from old sawblades.
