Original subtitles

--captions by vitac-- Www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by Discovery communications

♪♪

Hey, my name is steve.

Some people call me Green beetle.

I like to forge knives, and I make cool stuff in my garage.

So, take a break, Let's go on a road trip

And make a high speed Concept knife

Out of these car parts together.

I'll try to incorporate This steering wheel

And leather wheel cover.

We'll use a car axle For the main blade,

And I think I can put This chain drive to use.

Here's the plan -- The first part of our project

Will be forging a blade And a tang for our knife,

And step two, We'll fashion a guard,

And step three, We'll work on the handle.

To get more carbon Into the blade steel,

We'll case-hard it using Our steering wheel bits,

For the guard, I'd like to forge

Weld the chain into A solid piece of steel,

And for the handle, we're going To sew up some leather

To look like a steering wheel.

This is our axle. It's 1 3/8-inch-thick,

Which is going to represent Quite a chore

To forge down Into a knife by hand.

I'm told it's something Like 4140 or 1040 steel.

That's roughly 0.4% carbon.

Most knife steels contain A scosche more carbon than that,

So we'll spark test it And see what we're working with.

It's only putting off a small Amount of short-bursting sparks

Indicating a moderate Amount of carbon.

I'd rather see sort of A copious spark.

This test, I think, reinforces The idea that we're better off

If we can get some extra Carbon into this steel.

Here, I've cleaned it up and I'm etching in ferric chloride

To look at the steel itself

And check for things Like stress fractures,

Since this axle has been used.

♪♪

What's crazy is I found These dark lines

That are going all the way Around in a spiral.

I don't know if that's A different metal

With more carbon In it or less alloy

Or it's just been Differentially hardened or what.

I don't -- not sure why it would Do that, but it's pretty cool.

At any rate, we did not find Any stress fractures,

So let's start banging.

♪♪

♪♪

Say, steve, that looks like a Tremendous amount of hard work.

Well, steve, for most people, Hammering this much steel

Is a monumental achievement, To say the least.

But I have really huge arms.

I mean, my biceps Are freakishly big.

They have their own names,

And they get Their own pillows at night.

One's called ricky-bobby, I call the other one v-8,

After the tomato-flavored Beverage,

Not the -- Not the car engine.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

All right, all right. Now that it's shaped up,

We can start hammering in The tip of our knife.

You'll notice that the steel Is still fairly thick here.

I want some extra material For widening the blade

And when you're working With an unknown steel,

More tends to be better.

Mistakes and problems Can be more easily tackled

If there's extra Material available.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Curves are being hammered Into the knife

To approximate Its final shape,

But as the bevels are forged,

The profile's going To change a bit,

And we'll have to come back And do more of this later,

But this is a good start.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Time to forge in some bevels And widen the blade a bit.

♪♪

♪♪

This is a cool, Little fullering tool

I'm going to use to demarcate Our tang, or handle area.

The steel there on the end is Going to be drawn out,

And then we'll move on To grinding our knife.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Well, that was a lot of work,

But what you guys didn't see Is that, luckily,

I have some extra Help around the shop,

My little pit Crew of steves.

You know, they aren't The brightest bunch of bananas,

But I can get them to take out The trash from time to time,

So I keep 'em around.

♪♪

[ indistinct talking ]

♪♪

Now we're going to grind The profile of the knife

On this 2x72-inch belt sander.

♪♪

♪♪

We'll be able to Refine the shape

And correct some of the issues We had with forging.

♪♪

♪♪

Now, this is important.

The knife has been ground down To about 1.8 millimeters thick.

When we case-harden our steel, We'll be able to infuse carbon

About 1.5-millimeters-deep From all sides,

Meaning we should get A significant increase in carbon

All the way through and Through the blade at the edge,

Maybe even up to a 1/4-inch Back from the edge.

On to the guard.

We'll reorganize our chain, As it were,

Get it all stacked up, Tack weld it together,

And put it into the forge

To see if we can get it welded Into a solid piece.

♪♪

♪♪

Green beetle: Forge welding takes place

At about 2,200° fahrenheit,

While regular forging can Be accomplished

Around 1,600°, 1,800° Or thereabouts.

♪♪

The white powder we put On there is called "Flux,"

And it will help carry off Some of the iron oxides

That accumulate under high heat

And otherwise prevent forge Welding from taking place.

My hope is that between The flux and the high heat

That we've burned off Or carried away,

Grease, rust, all the impurities In this used chain

That would keep it From forge welding.

As you can see, we haven't Really been successful in that.

This thing did not Come together.

That is a bummer.

I think it's weldable, but maybe It just wasn't clean enough

Or I just didn't have What it takes in this case.

So, let's soak another piece In this degreaser

For about eight hours.

We'll fill the gaps with steel,

Which should make it Stick together easier

And help it retain heat While we're trying to forge

Weld.

Maybe that'll do the trick.

We had a little more luck here,

But there's still Plenty of gaps.

This is just not going To be suitable for a guard.

So, next, I'm going to sandblast My remaining chain with garnet

And then seal it in a canister With 1095 powdered steel.

Just as a proof of concept,

This should settle the question Of whether or not this steel

Is really fully forge-weldable In the first place.

Maybe I'll get a good billet Out of it for the guard.

We'll get this cannister Ground off

To expose The steel underneath,

Etch it up, And see what we got.

Well, it's a solid piece Of steel, so that's good.

And it's a cool pattern, But it's just too big.

I don't think it's tight enough

To demonstrate itself well On a guard.

So, time to change gears, Pun intended,

And use this new timing chain

That has smaller links, It's clean, it's new.

We'll still soak it in acetone,

And we'll still close up the Gaps with some mild steel rod,

But I think we're going To have some success here.

♪♪

Green beetle: That worked pretty well.

We're going to mark this up, Drill it,

And start filing Our tang hole.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

It's a nice, tight fit, so we'll Get it ground into a shape,

Heat treat it To accentuate the pattern,

Etch it in our ferric chloride,

And we'll have Our guard all set.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

We're going to make a spacer Out of mild steel

To go in between The guard and the handle.

Nothing too fancy here,

But we'll give it some color At the end of the process,

And I think it'll really Sort of stand out.

♪♪

Carburization is basically Adding carbon to iron or steel.

An age-old method for Accomplishing that is called

"Case-hardening," Where carbon-rich materials

Like bone or leather Or charcoal

Are heated up To over 1,800 degrees

In a container that contains The steel or iron

You're going to carburize.

It's kept that way for Several hours to several days.

The carbon turns Into carbon monoxide

And travels into the steel, Where the carbon is deposited.

A method like this Can usually increase

The amount of carbon In the steel

To a depth of About 1 to 2 millimeters

Depending on different factors.

♪♪

So, we've cut up Our wooden steering wheel

And leather cover.

We're going to make Charcoal out of them

By putting them in this paint Can and throwing them on a fire.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Here's our carbon-rich charcoal.

We're going to take it, Crush it up, boil it up,

Make it a fine powder out of it,

Then combine it With calcium carbonate,

Which sort of speeds The process along.

We'll put it in a sealed Steel-foil pouch with our knife

And bake it in the oven At 1,800° for about 4 1/2 hours.

All right, so, I included A test chip from our axle

And the steel foil With our knife.

We've ground down the sides here And then we're going to etch it

And you can see that there is A ring of some carbon there,

That extra-dark ring

That went about 1 1/2 Millimeters into the steel,

So I think we got some good Carburization for the knife.

After filing in the shoulders, It's off to the heat-treat oven

For some Normalization cycles,

And then we'll quench From the forge here.

Our quenchant is parks 50 oil.

♪♪

So, we've tempered it at 400° For 2 hours twice,

And now we're going to do Some finish grinding.

We've got a little more Shaping to do.

There's still some oxides To get off there

After all the heat treatment,

And I've got to really Finalize these bevels

And get everything ground

To a more reasonable shape For the final knife.

♪♪

♪♪

This is my least favorite part Of making a knife,

Is doing some hand Sanding for finishing.

Here, we're going to go To about 400 grit

And then take on the swedge.

♪♪

I don't do a lot of these, So I'm a little nervous.

♪♪

But I think it turns Out all right.

♪♪

Green beetle: all right, Time to do some sandblasting.

I've got the garnet again. We're going to blast at 40 psi

In my little rinky-dink Blasting cabinet.

All right, break out The cerakote.

Let's see if we can get A cool racing-car pattern

Sprayed on here.

I'm pretty awful At spraying cerakote.

I've only done it twice.

Last time I did it was A couple years ago.

We'll see where We get with this.

♪♪

♪♪

I don't have any Professional stencils,

Which would've made This a lot easier,

So we're just using, like, Painter's tape and some decals

I bought at the hobby store.

♪♪

Awesome. Time to move on to the handle.

We're going to Cut up this oak

And chisel out a cavity For the tang here,

Which will be offset Or located mostly

In one half of our block For strength purposes.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Now it's glued up.

We'll just punch the sides down A little bit with my bare hands.

Next, we're going to drill out A hole for our m14,

1.5 wheel stud or lug stud.

It's going to connect our tang To our butt plate eventually.

♪♪

♪♪

We are cutting slots In the wheel studs

So that it'll fit over The end of the tang.

We'll drill holes In both pieces, and that way,

We'll be able to pin them Together inside the handle.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

I'm not a leather expert. This took forever.

And the results are, you know, For me, they're pretty good.

But at any rate, I've traced out a pattern here

From rolling the handle Over a piece of paper.

We're going to transfer that To a piece of leather

And put on our first layer Of leather.

Has to be scarfed So that where edges overlap,

They don't create a ridge.

♪♪

♪♪

The transition piece is glued To the tang with some j.B. Weld.

It's a pretty tight fit already, But the j.B. Weld helps

Snug that up a little bit, And most importantly,

It'll keep moisture out from The inner workings of the blade,

Which is going to be necessary.

None of this is stainless.

The tang has to be bedded, too,

So even though We chiseled out the slot

And it's already A pretty tight fit,

We want to remove all the play In the handle

So the tang is tightly Wrapped in

Saran wrap, Then covered with wax.

I put some two-part epoxy In our handle,

And we're going to slip that Over the tang and let it dry.

If all goes well, It just should slide right off

That wax saran wrap.

Have to be careful Not to overfill the tang.

We still want that area In the back

Where our stud is going To be pinned to be free of glue.

♪♪

Now it's time for the outer wrap

That we're going to Baseball stitch.

I had to make A new pattern there.

We've cut it up, Punched our holes,

And we're going to Start stitching --

Just the top half, though.

♪♪

So, here's our little handle pin

That's going to fit Entirely inside the handle.

We're going to drive it in With a separate pin,

And it's going to fixate The wheel stud to the tang

Through the mutual hole That they share,

And we're going to keep it Away from the wooden handle

And entirely inside the butt

By putting a little nickel sheet For a divider there.

This way, our wooden handle will Be separated from our wheel stud

And the lug nut That goes on top of it,

Which will allow the wooden Handle to be cinched down

And pinched between The butt plate or lug nut

And the transition piece above It, tightening everything up.

After that, we're good To finish our stitching.

♪♪

♪♪

Only thing left to do Is sharpen it.

♪♪

♪♪

The hubcap spike on the bottom Of the knife screws on and off.

It's interchangeable With any hubcap decorator,

As far as I know.

I probably would like to make A base plate to do on the bottom

Of the knife that matches The guard at some point,

But that's probably down The road a ways.

What did you guys think?

Is this a fitting tribute To maybe the ford 2005 gt

Or race cars in general?

I certainly had a ton of fun. I learned a lot, as always.

It was really good To meet you guys.

Take care of yourselves,

And, hey, maybe I'll see you again sometime.