Two knives from a lawnmower blade

My daughter's boyfriend gave me an old lawnmower blade the other day, so I got to work  to see what I could come up with.

The steel from lawn mower blades is a bit of an unknown, could be good or not for knives. I cut off a small bit of the steel and heat treated it. It came up trumps, which I was pleased about. The blades are forged, I tried to give a nice smooth forge finish to them. Only the cutting edge is ground. After heat treat, I soaked them into some vinegar overnight to remove the forge scale.
The handles are wrapped with thick cotton thread and I used brown shellac to soak and stick the threads together, which worked quite well. They are not the best looking handes, but for what they are, it's fine.

The finished stockwhip

This is the finished whip. It went better than I had expected and I am very happy with it. I have been able to get a few crackings out of it, as well as some hits on my hand and the back of my arm!! It's a good idea to wear a thick shirt, a glove and a hat when you first start practising...

The finished whip

I had to replace the fall because the leather I had used was not strong enough and broke within 3 attempt at cracking it! I replaced it with some 550  paracord for now. Also replaced the cracker, because I lost it when the fall broke, and also because I had used some waxed thread and thatdidn't work so well.

Detail of the handle plaiting

Turk's head covere on the handle's end

Spanish Ring Knot

Nowt to do with knives: I am making a stockwhip!

This is something I have wanted to have a go at making for sometimes. There are all sorts of whips: bull whips, snake whips, stockwhips etc
They look complicated to make, but if you can follow instructions, you can make a whip. Ok, it won't win championships, but it's possible to make a decent leather whip. And making this one is giving me an appreciation of the work of some professionals you can see on the web.

So, this stockwhip of mine is going to be a simple 4 plait Australian stockwhip. I am following the instructions in a book, and so far I have made the whip, complet with the fall and the cracker.

 

This is the core, a twisted strand of leather

This is the leather cut to make the 4 plait whip itself

Plaiting done. We  have a whip! I really enjoyed doing this bit

Detail of the plaiting

I have started to work on the handle (no pics yet) It's going to have an 8 strand plait covering, a turk's head knot  at the end of the handle. A french whipping will finish the end where the keeper is fitted.

I'll put up the pictures of the handle tomorrow.

I forgot to say, I have never made one of those before: this is streching my leather work skills a couple of notches!