Blacksmith basics. Forging a railroad spike knife 

Something i’ve been thinking about, (as soon as I get the 220v fixed in my shop), is forging the rough blade out of a spike, then clamping it to some copper, and running a bead of hard surfacing rod along the blade edge real fast, then grinding out the blade, just to have a semi-decent edge with minimum effort.

Thanks man! It’s not that I really needed the permission to slap somebody into oblivion, but it’s always nice when I don’t have to worry with: “better to ask for forgiveness than permission”. Your comment made me laugh! Keep up the strong work

Love the video man, like you said it takes me back. We sold a buttload of these things at craftshows over the years.. I explained to every person who bought one about the steel it was made from but not one ever cared. All they cared about was it was "made from a RR spike"... I live in Eastern,Ky which is coal country and by extension Railroad country so they were a good selling item.. In fact I bought my first "real" grinder an old Coote 2x72 way back with sales from spike knives.. I got mine from a local scrap yard that had the a scrap contract with the RR... Great video bud

A local RR repair crew supvr not only let me have some used Ties, he also let me pick up old Spikes. I ended up with 18 Ties and a 5 gal bucket half full of spikes.

Great stuff John. Love your content and it's nice to have someone out in YT land with a similar sense of humor 🤣

Made one a few years (more than 40) ago, and heli-arked some hard face rod on the edge after profiling. Held a Good edge...! Had a 61 RC Hardness! (Yes, I'm "Old School"...! That's before they started calling it TIG Welding!). Lol

John, just wanted to say thank you for this video and all of the others you have made. Sharing your passion and the free education you've provided has been super beneficial for my growth in my metalworking journey!

Some of the most beautiful functional knives,the price excludes most mortals

I love your videos and I always appreciate products that minimize waste

It’s funny I just made a spike knife with 1095 insert haven’t made one in years , just felt like doing one.

That's how I got started also. I still sell about 20 of these a year, but I market them as letter openers, not knives. Don't want my knife customers to get the idea I don't know the difference between a spike and 1084!

Thanks for the video, I have always thought you made some of the best-looking spike knives out there.

The handle on that top one looks really cool!

Those rope looking ones are my faves, they're so damn cool!

Nice work man!

Nice job.

Great video!

👍 Great video!

Love the content !!!

This is my go to channel to binge watch. I can’t wait for new content. Keep on keepin’ on brother 🤘 -Joe Dirte’

Man, tracks near my work have spikes just laying all around. Pretty sure they just toss 'em aside after replacing them. I might need to capitalize on this...

Awesome!

Excellent work John! As I’m watching I’m looking in the background of your shop and thinking “damn that’s a lot of axe heads! And it looks clean and well organized” Also looks like a beautiful area you live in. I’ve never been to the east coast, maybe one day.

You can buy them at a reasonable price from Kens custom iron.

Great content, and excellent work as always John!!!

Thanks John outstanding video 👏👍

Great Video, it's always a pleasure

Oof here i am with 300 of them that i picked up on my daily walks..... whoops

👍

крутая кукурука получилась!

Behind every great forger is a policeman usually or a queue of chancers, lol. Would it be possible to, after completing a blade and before grinding, to drill and insert ball bearings? I'm thinking that star constellations could be part of the design. Just a thought...

They are a little harder I believe because they are for Highway Crossing.

Surveyors use and buy them for benchmarks all the time. I get mine from work.

Thank you for the video

Hey, do you have a video that exclusively shows how to make each of those twists? That seems like something I'd like to keep permanently handy.

I'm just getting started on bladesmithing; the first knife I'm making for myself is an old leaf spring. But, I want to make a rr knife for my employee who manages the office on "forge-day" for her to wear as a utility knife when she's riding / working on / working w/ her horses. Is it worth trying to put a handle on one, since there's a chance she's going to be using this in the cold?

Are the braided handles done with chisels?

Is there any way i can get you to make me a diagnol cross pein hammer sir

How can I buy one of these ?

Came here from "Bladesmithing for Beginners" to say, How Dare You?!...

Railroads don’t like running people over, Seeing people on the tracks is unnerving to a helpless engineer There’s a lot of abandoned track, particularly old spurs owned by warehouses that converted to truck docks There’s a lot of legit steel to be found if you work on the back side of industry and understand what is a pile of company assets and what is junk in the way

Look here man.... don't shoot the messenger! I just got a call from your black tee shirt. He is really getting sick and tired of being stretched over your arms and back. He says it's getting ridiculous how often you swing hammers and keep getting bigger and bigger, even though you have a mechanical hammer available. He asked me to beg you to "CHILL OUT ON HAMMER SWINGS" because he's not quite sure he can hold on much longer. I assured him that I'd pass it along to you, so that's all I'm doing. He cried a lot and at one point I had to talk him off the ledge (of the laundry hamper). So.....bro.... can you chill out a little on the gains? I've been subscribed for years and I kinda find myself siding with the black shirt's complaint - at the rate you're going, you won't need to heat up RR spikes to twist them; you'll just use your bare hands and hopefully not snap the head off of them.