Forging a Knife From A Civil War Era Bayonet

SPECIAL THANKS TO: Holden Murphy and Chris Carpenter!

A Model 1873 Trapdoor Bayonet is carburized and forged into a bird and trout knife. Although production of this bayonet began after the American Civil War they were often made from existing, war time Model 1855 bayonets whose sockets were cold pressed down to fit the latest Springfield rifles and were then blued. Whether or not this particular bayonet is a cold pressed and blued Model 1855 I do not know but at the very least it has ties to the period and for the purposes of this project I thought of it as a Civil War Era Bayonet.

Thanks to Alec Steele for providing the wrought iron.
Handle is Bocote, spacer is brass.

The bayonet was $85 on eBay. The Smithsonian was not robbed to make this video so ease up on those comments. These are not rare.

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Step 1: The bayonet was checked for hardness. Its HRC was just under 50 prior to water quench and in the low 50s afterwards. It needs to be in the high 50s to make a usable knife. The problem with this steel is that it does not contain enough carbon to get that hard with quenching.
Step 2: Cut off socket and forge the bayonet flat as all sides are concave. A wooden hammer is used to minimize risk of marring the "US" symbol on the ricasso.
Step 3: Grind it roughly to shape but leave some meat to discourage warping.
Step 4: A canister is made and packed with 2:1 charcoal powder:calcium carbonate plus the knife then sealed and baked for 3 hours at 1900 degrees to diffuse carbon into the steel. It was in the oven a total of 5 hours (coming up to temp). The edge was about a mm thick at this point. I ran a test piece and am hopeful there is extra carbon still present in the edge after finish grinding.
Step 5: normalizes to reduce stress and attempt to distribute carbon sensibly in the steel, reduce grain size, then quench from 1525 degrees into parks 50 oil. Furnace cement is used to differentially heat treat the spine and ricasso area. Hardness after quench is over 62.
Step 6: Grind to final shape and sand to 800 grit then etch in ferric chloride.
Step 7: Drill out wrought iron for the guard and file to shape of tang. Drill out the Bocote wood for handles and file it as close to shape of tang as possible.
Step 8: Shape the guard.
Step 9: The tang is bedded in the handle with epoxy such that if fits snuggly but can be removed and replaced at will. Then handle pin hole is drilled.
Step 10: Shape the handle and apply final sanding. Take apart the knife and etch the guard then fit everything back together with epoxy and a handle pin.
Step 11: Apply Danish Oil finish.
Step 12: Sharpen on stones.

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