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I recently finished something that would be nice to show here. I actually started this knife in june last year, this is the longest I've ever worked on anything. I actually started as a relaxing blade to make for myself between commission work, but it fought me every step of the way, and turned out to be super difficult to make the way I envisioned. As I was finally making some good progress I decided to move out of my parents house and go live on my own, it is super exciting but left me with little time to work on knives. Sadly I can't forge at my own place,

Finished these up in the last few months and thought I would share. 1 - Camp knife with a "bollo-ish" kinde of profile - ground from AEB-L with 2 tone G10 2 - Clip Point hunter 5" blade of chainsaw/1084 powder, blackwood spacers and mule deer crown 3 - Loveless style hunter in feather damascus and elk antler handle. Thanks for looking, Clint

I don’t typically forge much during the cold wet months as I do when it’s warmer, just can’t take the cold, (hands especially). Last October I took a seasonal job looking for part time work. During Thanksgiving week, woke up one morning and couldn’t raise my arm, turned out rotator cuff and long head bicep tendon were torn, so having surgery January 8th, I stayed in a padding sling for 8 weeks 24 hours a day. Now, (with PT), I am getting better. So that’s my seque in order to post stuff I’ve had to puts aside! I’ll post some of these here and there but bear with me, I don’t intend to hog

Spent a couple of days making this for a friends kid. It's bubinga, about 3/4" thick, 26" blade including the integral habaki, 36" o/a. Steel tsuba, leather seppas, copper fuchi and kashira, with a couple of simple steel menuki. The fittings slide on from the end of the handle, so I bulked up the handle profile with laminated card before adding the wrap. The wrap is cotton ito, and it was a bit of a nightmare wrapping on a full length sword as opposed to just the tsuka, and I struggled to get it as tight as I would like. With that and wrapping onto bare wood instead of rayskin, which gives the

Greetings fellows. Been a pretty rough couple of days, the kind of days that make good days shine. I came out to the hovel, flung the cap off a cold barley pop and fired up the forge with no plan. I used a scrap piece of 1084 that looked lonely and hammered out a blade shaped object that looked remarkably like my last knife.. doh. Used a stack of figured walnut bits that I was never quite sure what to do with and added a sheet of red brass. Some good rage draw filing and the blade was all pointy in the right places. A dive down the rabbit hole of drilling, filing, checking, repeat and this

I've got some progress to show again, I'm really enjoying myself with this one. the blade finish forged: The profile and flats ground before heat treat, and some filing done on the shoulders. I like to heat treat as soon as possible, this way I have room to grind out small warps and I like to do most of the work with 60 grit anyway. I never really understood why people grind knives to 220 grit before heat treat. And the knife finish ground ready for hand sanding, I also have a design now My plan is to use stainless for the g

Made some progress on @Dr Rays harpoon fighter today with all the work done pre heat treat now. I made a cutter to clean up the fuller from a piece of heavy spring steel and bent an old file to do the sanding.

I really shouldn't be left unsupervised . The dragon is 45 layers of 75Ni8 and 80CrV2 with a 23cm cutting edge and 53mm high at the heel. Starts at a chunky 5mm thick at the bolster and distal tapers to 1mm 2cm from the tip. Handle is of course ebony and brass. Thinking I really need to make a fancy sheath for it as well

You have seen his ‘Interests’ under his profile pic? He’s not kidding

big brother is watching

And made a simple sheath for it as well. Was tempted to make a belt loop for it because you never know when you might have to carve a steak or chop some onions

Hey everyone! I’ve been bouncing around between forums trying to find a good one for me and I think this is it! I love the content here and everyone seems very respectful and helpful. So I’m excited to become part of the community! I started making knives through stock removal a few months ago and just recently got a makeshift anvil and other supplies to start forging. I’m really wanting to get into San Mai so I’ve been practicing just forge welding small three-layer billets. No forged knives yet.. but soon! Here are my two latest knives. My 9th and 10th I beli

All knife makers do stock removal to some extent.

A short video on making a power hammer tool. Let me know what you think.

Next up will be making a fancy box in the same theme as the set

Today I had a surprise free afternoon after work and I felt like forging instead of doing the things that I should be doing. I figured this would be the perfect time to start on this year´s Kith. So I rummaged around the shop and found an end piece of a Damascus billet, this billet is very low layer twist I originally made for Damascus rings, I have no idea if the pattern will look good on a knife, If it turns out ugly I will just start another. The billet was almost the right size so it wasn´t much work at all to forge it to a 1´´ x 0.5´´ x2 inch block.

Thanks everyone! I admit it doesn´t have any real tanto shape, the construction method is though, although there are some extra alingment pins the silhouette was really important to me, I have spent a lot of time holding it up to the light. I was actually thinking of Don Fogg when I made this, his fusion pieces are really inspiring to me. The cross section was a real head scratcher, I found out quickly that I couldn´t do it on the grinder, so I eventually did the entire thing with files and edm stones, to get the ridgeline where I wanted it the bevels chang

Stephen I appreciate the offer! You don't know how much. Folks on the forum are good people. I found out what happened to the mill that used be in a machine shop I used till it closed after Covid hit. Talked with the guy and turns out he needs a little repair work done on a bathroom at his house. You know one of those you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours deals! Works for me!!

As a FiF alumni, i can tell you that what you're seeing on the show is how well people work under pressure trying to accomplish weird and improbable tasks. It's not that it's fake, but it is TV. The advice about finding local people to teach you is spot on. If you can, take a class or two, hang out at a hammerin, find a shop nearby and get your hands dirty a little bit. Smiths know other smiths, we know where tools are, it what we do. We hit hot steel and we know stuff. Do this before you spend too much money. Maybe you'll hate it, maybe you'll love it. but at least you'll know befo

Two other ideas: When I lay out engraving designs, I paint the surface with white watercolor and let dry, then trace it on with carbon paper. However, the fast and easy way is to use a laser printer or photocopier and acetone. Print your design as a mirror image. cut it out, leaving plenty of blank borders. Tape it face down on the steel by the edges. Wipe some acetone over it, just enough to dampen the paper, using a rag or sponge with a decent amount of pressure. Burnish it with a smooth piece of something (i.e. rub a bit of polished steel across it ONCE), then carefully peel the paper off

We need to have that as a pop-up when you log in...

Funny, I would call that collection "a pretty good start"!

Three things jumped out at me. The first was that your fifth roller is going to get chewed up pretty fast as the grit side of your belt will be making contact with it. The second is that you would have to wire your motor backwards in order to get it to run the proper direction. Lastly, while I was confirming the direction thing in my head, I noticed that it's going to be a royal pain in the butt to get your belts on and off with the motor sitting on that side of the grinder. I would highly recommend flipping the motor over to the other side of the unit. It would solve the last

It is a ´´Soeding und Halbach´´ in a north german pattern, these have the hardy hole near the horn and no pritchel. As a proud anvil dad I should have a picture somewhere on my pc

Not knowing the geometry, I suspect it may be a little soft. For chopping blades in 1084 I temper at 375 to 400. For small carving blades 325. For swords, 500-ish. Chopping antler and mesquite is hard on any blade, though.

edge rolling is a combination of hardness and edge geometry, so yes a thin edge thet is correctly HT'd could roll , so could one that is too soft.

Hi. Recently I've finished a really exciting work. I've put it also on my blog: https://lipinskimetalart.blogspot.com/2021/04/brunewyrm-stream-serpent-wijacy-sie.html Brunewyrm – the owner named it like that and this means in old English “Serpent Stream”. The seax successfully landed in the owner's hands in Tennessee :) I forged the blade out of several elements: a serpent of 21 layers of soft and hard steel (S235 x 80CrV2) twisted in a classic “rope”. It winds between old fibrous wrought iron, and on the spine there is also a layered strip, but without twis

speaking from a true beginner... the blade with the red micarta handle is the very first "completed" blade I made. It was forged late last spring. The next blade, I just finished last week. Obviously, I have a long long long ways to go. But it is forged from my own 220 layers of damascus. It is the eleventh blade that I have made in almost the year that I have been doing this. I was one of those guys that tinkered on and off with the forging for about 2 years until last year. Y'all will notice that first blade is super super super rough...it is decently sharp....but my biggest struggle i

My first instinct was to dismiss this as sour grapes. How ever I have been saying many of the same things for years, I even wrote about it in my column. First I will say in hind sight I think FIF is a symptom not a cause. The rise and the slow death of most of the forums and then the rise of the facebook smithing groups in there place are just as much a cause as FIF and in fact are also a symptom. a little history as I remember it. I started on the early forums back in 96 or so. The rise of early forums like Anvil fire, CKD (latter Knifenet) swordforums Iforgeiron. in the beginni

Yes, I know about the presence of chromium. Theoretically, I would prefer one part to have the lowest possible chromium content, if I have any doubts about successful welding I would try welding to the same steel before it goes with 52100. At the moment I have no plans for damask. My plans are just blacksmith welding, as part of other applications.

You can do a pretty large billet in a forge made from a 20lb tank. I dont think you would be disappointed.

Or you can just use a sharpie. Draw freehand straight onto the steel, or cut out your design and draw round it...

I would think the Tools, Supplies, and Materials sub-forum might be a better fit for this info, but that isn't overly critical. And sharing where to get good supplies on the cheap is always appreciated. Also, Kelly Couples sells it and a bunch of other stuff, though not quite as cheap as you got it (both would be $295, as they are $150 and $145 each, with free shipping). I had a couple sales guys from DuBois out the other day to talk about a new quench tank/system. Probably going to go with water, at least for the first tank, but future planning is always good. N

And now back to working on the serving set. Filing in some lines to frame where I'm planning on some ring and dots and experimenting a bit with giving the brass an aged look

In that case, you know exactly what a traditional tanto does not look like (Don't feel bad, they screwed me up too)

I take the time to make a wood or steel template and use layout fluid to make a tracing. That way if I want to make another of the same blade I have a way to easily recreate the shape. Another option I see used from time to time on youtube videos is to cut the overall shape out of paper, lay it on your steel, and then go around it with spray paint. When you remove the template you're left with an unpainted area in the shape of your design.

You can't see all the layout dots very well, but what I did was measure the distances from the center and scribe a little dot at a number of locations: then it's just a game of "connect the dots". You can also always just cut the paper shape out and trace around it - the blue doesn't take any pressure to scratch off. The blue is also nice because to "erase", you just paint some more on over the lines you don't like.

I use blue layout fluid to put a layer on the steel, then use a carbide-tipped scriber to etch on the design (looks a lot like a pencil, but with a carbide tip instead of graphite) Amazon.com: Dykem 80300 Steel Blue Layout Fluid, Brush-in-Cap (4oz): Industrial & Scientific Amazon.com: 6 Pieces Engraving Pen Tip Scriber Includes 2 Tungsten Carbide Scribers with Magnet, 2 Double Head Scribers and 2 Replacement Tip, Metal Etching Engraving Pen for Metal Glass Ceramics Stone Wood: Home Improvement It ends up looking like this:

Good luck! Post pics of yourself carrying that home on the bike

Propping up your forge/bricks so that you have an air space between the bottom brick and the wood will help a lot. You will also be able to see the table start to scorch if it's getting hot enough, whereas now, you'll only know if you're burning the table when the forge falls through the hole.

I thought that I could use an old wooden table with a layer of kaowool on top of it to insulate it from my first forge. I was wrong. Things got exciting one day.

That's the kind of burner I have I could not weld with just one, even after fixing the other issues with my home-made forge, which included - Bricks: these are a heatsink, even the soft insulating kind don't insulate very well. Fiber wool works so much better - Uncoated: you need an IR coating. - One of those stainless steel burners: I could not weld with only one of those: it takes two even after fixing the insulation and coating. There is a frequent member here named Wayne Coe who runs a site that has really good deals on the materials. He'll be

Don't see any cracks, no dark lines, no delaminations in any of those pics... Time to start forging to a blade shape. You'll know when you start moving it, if anything comes loose. But, id say it's looking good.

Looks pretty good, congrats!

Jaro, first off- amazing build! Second- how did you bend your leaf springs? thanks!!!

Hi Seth, those knives look really good, very clean work! I love san mai too! If the first billet welded properly, I'd just go for a full-size billet right away Ultimately there's only so much a small test billet will tell you, especially with regard to core centering, which is more of a function of the work you do after the weld (forging, grinding). A few ways to increase your chances of keeping it centered: 1) don't go for too thin a core (you'd think that's obvious, but I've made that mistake more than once), 2) as billyO said, try to forge evenly on both sides of the

<slight thread distraction> The title of this thread makes me say "with Lucy" in my head every time I see it pop up on my unread posts list. I am weird. <return to normal thread traffic>

The meme is completely tasteless.