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As I'm saving most of the handle work on my latest to be done in my public shop, I decided to get a start on a new mosaic billet today while at home today. This mosaic pattern requires starting with two initial billets. The larger one will get turned into a "W" pattern and the smaller one will provide a different pattern which after being 4-wayed will show in the center of the pattern. Here you can see that I ground off two edges from the smaller billet. This billet had two layers of 15N20 separated by one of 1080 in the center and 4 layers of 1080 on each side. By grinding this way and then forging it flat I got the 15N20 layers to form an arc. After I fold this over on it's self it will give me kind of a cat's eye pattern. This will get three layers of "W" welded to one side of it, squared on the bias and then 4-wayed. Hopefully I'll get a little more done on this one tomorrow.

I present to you - the latest Deer-Hunter - Yggdrasil laufsblað - Leaf of Yggdrasil! Blade in 3 bars folded and twisted steel. 100 layers of folded railroad steel for the body, and 60 layers of ferrier's rasps and 15n20. Handle in Chestnut with core of Holly, w. spacers in vulcanized fiber. Front part of handle is Mammoth Ivory, with spacers of vulcanized fiber and brass. The Holly is engraved with Elder Futhark runes in Old Norse. The poem is taken from Grímnismál verse. 33 - Codex Regius and pertains to four deer that eat from the leaves of Yggdrasil - the world tree. This knife will be used - shock - for hunting deer. As always, any feedback and criticism is heartily welcome! Sincerly, Alveprins.

I actually worked mixing sound for GC & the P-Funk Allstars once.

Same here. And when you think about it, "freehand the groove" would be a great funk band name! Somebody call George Clinton...

Not today, but over the last couple of weekends, I made this: What does it do? Well, when you weld it to the top of an old oxygen tank and hang a disk of wood in it, it turns it into a bell. Then I needed something to hang it from, so yesterday I made this: You can't see it for some reason, but the whole bracket is forged from 3/8" x 1". and there's a sharp step at the base of the fleur-de-lis where I fullered in a groove and then flattened the bar out sideways to about 3/16" to get the width I wanted. I still need to clean it up and paint it.

The 'Turdyploop' pattern is a pattern I forged with @James Higson, and big Sam, when they visited one day. Kind of a modified 'w' pattern if memory serves, where the 'w's (should) escape and flow into a canvas of mono steel in the billet. There was a problem with the pattern development though, I am a bit 'surgical clinical' on my larger power hammer, and only one of the 'w's dared to escape into the mono steel. At the moment of reveal in the ferric, we stood excitedly waiting to see what we had created.... It was a bit like when Baldrick created 'Green' in Blackadder.... we stood there, amazed. The solitary 'W' that dared break rank sitting in the mono steel. We all thought of something nice to say about our creation. The kindest descriptive metaphor we could summon was like a turd splashing into a WC,........ and so Turdyploop pattern was born. Can it ever be recreated ? who knows.... would anyone want to recreate it ? I suspect not. But for sure, that day a pattern was born.

So this is the first blade I forged (final shaping and bevels anyway) with the dogface hammer I made a while back... started with 3/16X1-1/2 1095 bar stock. I forged in the bevels, then ended up deciding to do a full flat grind. Not at all because the bevels weren’t even and I didn’t want them to keep chasing them upward on blade. Nope, wasn’t because of that at all Anyway, I do think I’m starting to make some improvement, or it could just be confirmation bias on my part lol. I did a 320 grit finish on the blade, 220 on the G10 scales for grippyness. Pretty sure that’s the technical term

Hi All. Recently I finished a plain sword forged from 60WCrV8 tool steel (NZ3 in Polish steel naming system). It is blunt - for reenacting fencing. Weight - 1120g / 2,47lb Ov. lenght - 930mm / 36,6" Blade lenght - 772mm / 30,4" Width - 46mm / 1,81" Grip lenght - 108mm / 4,25" PoB - 158mm / 6,22" There are some remaining flaws on the blade - the result of forging the blade shape

I got the two patterns stacked & welded today. Once I get this ground clean & 4-wayed it will make what I call my "Lost Highway" pattern.

I'm waiting for most of the pictures to be sent to me but the new quartermaster and artificer blacksmith is up and running although much more needs to be done

Thanks guys, making hammers is a lot of fun! She is marked 209 kg, which translates to around 460 pounds, It is a really great anvil, with nice rebound and really flat faces after a hundred years. The maker is Soeding&Halbach from germany which was renowned for its cast steel anvils.

Engraved the re-sheath. I like it much better. and just for kicks, a glamour shot of the triplets (not identical) I guess I better get out the leather box.

And another traditionally forged object I've made recently is the axe. Materials: wrought iron, 1045 (top), 80CrV1 (cutting edge). In one place the wrought got snapped ("unfibred itself"), and I wleded it with MIG welder then ground and polished (after etching). Weight - 695g / 1,53lb

Gorgeous knife overall! Almost to elegant to use. I take it you make your own steel? impressive.

I am going to share my newest method for finish grinding that I think saves a lot of time. Mind you, I have a 9 inch reversible disc sander, So if you don't have one, this isn't going to work for you. I take the blade to 120 on the belt and then move to the disc at 150 this basically flattens the bevel and straightens the edge. Back to the belt at 220 and then to the disc at 220. Hand sand inline with the blade to 220 to remove all the 220 disc scratches. Disc at 320 to remove all the 220 hand sanding. Hand sand at 320. And so on back and forth from hand to disc upping the grit at the disc until I put the final hand sand at whatever grit I want my finish at.

You never fail to inspire Gary!

6mm thick 40mm wide barstock 5160.......if I make it too thin I decarb the edge during HT, if I grind post-HT I sit with the same issues as now, only in hard steel. Looks good but there are grinding marks visible at an angle after going back to 220 grit and many hours sanding Peppertree burl I hope to use for the handle

I strength train as my primary method. Squat, deadlift, press and pull downs are my main lifts. Since most of my work is asymmetrical and forward downward in posture, I believe it important to restore my balance by symmetrical weight lifting (barbell). Also, since the demands of the shop occasion the lifting of heavy awkward objects (anvils, 100 lb cans of RR spikes, etc) I try to keep my strength levels in the gym to at least twice what I need to lift in the shop. To maintain my range of motion, I try to do a little yoga in the morning and for light conditioning I regularly hike.

thanks for all the input everyone...so I took Alan's information and simply profiled the blade the way I wanted it to look...then I set up a pair of 1/2" thick aluminum blocks in my vice to act as heat sinks coming out of the quench. Worked beautifully perfectly straight blade. 2 tempering cycles at 400 in my little oven an voila my first fillet knife. then I set about stabilizing some maple burl and combined the end result with some apple green casting resin....carbon fiber pins and epoxy holding the scales to the handle. I still have to finish sanding and forming the handle along with making a suitable leather sheath but so far this fillet knife is looking like a success story

Clean! And with an awesome pattern too. I agree on the size, smaller is almost always more handy for hunting purposes. I think your prices are reasonable. They are similar to my own.

I spent some time doing finish work today. This blade is quite a bit smaller than what I am used to making. It certainly takes less time to sand than a chef's knife. I still need to do some final sanding and polishing on the bolsters, but the parts are all getting pretty close. There is no way to create a perfectly smooth transition from the liners to the spring without sanding the back of the knife after final assembly. I wanted the pattern welded spring to be etched, so sanding after assembly is a no go. Even with all the pins as a perfect fit, there would most likely be enough of a ridge to catch a nail after final assembly which I find irritating so I decided to put a slight bevel along the back edges of the spring and the inside of the liners to create an intentional shadow line. I think it worked out pretty well. Here are a couple more shots. I need to get some 3/32" brass stock to make the final assembly pins. I also need to taper the main pin holes slightly so I can peen the main pin.

Still making progress. A couple more things to do then on to leather. I went completely off track with the third, didn’t follow my original plan, and went with a geometric design that is kinda more traditional. The first sheath still bugs me, probably gonna get changed. Since this is a WIP after all: I will keep you posted, things are moving pretty slow these days, only a few minutes per night to spare.

This is not my work, but from a very skilled blacksmith I met last fall. His name is François Racine and he's got only 5 years of experience. It was all worked hot from a 1" square bar. Some minor filing was done below the hair for cleanup. Told him it would make a nice sword pummel!

Yeah, I can't do that. Please pass along my admiration. I have tons of respect for real blacksmiths. All I can do is forge weld and draw really long narrow tapers.

The springs are most likely 5160 if the truck is less than 30 years old, but even then they may be something else. The key here is that whatever it is it has to respond to the same heat treatment recipe as 5160 in such a way as to make a functional leaf spring. This means no matter if they are 5160, 9260, 6150, or 1075 they'll work if you follow the same steps and temperatures. So: forge between around 1900 degrees F down to around 1700 degrees F, or a bright yellow down to medium orange in dim light. This helps prevent cracks. Normalize after forging by bringing it to around 1550 degrees F (a low red in dim light) and letting it air cool to totally black in the dark. Do this three times. This refines the grain you allowed to grow while forging at higher temperatures. If you can watch the blade, you'll know it has achieved the phase transformation necessary by observing the swirling shadows in the steel as it comes up to heat. The phase change takes energy, which means the bright blade will darken a bit. This is the shadows. As soon as they are gone, you know the transpormation is complete and you are ready to either air cool to normalize or quench to harden. Note that the phase change happens at 1525-1550 degrees F in 5160, while all steels go nonmagnetic at 1425 F. So a magnet can get you close, but you need about a hundred degrees hotter. Don't try to hold it at heat, it does not benefit from soaking. Always quench 5160 in oil. It will crack in water, period. Mineral oil, canola oil, peanut oil, actual quenching oils, but never motor oil, especially used motor oil. It has stuff added that can ruin a quench, especially used motor oil which almost always has water in it. Heat your oil to around 130 degrees F, just hot enough you don't want to leave your finger in it more than a second or so. You can do this by repeatedly quenching a big chunk of scrap mild steel. This speeds up the quench, oddly enough. Always quench blades edge first or point first, and do not swirl it around or it will warp. Now then, tempering: this depends on what the blade needs to be able to do. Small knives are fine baked at 350-375 degrees for two cycles of an hour each. This gives great edge holding ability at the expense of flexibilty and impact resistance. 400 is good for bigger knives, 450 for small axes and really big knives for greater impact resistance at the expense of a little edge-holding ability. Swords need flexibility and impact resistance more than anything else, so they need a full spring temper of anywhere from 575 to 700 degrees, depending on the type of sword. Temper as soon as possible after quenching in a preheated oven using a good oven thermometer (your oven itself will cycle lower and higher than the set temperature by up to 75 degrees either way, with potentially poor results). A pan of dry sand or a couple of bricks in the oven will add thermal mass and help minimize the temperature swings. Be sure to clean the oil off the blade and wrap the bricks in foil if you're using your kitchen oven so you can be allowed to do so again if you're married. That's the basics. There are loads of variations for different purposes. Look around the site, you'll find a lot of info on this.