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I have been working on the idea of this for a while...patternwelded inlay(ish) ...this is patternweld with sterling silver spacers and inlay/

Blade: W1 Handle scales: Ironwood Fittings: 416 Inlay: fine silver wire

Ba-dah dah-dum I’m sittin’ in a basement office Tryin’ hard to work from home I was the last in the family to work remote So there was nowhere in the house to roam. Ba-dah dah-dum Stumbling around with my mini-laptop Lookin’ for a nice place to sit But every time I entered a new room They’d say “Dad you’ve got to split!” Ba-dah dah-dum Finaly, down to the basement I retreated full of hope I was eyebalin’ my messy work bench Could hear my boss in my head sayin’ “Nope!” Ba-dah dah-dum I shoved a mess aside, and sat my bottom down Now I’m trying real hard to work with all my toys around! Ba-dah dah-dum

Howdy!! Here are a few of the latest from my front yard.. The Kard s 1095, L-6 and some meteoric iron with a red Bovine Ivory grip.. The white gripped dagger is in a maiden hair pattern with a blade of 1095, L-6 and meteoric iron with some pre-WWI white Bakelite. The sheath is set with a 12.78 ct star ruby The darker griped dagger is in a ladder pattern in 1095, L-6 and meteoric iron with some more Pre-WWI Bakelite . the sheath has a 14.56 ct star ruby set into it..These were going to RPFS in Irwindale, CA but that is canceled so up on the website these go! These didn't turn out too bad considering an old man made them out in his front yard.. Hope these come out properly.. JPH

This is a close copy of a small Latvian seax that was meant to hang from a Viking woman's apron brooch. The knife is O1 tool steel. Handle is bone and Scandinavian Birch. Bronze bolster. Overall length is about 6 inches. The Sheath was made from veg-tan leather and 22 gauge sheet brass. Rivets were made from 10 gauge brass wire. The suspension chain was made from 12 gauge brass wire. Patina is Black Magic.

I've never made a sword before or done any pattern welding, so this is me feeling my way in the dark. I'm having fun! I went with a simple 2-bar herringbone core. The core bars are 7 layers (1084 and 15N20). For the edges, I built a 7-layer stack alternating wrought, 15N20, wrought, and 1084 (etc). Welded up my core bars... Twisted them with my buddy's torch... And then moved and forgot about this project for 12 months So now that I'm shut in on quarantine-- I'll grind it tomorrow and see how the welds look. They all seemed solid while I was forging the profile so...we shall see. As a bonus, I ended up with about 12" of extra herringbone bar. I made way more than I needed! Bonus seax? My goal for this blade is an early Anglo-Saxon style: fullerless (double-lenticular profile), 70cm long x 4.5cm wide blade, and a 12cm tang. I forged in a subtle distal taper, and the dynamics feel about right. Still too heavy at 2.5lb, but I assume I'll knock a lot of that off when I grind the surface and finish the bevels? I've got an old army surplus ammo tube and 6 gallons of canola oil, so once I finish the rough grinding I'll need to get up my courage enough to harden it.

It only took 5-6 years. The blade is a two-core interrupted twist. The handle is sea cow bone, the fittings are about 2lbs of silver with niello inlay, and there are two opals set into the sheath, which is the same from front to back. The stand is black walnut.

I got some forging time in this evening before the snow/hail mix started. Kept working on this little kiridashi style knife. I’m going to draw out the tang another inch or so and then work on Forging a story towards the tip. I don’t want to go any profile grinding on it, and a minimal amount filing on it.

I often mention using alignment pins and a drywall screw to hold the handle piece together while finishing the handle off the blade. I just did a search and realized I never posted the technique on this forum. So here it is. My alignment pins are laid out in relation to the tang, and I purposely offset them in relation to both center lines so that there is only one way to assemble the spacer to the handle once it is made. (pretend this spacer is not shaped yet)Now, the drywall (DW) screw will not fit through that slot. So, you have to grind off the teeth on opposite sides of the screw to make it thin enough to pass through the slot.Hopefully, your slot in the handle is not much wider than the slot in the spacer, but if it is (like this one) you will need some wood shim material. I use thin pieces of cedar shims from Home Depot.Slide them down the handle slot (fat end first) and break them off. They should be loose in the hole, but wide enough to overlap center.Now put your spacers or spacers & guard in place using the alignment pins.Slip a couple of washers over the screw, (put a leather one against the guard face so not to scratch it up), slip the screw through the slot and in between the wood shims. Tap it down until it is tight against the face and give it a 1/4 turn. It will hold everything together tightly.

I have changed horses and got back to a rifle stock I am doing so this morning I started with the action inlet I did a couple of weeks back Having done the preliminary channel with straight chisels cutting across the grain it is then time to start the long process of scraping the fit in so at that stage this is what I see when smoking the barrel and transfering the soot to the channel These are the two main scrapers for the work till I get down to sanding rather than scraping. They are just old files I have bent and re-shaped for the purpose then re heat treated to harden the edge. I got a little video of the process

I made these for some rancher friends of mine. Both blades are forged from horse shoe rasps. The first one is 7 1/4" overall, with a 3" blade. The handle is made of brass, katalox spacer, green fiber gaskets, and Indian rosewood. The blacksmith knife is 7" overall, with a blade length of 2 1/4". These sheaths bear my first attempts at carving. The C lightening bolt brand was hard and didn't quite turn out as sharp as I wanted it to. Critiques and thoughts are welcomed.

You're missing the point, it is not and never was about deaths. The point was and remains trying to keep people healthy enough so as not to overwhelm whatever health care system they have. A friend of mine is a doctor in New York City. They are at the very edge of their ability to deal with patients. Not just CV patients, but ALL patients. Admittedly, there are going to be some who really don't belong in the hospital, but there are some who do. So, what is happening there and what will soon happen in New Orleans, all because people won't do what they're supposed to do to limit the spread of what is admittedly just an annoying virus for most people, is why we have these distancing orders. I am closing this thread, as it's off-topic and dangerously close to getting political. I let it go as long as I did because we do need a place to vent, but it's become apparent that this forum is not the place. Peace, gentlemen and ladies, and let's keep it on bladesmithing and related arts and crafts. Thanks.

So, I was approached 2 different times with the question about having a video on "Ax or hatchet" forging.. I don't currently have a hatchet or Ax video out. It takes 6 hr to make either.. Kind of funny since one is bigger then the other. Anyhow, I needed a new hatchax as my old one was in need of a redress so decided to film it and see what I could come up with for a "Free" youtube video. here are the photos.. Oh, the reason I call it a Hatchax is because it is a very light head on a small boys ax handle.. they cut amazingly well and serve both well for light and medium heavy work.. a 3+" oak limb is normal with one swing.. Some super course/loose wrought iron.. Pretty cool in the photos because you can see how the grain of the wrought iron was sheared and moved and also where the grain is compressed and stretched. This wrought iron was so loose that in order for it to stay together at all. I had to completely change how I would normally proceed and welded the eye first, then split the cutting edge back open to insert the steel.. the stuff was so back that there was no way it would stay together for a decent preform.. I had to shape it after the steel was welded in so the steel would hold it from shredding apart. Enough chit chat..

Here's one I finished up pretty recently. It's hearth steel I made from a pile of old blades I was unhappy with for whatever reason. It's such a satisfying transformation. The handle is oosic, or 10,000 year old fossilized walrus dick bone. It's more difficult to find nice pieces of oosic these days, and I really like this one. I'm honestly torn on whether or not to sell it.

Another one waiting for a sheath. Maple burl on a 3 inch EDC. Not the best pic but will get to that when all done and it goes in my various knives thread

I'm working on adding enameling to my repertoire. This is a drinking horn called Hvetr-rafn, or the Winter Raven. It should be fun.

Had a fella request a couple hunters and this was the result. Radial pattern 1084/15N20 last piece from a billet I made many years ago, African blackwood and stainless guard. Random pattern sanmai with 80CRV2 core, elk antler handle. More of a skinner design. Happy isolation, Clint

Made these from an antique ice saw a friend gave me years ago. All hardened to RC60, flat ground and give an mustard patina. 1 - African blackwood, G10 guard, 2 - elk antler and red liners, 3 - crosscut cocobollo and micarta guard. Thanks for looking. Clint

Have I ever mentioned how much I like using templates? So I have a variety of guard & spacer templates. Some are made from fiber/paper stock some are made from thin copper sheet. One of the two up front will be used to get the bottleneck shape. Maybe eve both of them. The first step is to isolate the perimeter of the spacer on the back of the guard. Blacken the back of the guard. BTW-anytime I talk about "blackening" a piece of hardware, you can use Sharpie pens or dykem, or any of the conventional layout fluids. Put the guard onto the blade and get it seated in the finished position. Add the spacer and make sure everything is snug. Put the whole thing point down in a vise. Scribe (lightly! no sense in scratching an otherwise finished piece) around the outside. You need just enough to remove the black and leave a shiny line. Take the spacer off and position the template to scribe around the part you want to keep. Do all 4 positions exactly the same. Remove the guard. Now this is not exactly what I want to end up with, so there's a little redrawing/fudging with various curve templates to get the final shape. Cut off the excess and grind the profile down to the line. Set the guard back on the knife with the spacer. Check to make sure the profiles are even and symmetrical side to side. If you are having trouble seeing how much guard is sticking out from the spacer, I find it helps to put a layer of blue painter's tape on the guard. Finish on the 2x72 to 220 or 320 and finish out by hand.

Hi folks, Had this small bear claw design stuck in my head since a long time. Wanted to give it an antique look with the design. The overall length is 5.5 inches made from a leftover piece of leaf spring. The finger hole was cut with a dremel and then drifted with a round punch. Brass is from the body of an old brass water tap. It can be held in a reverse and forward grip. The wood pommel gives a really secure hold at all times. Would love to hear all your critiques on the design.

OK. So this forum was an amazing place, going back now... how many years? Certainly before social media, and Facebook in particular took a lot of people's attention away, because it really became the new marketing space. It was hard to spend so much time and social energy on multiple platforms and the forum lost a lot of my attention. I could deal with Facebook so long as I could use the add-on Social Fixer, which blocked political posts & keywords... LOL. But I had to upgrade my laptop and now it's not available for my browser for whatever reason. That makes Facebook and all the incessant, divisive, BS I see ratcheting up on both sides of the equation a strict no-go for my morning coffee and psychological well-being. It is good to come home.

Got these done today. A PH EDC (4 5/8 1095 blade) and Hunter Skinner with 4 in 1084 blade) and both with paper micarta bolster and canvas micarta scales. Both going to Zimbabwe ( gifted) to a professional hunter and his wife who just passed her PH test.

All: As some of you know, in my day job I run a mid-sized defense contracting company. As a result, I have some insight into what the US government is doing in response to this crisis. I can tell you that what I'm seeing is utterly unprecedented. I've been in this game for nearly 20 years, and I've never seen this type of response before. Many of the things I'm seeing will take a few weeks to become visible in the public eye, but I'm blown away. No one is holding anything back. I see sincere, focused, and tireless efforts to combat this crisis. Remember that the people you see on the television are mostly elected officials or their political appointees. The real power in the US government lies at the 3rd or 4th rung of the org chart. These are the non-political career professionals that stay on from election to election. They are the ones that really run things day to day, and they usually are doggedly non-partisan. Many of these people are incredibly impressive, but often get overridden by the political appointees above them when the news cameras are pointing in their direction. What I'm seeing is, for the first time, most of the political appointees deferring to the career folks. This is reason for hope. So, while I'm certainly not here to say: Don't worry, the Federal Gov. will fix it (believe me, I've worked with them for too long to have much faith in anything they attempt), I am letting you know that I feel a modest amount of hope and optimism. I see competent, hard-working people putting everything they have into fixing this thing, and they're doing it with nearly infinite financial backing. Getting out of this thing is not guaranteed, but I think we've got a solid shot at it. Have faith. The US and the World have endured worse. We will get through this. Dave

Hello all. Here's what I just finished (minus final edge and sharpening). This is my second integral bolster and I was more focused on the damascus pattern than the blade shape, so this is what I ended up after forging. After grinding, I learned I had enough material that I could have turned this into a decent chef's knife. It looks like I need more practice forging to keep my billet centered. The last stack was 5 pieces (3 of 78 layer 1084/15N20 separated by pieces of 0.140" 15N20) and I was looking for bulls-eyes of layered steel on a background of 15N20 with a layered steel core/edge. I'm not sure what to do with this one, may turn it into an EDC for me and abuse it for some edge/HT testing.

LOLZ. I had to pull an all-nighter to finish this guy in time for a gift presentation. That was like, maybe 3AM. Loopier than usual. I made this video that morning before driving off 3 hours to hand it off.

I think I speak for all of us when I say that what we absolutely need in this time of crisis, are more videos of Jul singing at his workbench.

I roughed out the guard, and the handle yesterday. I decided to go with a blued finish on the furniture rather than using stainless, so I made the guard out of a piece of 4140 I had lying around. (I'm assuming it will blue well, but am not sure) I'm also planning to put in some thin bronze/black/bronze spacer pieces. I've got the hole through the handle, but need to add a threaded rod to the tang, and figure out how I am going to do the pommel nut. I'm not making it as a take-down, but since I want to blue the hilt parts, I can't do the final shaping and sanding after I glue it up. I figured a threaded tang setup would allow me to pre-assemble everything nice and tight for shaping, sanding, and polishing.

Thanks for the nice words everyone! Looks like its pretty well 100% gone. Demolition crew are starting knocking down the remains of the building in the morning. There is a tiny glimmer of hope that I might be able to salvage a couple of power hammers once the building is down, they look scorched, flooded and sad, but might live again. My little knife finishing shop on the other side of the estate is OK, which gives me a bit of comfort.

Been picking away over the last few days. I managed to get the main components of the handle fitted today. Picture sucks like normal. This is my first crack at a thru tang so I've been kind of feeling my way through it. I only screwed up 1 handle blank, so not too bad. Still need to trim the handle down to size and start on the buttplate, maybe tomorrow.

I started this blacksmiths knife from a little piece of old file. Took me about 45 minutes to draw out into a thinner longer piece, then another hour to forge into the blade shape, I attempted to forge in the bevels on this one. The edge is thinner than the spine so I think it worked. It doesn’t look like much, but I think this is the best forged work I’ve ever done. This evening I have to finish drawing out the tang and Been it into a handle. It also has a very nice looking taper down the spine. Just from looking at the forged piece is there any critique you can give? For this knife I drew inspiration from some of the blacksmith knives in Owen bush’s website.

Recently finished a simple EDC for myself, for once! 5160 blade with a ferric chloride forced patina, Wenge handle scales, and stainless pins. I don't normally grind out my hammer marks or completely get rid of forge scale, because it's my preferred aesthetic, but I figured I might as well play with it.

Straightened a small Messer (top) and got a second one (bottom) almost done forging. I may tweak the bottom one a bit before heat treating, but we'll see. They're part of an experiment I want to try concerning short Messers/Hauswehr carried by peasants as can be seen in various medieval paintings.

Some decoration. This knife and the Kokemäki style puukko are tempering now.

In my barn scares!

I reground my H/T rhomboid puukko blade today to get it closer to final dimension.The taper toward the tip came out perfect. All four sides came right to the point. It is 100mm x 20mm x 3.5mm. It will soon be a new knife. 4 hours later and I am happy. I am still working with partial numbness, but I won't complain, I can now work again.

@Garry Keown has some nice short videos on YouTube that will help.

Multi tasking... Wet molding two sheaths and gluing up a handle.

While I was grinding another couple of blades this morning I decided to see what I could do with the one I forged yesterday and have to admit it came out sort of ok. Because it was a big ish blade and way too thick to take down to a kitchen knife as I did want to leave the evidence of it having been forged (being the first i have done) so the only thing I could come up with was the bowie styled blade so that is what it will be. It is evident that I have got it a bit thin er in the canter than at either end but I am not going to fret over ths for now. I will see how it cleans up after the post HT grind and make a decision from there.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if there was some martensite formed, even in a shallow hardening steel. When you plasma cut mild steel, the heat flow from the cut edge into the body of the piece can be enough to harden the edges (I got impatient cleaning up the super-hard edges of plasma cut parts and decided to look at some samples). The same thing can happen with MIG welding, etc. With the plates being big heat sinks and the force of the press making a good thermal contact, I wouldn't be surprised if a thin piece hardened. I've had the same happen to old spring steel (composition like 5170) with just an anvil and hammer (also god fed up with drilling holes in hard steel, so did some metallography). EDIT: Found the micrograph of that hardened mild steel. This is a cross section of the edge off of the plasma cutter. And this is from that spring steel normalized on the left, and after forging then air cooled on the right (pretty much hardened all the way through consisting of martensite and bainite)

This, my friend, is a matter of taste

https://www.sportsmansguide.com/product/index/italian-military-surplus-ee-8-field-phone-used?a=2184809 You'd need two of these, four D-cell batteries, and a roll of telephone wire. They have several other nationalities of field telephone, this was just the cheapest. And it's basically the U.S. Korean War issue version, but with Italian labels.

With a bit of the day left I had a play at the forge this afternoon. I often get short pieces left from the bars I cut the blades from and have been giving them away to those who forge here in NZ but decided to have a go and see if my hand would stand the hammering. Have finger damage from lifetime of using hammers etc in the building industry and was surprised that it held out for this but I wouldn't want to do it every day. Neighbors cat has adopted me and is often in the shed and I know the grinder going dosent bother him but thought the hammering might. His camping up on one of the soft mats says it dosent.I managed to gain near 2 1/2 inches from the short end of steel so quite pleased although didn't get the tang step down as I would like it so may have to revisit that area. Fairly sure I can salvage something from this exercise. Have it normalised (3 times) and cooling in the vise till I get back to it

Hello: Well..as mentioned in mt past post I have re-examined our position and it is not good.. I lost all of the trade shows/faires that I send my e-vile minions to due to their being canceled..This translates into no income..which is not a good thing...However I have made some moves that will lessen the negative impact a bit..hopefully to the point where we will make it on one piece.. Royalties do help bit as well... On the same subject of this damn panic..Seems that three nights past a couple of idiots tried breaking into our home through the back door off of our deck.. They were so focused on what they were doing that while my wife was on the phone to PCSO I slipped out the front door and well..they spent a while sitting down with their shoes off staring at the business end of my shotgun. The sheriff deputies were more than happy to put them up for the night..came out a day later that these two apparently have been breaking into places to get easy money.. Now I do not know if this is due to the present situation or if these two are just deadbeat burglars..All I do know is we are safe and they are off the street for a while... All in all...I am populating my website as much as I can and hopefully I can generate enough lucre to stay afloat..Going balls to the wall on this... JPH

Finishing this up. Water quenched 1095 blade, copper guard plate, antler bolster with carved birds head cartouches , carved box burl handle, leather sheath: let me know what you think...

Well worth the wait if you ask me, this turned out to be a stunning blade. I can't believe it has been 6 years since arctic fire already. And I agree, old fashioned forums are still my favourite. Social media is nice to share things quickly, but good tested information gets lost in the sea of nonsense too quickly.

Heat treated just 2 hours ago, and first temper done. Two more tempers, and a bit of straightening in between and it will be a fine sax in the making and the coolest thing I've made I'd say. Earlier I hiked to some mines gotta sneak a pic in there. Test blade got heat treated afterwards. Funny how it worked out because I had to quench that one twice, and still got a hamon. (Not visible in pic) I'm leaving it!

Follow up I finished the blown ribbon burner forge. It runs like a rocket engine at 1 to 2 p.s.i.

Hi all! After a long time I signed there because I made new knife which is available. It is small knife overall lenght is 22,5 cm, blade 10 cm and handle 12,5. Welded blade is forged from old, broken springs of agriculture machine and from the bearings. These springs I found unders old oaks on Kovalovec meadows. Guard is from patinated bronze and on handle is small patch of cow bone, which I found on the way to the Skalica hills. Last part I bought from my friend and it is Palisander Honduras burl wood. Hand sewn scandinavian type sheath with leather inserts in the blade part. Leather, knitted lanyard with small decoration from same wood as on handle. Price 370 USD with shipping. Paypal accepted. Contact on me: jakubpetras.noze@gmail.com

A quick update... (it's time to wrap up this thread,my bad brain invariably frays Any thread out making it diverge in too many directions,and this one has come to this point:(...) Today is mostly charcoal-making day,but couldn't resist a brief test of my new magiK dies. My tired old sow-block is cracked,and repaired by three machine bolts...has been this way since before my time of ownership...ah,well... Et voila!The scookum new dies...In my excitement i installed the bottom one backwards,coinsiding the front vertical faces,but changed it after the first heat(also shimming it out a bit as the key was just a touch too deep in there). It worked a treat!!!...Thanks,Josh,from the bottom of my heart. I do have a number of half-done heads that i need to try it on,but to begin with i wanted to subject it to the cruellest test i needed to conduct for a while now. All too often,for reasons i won't go into here,we think in terms of Inlayed,or inserted bit on axes.However,starting around mid-1800's this country has increasingly rapidly was converting to the Overlayed bit;till eventually during the Golden Age of American tool-making every axe forged was overlayed,way into the 20th century. Why was that?One of the reasons that i can think about(well,a couple,thinking is a disease with me...:(..)is both the quality of iron(see Jennifer's thread,good example of that),and that pesky,annoying seam forward of the eye,which is always just a royal PITA. So in an overlayed-bit version that front seam gets pounded in,and then securely wrapped about with higher-C steel,so whatever it may choose to do under there subsequently doesn't really matter...(like everything else not new under the moon this method is also timeless,and old Dahlgren demonstrates it on that classic old Wira film,but that hails from the culture where axes were often and easily re-bladed,and he uses a minimum amount of steel;whereas the later American axes were massively steeled). So that was my inquiry for today,trying to forge an overlayed-bit blank. An ugly old Hydr-ax blade,1/2+thick,of which i carved out a section 3"x 4". One edge forged down thin,now i swapped sides and leaving about 1 1/2" full thickness in the middle do the other side symmetrically. (Dies are working Corker!Sweet....:). After forging down the other edge i bend them down into the staple-shape and attempt to forge down that thick middle part on edge,to upset it if possible,or to at least Forge it,as in having it bulge out in the middle,vs becoming concave/fish-mouthed... In spite of my fumbling,inexpert process(and crap photo)you can see that it at least Kinda worked...And That was the point of this experiment-this could Not have been done by hand... I love my new dies...and have a number of things to think about now...(that specific bit i'll probably never use-it expanded to about 3 1/2" in length,and would be enough for a 4-5 lb axe or bigger...Lord preserve me from forging one that heavy...:(...

Welcome back