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So after quite a long while of slow progress, I plugged in my HT oven last night and nothing blew up in my face! In fact, she glows hot and beautiful just as intended. Ultimately stoked! I still need to add some additional kaowool insulation on the door as well as a proper latch. And make a removable cover plate to go over the heater connections outside the control box. It runs on regular old 120v household outlet with a 20amp breaker. There are 2 heating coils in parallel with a combined measured resistance of 6.2 ohms. That comes out to 19.4 amps on paper, which had me worried I would blow the breaker. But the heating coils actual resistance increases as they heat up, so I suspect it actually draws a bit less. So far I've only run it for about 40 minutes, but it made it up to 1800 deg.F without issue in that time! I bought the bricks, thermocouple, high temp mortar, and coils at Seattle pottery supply, just a few minutes from my house. They can make custom heating coils from kanthal wire to any resistance and size specs you need there, but mine they had on hand and premade as spare parts for the little 120v kilns they sell there. Super convenient! The kiln expert there was super helpful too. The PID controller and SSR I got off Amazon. I used Dan Comeau's website as my bible for building this thing, and I cannot stress enough how amazingly useful it was! He has all the info you need to build one of these and some really useful calculators and tools to make it easy for even a dummy like me! If you want to build a HT oven, definitely check it out: http://dcknives.blogspot.com/p/electric-forge.html?m=1 As you can see mine is super beefy and covered in sheet metal, but I made it keeping in mind the fact that I'll be moving in June and will need it to survive being lugged around to my new shop. I think all in all I have about 400-500 bucks invested in this thing, but I'm sure it could be done for much less depending on what you have lying around. I bought damn near every piece of this specifically for this project. I won't be able to put it to use for another week or so, but I'll be back with an update when I do and when I get the final bits sorted out.

My camera died right before Christmas, so I had to borrow one to get a shot of the finished candle holder. Otherwise, not much going on. Work is work, and all the production forging doesn't leave me with much energy to do things for fun.

This is another one of my projects that started about 2 years ago, sat on the bench, got redesigned, made some progress, sat on the bench again, got redesigned again, and finally got finished. It's what Hancock calls a "3-finger knife" because of its size. This is a forged O-1 blade with nickel-silver fittings and sheep horn scales. A little more clean up on the pins, sharpening and a sheath, and this one is going to be on the table in 3 weeks. Blade: 3-5/16" by 11/16" by just shy of 1/8". OAL: 6-9/16" By far the smallest knife I have ever attempted. My hat is off to those folks who routinely make small fixed blades.

I have given up all planning ahead. I get uncomfortable with the way they use the word "premeditation" in courtrooms.

I've had it in mind for some time now to have a go at making a knife, so this Christmas I thought I'd have a go. I've never made a knife before so this was my first attempt. No forging, just stock removal using my CNC mill. I'm not really happy with the handle. I bought a piece of thuya burl, but when it arrived it was awful. not one face was parallel with another so there would have been nothing left to work with. I found an old lump of oak so decided to use that instead. Decided to add a makers mark when the blade was all but finished and hardened and tempered. Engraving it was a bit scary but glad I did. Makers mark is my family crest, a rampant lion and my surname. It's not ornate or fancy, I wanted something simple and clean for my first knife. It's not yet sharpened .....I haven't decided what system to invest in. Tried Lansky diamond system on my kitchen knives, not really keen on using iton this. Any comments, criticism or suggestions welcome. Roger Blade length 220mm Thickness at spine 6mm Width 48mm Overall 355mm Material 80CrV2 hardened and tempered to 60~63 Rockwell Handle oak

It's been a little while since I've posted anything on here, and I'm back. My latest build was this little straight razor. The blade is forged from a scrap piece of leaf spring with a dual and reversed twist in the tang. To add a small bit of flair, I did a bit of file work as well. The finish is gun bluing. The blade edge has a length of 2 3/4" with a bevel of 6/8. The spine thickness is 5/32". I used brass for the pins and the handle is oak with an angle grinder treatment then sealed with tung oil. Yes, this is hones and stropped. Is it normal for bladesmiths to be afraid of the edge they produce? lol

A chef knife for my personal use, not a knife for a personal chef. This is my second attempt at a chef knife and I am very pleased with the result. I was given the handle scales as a birthday gift a year ago - and I knew what I wanted to use them for - it just took me a while to get the project underway. I'll be honest I don't remember what type of wood it is. I'm sure someone could help me out, it looks very smokey before being oiled. It's an 8" blade, and on the thicker side at about 3/16" at the handle. I learned from my mistakes last time and quenched it before the majority of the grinding was done to avoid as much warp as I could, and grinding that edge dangerously thin before sharpening so she slices well. The back drop of the photo is a beautiful cutting board a friend of mine made for me after 20 years of friendship. His business is "Cutting Edge Woodworks" if anyone is curious what other boards he's made.

I'm going to antique the handle with ammonia also.

You need to come out west sometime with me. The mountains of NH were cool. The mountains of Washington, Oregon, Alaska....different story. If I bring you out there Sam is gonna miss you...you won't likely come back. Once your back is healed all the way up and we're both rich and famous FIF Champs with lots of extra expendable dough we should plan an "Out west blade and blacksmith extravaganza and elk hunt" trip!!! Yup, just gotta achieve the whole famous and extra cash part now. The rest of that plan is easy! LOL!!! "I love it when a plan comes together".

https://www.riogrande.com/category/metals http://www.ottofrei.com/jewelry-metals/shapes-sheets-stock Also good source material for anyone interested in Mokume……...

Well, one piece of advice that I forgot to pass on to you all was to make sure you were rounding off the correct edge. Somehow I managed to mess this up and round over the edge that buts up against the wood Here are the messed up bolsters... So I made another set of bolster blanks, and rounded the correct face this time... Then it was time to solder them to the blade. I decided to try using Liquid Paper as a solder block based on someone's suggestion in the recent thread about using it as an anti-scale material. Without a solder block, I usually end up with some solder weeping out from the front edge of the bolsters, and I don't like trying to clean it up without messing up the finish. Here is a shot of the parts ready to be soldered. And finally, the bolsters soldered in place. I'm happy to report that the Liquid Paper worked great! The blade is wrapped up in a paper towel soaked in Windex to keep it cool.

There are three different ratings for copper plumbing. From thickest to thinnest K(0.061"), L(0.045"), M(0.031").

When told by a reluctant customer "I don't need another knife.", I usually reply "The only knife that you need is the one next to your fork on the dinner table. The rest are wants."

I took advantage of a warm afternoon to do some work on the hilt for this one.

That razor and scales go together beautifully. Thanks for sharing.

I love that you have a fire going and a beer poured!

My average steel loss in doing up a steel billet over 300 layers is 40 per cent or even more, and that's using a press and a good gas forge setup. Scale happens. As for compression- that's not happening. You're not going to "compress" anything unless you're starting with really raw bloomery steel.

Damn....

I've yet to file the pommel into a clam shell but it's starting to take shape: I ended up taking some material out of the pommel to help the balance of the knife:

Heh, I work in an engineering R&D firm. My software guys like to refer to it as "Double-E Wizzard Juice" (For the non-nerds out there, double-e = EE = Electrical Engineer)

Also, in those facilities I mentioned, that was the only method of melting in those facilities. I have also worked in and been to shops using electric arc furnaces, and that is where you start getting really big melts. The foundry I worked for in Tacoma could melt and pour 96,500 pounds at a time. Cupola melting is also still done, but not nearly as much as it was 100 years ago. Electricity offers a lot of advantages.

When you are at forging temps out in the atmosphere hammering scale off by hand, you are losing steel. Get yourself some striker friends, or a press, make a power hammer if your feeling froggy!

Engraving the hardened blade

I have one in my collection! Let me take some photos and I'll post them here for you. They may be of some help or they may not be what you're after, but either way maybe it'll be good inspiration!

Something off the bench. This is a student piece, he did the forging and much of the grinding, I finished it up for him. BTW, this is sort of a new class model for me, aimed at people who want to try out forging, and take something home after, but are not really intending to be a knife maker. This way students can get their feet wet, but not have to develop the longer term skills, if they want more, I've got more. Copper, 1080 6.5" closed (to the end of the tab) 8.5 open Geoff