Bob Ouellette

I can't wait to see it! I'll be the first to admit, I didn't develop any of the knowledge on my own and keeping it to myself doesn't help anyone

Here we go. I've even made a few notes about how I'd go about forging the shapes (feel free to disregard if they don't work for you!) I think setting the edges first might work out best, but I can't experiment to find out at the moment.

Good luck! What did you differently with your welds? Also, I was rereading your initial post and thinking of how to make all the weld seams hold better. Have you thought of forging a very thin, short scarf on the ends of the two steel wings? Not enough to add mass, but enough to help get the very ends to close. I'll draw a picture of what I'm thinking and post it in a little while.

The inside of the forge will be kaowool. The table will be fire brick and I might cast the opening for the air curtain.

The body will be made from 1/8" sheet, lined with kaowool and coated in ITC 100. Thanks for the tips! I've already looked at your site and it's really helped with my understanding of ribbon burners. Now for the update! I added the bottom shelf and some bracing for the legs. After I weld up the forge body, I'll add some alignment pins for when it inevitably needs to be relined it can drop back into the same place or get stuck needing destructive removal. Then I'll cut out a slot for an air curtain in front of the mouth of the forge. I set a fire brick i

Having had an increasingly difficult time breathing over the last year and a half (not Covid related, thankfully), I decided to sell my coal forge and switch completely to propane. I made a coffee can forge last summer and that's been fine for blades less than 2" wide and that don't require forge welding. I decided to make a forge that would have 2 ribbon burners. I'm going to put a valve between them, so one can be shut off and have half of the forge chamber blocked off with a fire brick. The brick can either be slid over or removed completely to accommodate bigger blades or larg

My lungs can't handle solid fuel anymore. I sold my coal forge and I'm working on building a new gas forge.

I just had another thought. In addition to letting the to get thicker, slightly fish mouth the point so that the flats overlap the steel. They'll essentially be weeks scarfs and help you seal that area up. Makes me wish I had a forge I could weld in.

Thanks, Rob! I didn't start clamping after the quench until I started messing with stainless. At that point, I already had the pieces I needed set up by the oven.

Thanks! I milled a radiused platten. I took a piece of 4140 and welded it to a piece of heavy tube for rigidity, then mounted the whole thing to a rotary table with the edge at 18". I wish I could take credit for the idea. I've considered regrinding a knife I've previously fished and decided against it. It's a good representation of the skills I had at the time.

Me too! The other big one I hardened at the same time did, but I got lucky with this one.

These are a neat idea and I like both of them. Thinking about your first piece, I wonder if the tip of the socket material were slightly thicker than the blade material if it would help the weld. Essentially, let the tip get thicker as you point the piece instead of flattening it back down to the original thickness.

Those are pretty slick. It's definitely something I want to try sometime.

I've been a little slack on updating this as I made progress. Immediately after the quench, I clamped the blade between plates and managed to keep it straight. Grinding this sucker was a real challenge, but I was able to get it done. The flat side is hollow ground to an 18" radius. Finally, it has a buffalo horn bolster and a green and yellow stabilized maple burl handle.

Most of the 3 jaws I've used had jaws that come off to be inverted due to the shape of the threading mechanism.