Dave Stephens

Welcome to the quest! Geoff and Alan make excellent points. RR Spikes are fun and really good practice. Ditto what Alan said re: dull belts. Here's a trick to reduce the amount of wear on the belts. Get a cheap 4" hand held grinder and grind all the black stuff from the forge off before you start grinding. You can also remove a lot of the material with the hand held grinder before going to the belt grinder to set the bevels and polish. Don't worry about only have a 2x42" grinder. That's what I had for many years and it works just fine. 72" belts last a bit longer, but that's real

Very cool! Looks like a fun project!

Thanks guys!

I think it's a great first knife. Much better than my first! If it is a chef's knife, you might consider dropping the point a bit to minimize the rocking necessary for chopping veggies, etc. Also, for aesthetics, I would have rounded the front of the hand slabs in a complimentary radius to the butt of the grip. Keep going! Dave

Yes, you can forge it to shape. Absolutely. Just make sure to not work it too cold. You can get delaminations if you do. Keep it orange heat. Do you know what pattern you have? Keep in mind, if the billet is straight laminate (just stacked, welded, and folded) then you need to actually grind into it to reveal the pattern, so if you forge it very close to shape it will result in a less dramatic pattern. For some patterns, however, you need to forge close to shape. There's actually a lot to cover on this subject. Luck! Dave

Hi everyone. When I was a teen there was an illustration in a Dungeons and Dragons book of a sword that was shooting a lightening bolt, or energy, or something. The drawing showed the sword encased in wavy, crackling energy or magic or something. Here is my attempt to capture that feeling in pattern weld. Minor inclusion near the base of the blade, but . . . meh . . . still looks okay. This is an Oakeshott XII blade, copied pretty exactly from Peter Johnsson's design. I haven't come up with a hilting plan for it yet. Probably bronze fittings and carved black

Nice work!

1080 and 15n20 are an easy weld. There should be no problem of having the same steel on the weld. Without more data it is hard to troubleshoot. From what you describe you should be getting good welds. However, feather pattern by its very nature wants to delaminate all the time. You probably already know this, but keep it HOT, because if you try to move the steel in a feather billet when its even a little too cold and it'll split up like a celebrity couple. You're not getting flux trapped inside your welds, are you? Make sure you are grinding the layers to a crowned sha

All the 2012 Videos are back now. So, we've lost some trailers and the infamous "Cheesy Swordsmiths" videos forever, but the main content is all back now. 2013 full-length is on the homepage of Arcticfire.org, the 2012 videos are under the video subpage, and I'm starting to link the 2016 videos there. Until then, all the 2016 videos are on Michael's Youtube page linked above. Thanks again Alan and Michael! Dave

When setting a weld with a hand hammer you can have what appear to be a perfect weld by grinding the edge but the layers have not fully fused because insufficient force has been used to join the layers fully. Good welds = Clean + Heat + Pressure. The reason those of us with hydraulic presses, etc. have an easier time in setting welds is the large amount of pressure we can apply. So, my guess is you had a good initial weld, but full layer fusion required more force for a full setting. Try this: Do exactly what you did before, but then take it back

Hi all: Michael is doing his magic and recompiling (or whatever you call it) the videos from the DVD's generously loaned by Alan. So far we have Don's hand finishing techniques, Peter's sword construction, and my crushed W's pattern welding video. You can find them on his channel or the Arctic Fire website. Thanks Michael! Dave https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCONxF6KdMJN9ymPa2pT5S6A/videos http://www.arcticfire.org/videos.html

Excellent. I'll add the videos back to the Articfire.org site and post youtube links here when done.

Thanks Alan! Thanks also, John for the backup. I am very relieved we can get these pieces back online. Cheers! Dave

I presume it was just out of insane jealousy of my charisma, talent, and rugged masculinity. Haters gonna hate. Right? (;

That would be great, Alan. I'll DM you my mailing address. Thanks! Dave