Daniel Cauble

Mark has.

Jan. I have very similar results running an open hearth. Yield wise.

My original video is no longer up. I guess they took it down. Now it displays my fav list.

For the size dies you will need 4340 to keep your quenchant as oil, or step up to some of the air hardening steels like H13. You can somewhat water quench large sections of 4140, but it leaves the risk of cracking, which is why 4340 would be recommended on dies exceeding 3" thick in order to get an appreciable amount of hardness in oil.

Flats are great for general forging and toolong both. I use mostly flat dies. Stay away from combo dies. They arent really appropriate for these style hammers, as the offhitting tends to wear out a LG in the ways faster than larger or more robust machines. Your bottom die looks like the interchangeable die system, nice to have. Great new style LG you have there. Very clean.

I decided with the several i have made that a curve in the handle, along with the very weight.forward hammer head to feel very comfortable. I made a few for myself, and others liked them, and they have a place. I use them almost exclusively.

I only use the double bit axe because it gives extra meat to make unique handle to every hammer. I try to make them the same, but each starts out as a bigger lump of wood. Costs a lot more on my end that places like house of handles, but isnt a dime a dozen look.

To be honest, every hammer handle that i use for my cutler hammers started life as a double bit axe handle from the hardware store. I get two different styles of handles from one, and i get to pick and choose grain orientation. Plus its hickory.

I mean, i can work 10# bloomery by hand. I wont recommend it though. I think my wording is off calling it next to impossible. Just....not fun at all lol. Who eould do that to themselves???

And doing 1-2kg pucks is next to impossible without a power hammer and to a lesser extent a press .

Read everything you can guys, but i really implore you to just go out and do it, and then come back and reread, and do it some more. The more people getting involved the more we all gain from shared or even differing experiences.

Im limited on time with 3 kids, a newborn included....but had some spare time to make a pound of shibuichi.

I think you have seen a lot of this live on my IG Caleb.

Each heat is basically a fold, so yea welding heat. It may get a quick low heat at the actual folding the bar over part as it is a bear to bend and work such a high carbon steel. Once tbe temps cool down cool enough as the bar is being drawn out, it feels like a thick bar of W2 or mildly the same resistance something like crucible will give the hammer. The first half i worked last year was a tremendous amount of work. I was developing my methodology while also figuring out how to get the steel the cleanest. The first half was made from melted wrought and some had bloomery bits in it. Except after reading aristotles accounts of steel in his version of a furnace, i learned that if i took the material i melted once already and melted it again, i would have a cleaner steel that had a higher homogenity in carbon. Which it did. The only drawback was the return in steel quantity was greatly diminished. I think the first bar had probably 12 melts worth of steel in it. Which incudes the remelts of the melts. Between that bar and this bar i made a fair amount for testing and even made some for trades with other smiths. Then i took a break ajd started working on other projects. Charcoal is expensive, and i get bored of making charcoal in the retort. I revived this project after spending the day at Jesvs's old house on top of the mountain. He had a lot of spare crane cable, and implored me to use it in remelts. So this past spring i decided to do probably another 20 melts or so testing out one parameter of the furnace to another. I even ran into some problems that required me to have a neureaka moment while reading Art of the Japanese Sword. This last bar is made from remelted crane cable for the most part and my hope is that the differing feed materials may lend to a contrasting hada on the blade in the end. Ive found that the feed material isnt all that important. I still have tk send pieces for analysis, but my suspicion is that the remelt process at least strips the steel of Mn in the melt. My testing with the remelts over time have indicated this. Ive melted 1018 that had .8Mn per spec sheet, and the resulting 5 fold steel example was as shallow as you would expect from Mn devoid steels. The modern steel remelt also did not require a 2nd or 3rd remelting to achieve the cleanest steel possible either. It all folds and sticks to itself like a dream.

Seems people missed my orishigane thread too.