Aiden CC

Thank you @jake pogrebinsky for all of the information! I’ll try and find to put it into practice in the near future. I was able to find a source of old cross cut saw blades of local (Danish) manufacture that seem to have good steel for these knives. I’ll probably keep this first knife to practice with as now I’m living somewhere where I catch fish big enough to be worth filleting! My record in Colorado was a 45 cm trout, broken easily by my first cod in Denmark.

For the past year I’ve been preparing for this move, and I’m about to go to the appointment to finalize my work permit, so I figured now would be a good time to post about this. To make a long story short, I will be pursuing a PhD in metallurgical engineering in Denmark to join my partner who is currently living there. She has been mentioned here occasionally as my lovely Slovak, Czech, and Russian translator as well as the recipient for a variety of jewelry pieces and spoon carving tools. My shop and inventory will be packed up with a trusted relative in the USA, and I will probably have have some time in the next few years to work with my own tools, but will largely be taking a break from the intensive work I’ve done lately. I spent about two and a half months in Copenhagen while finalizing my job search (funded in no small part by good knife sales this year). I managed to find a lovely knife making group in Vanløse using a school wood shop, so in the very least I will be continuing to work on knives there. They have been incredibly welcoming, and I have some pieces in the works to give back to the people there who really helped me get up and going. While I was networking the past few months, I’ve found a surprising number of connections in Denmark, so I figured I would each out here too. If anyone here is in Denmark and would be interested in going out for a beer, collaborating on a project, or anything in between I would love to hear from you! My current plan is to arrive in early January, though the visa process has been complicated and drawn out and my plans might have to change. Thanks for reading a non-knife related post, and, again, I would love to hear from anyone in Denmark! I’ll be living in Copenhagen, but for the first month or so won’t really have any responsibilities, and would be happy to meet with anyone outside of Sjælland as well!

A couple more in time for the holidays, more details and photos at the Etsy link for each knife. First, another hat sheath puukko: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1629323321 $250 including domestic shipping And another longer one: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1629320429/ $235 including domestic shipping

Things have been a bit chaotic lately, but I found some time to work on knives. I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire so to speak, but I put the priority on these blades, whipped up in the past couple of days. A handful of my “bread and butter” styles with a few pukkos, Sakha knives, and a leuku.

As the title says, I finally got around to re-lining my forge, and upon starting it up, the temperature is lower than before for the same regulator setting by a considerable amount. So far, I have torn out the old lining, put in 2” of wool, rigidized it, put in a floor tile, and coated the surfaces with Satanite. Is it possible that there is too much restriction around the burner inlets? Here is what it looks like: I had to readjust that area, since the burner nozzles were somewhat mushroomed out and I couldn’t remove them. I also have some ITC 100 I plan to put on, but I wanted to make sure the forge was cured well, and maybe put on another layer of Satanite first. Could the coating make that much of a difference? I think the forge probably was intially lined in some places with that coating, but the walls were actually made of ceramic tile originally.

After a few months away from the shop, I’m back at it until the New Year! I’m currently in the process of re-lining my forge (honestly amazed the initial lining lasted so long) so starting on forging will have to wait until a bit while it drys enough to fire up. In the past I’ve done raised inlay soft metal work for non-knife projects, but I decided to get geared up to do the flush inlay you see in some seax blades. I have some HSS gravers coming to try out, but to start I did a quick practice with my kinko chisels. Here is a piece of copper wire placed in the groove. I used a V-chisel then raised a lip with the same pushers I use for raised inlay. I tried out a straight line with a slight dogleg to try out curves. Turned out fairly well for a 10 minute test, though I obviously have a way to go. The test piece is a blade I quenched in August to make a replica of the sax from Sweden with the carved handle, which is unfortunately riddled with cracks.

I finally decided to re line my forge after 8 years. I’ve patched it here and there and used a replaceable shelf on the floor for flux, but it was definitely time: So far I have installed and rigidized two layers of wool, and put in a layer of castable to go under a ceramic floor tile I got from Chile Forge, as I was quite happy with the durability of the original. The plan is to let the floor cure, then cover the walls with Satanite and finally ITC 100

Thanks, all! I also got some advice from someone who solely makes this type of knife and it agrees with what everyone has said here. It seems like drilling/milling is the way. He mentioned that burning in a tang could also work in some instances. This knife has been on the backburner for a while, but I have some time today to get back to it.

Thanks! The hammer in question has been through a lot. There was some damage to that corner from a miss-hit that I have since dressed out, that may be what you are seeing? I’ve been away from the shop for a while, but next week I’ll be back to work on knives for about a month and a half. I realized I had some work I hadn’t posted here yet: First, my biggest hearth run yet, done before disassembly of the hearth in its entirety. My blade smithing will be intermittent for the next few years, this file should hopefully last me most of that time. A few blades here. From left to right: a broadsax with the blade profile of a full tang broadsax that will inspire the handle shape, a replica of the blade of that seax from Sweden with the carved handle, and a replica of the Viking age knife with the curly cue tang. Unfortunately only the sax survived the quench. Finally, some blades for knives I’ve seen a few times in the museum here in Copenhagen, found in a bog in Vimose. The handles on many of these iron are blades were amazingly well preserved, so I look forward for working on these soon.

I’ve used a number of different air sources and I would say the most important things are: 1) being able to move enough air and 2) having control over the air flow. If you plan on doing this a lot, I would highly recommend buying a used HVAC blower if some kind or another and a cheap 0-10V controller for it. You can also regulate the flow of a something like a shop vac with a valve, not sure how well that would work with compressed air but it might be possible. I imagine it might be difficult to have the fine control you get with a variable speed blower.

This one has been finished for a little while, but I realized I hadn’t listed it here yet. A medium size broken back seax, inspired by the profile of the Honeylane seax. This one is hearth steel and wrought iron, with an interesting auto-hamon visible in the edge bar. The blade is 220 mm (8 5/8”) long Price is $1,025 including domestic shipping. More details at the Etsy listing, but also feel free to reach out with any questions! https://www.etsy.com/listing/1579108100/

Nice job! I've been meaning to try making my own round rivets for a while, but haven't ever gotten around to it. I will say that having made and used some of the larger flat headed rivets, they also have a tendency to come out a bit wonky. One thing that helps with round rivet heads is to make a block with a divot to hold the head on the anvil. I use a copper plate that I put dents in with a series of dome headed punches. You get a lot of control over the contact that way. Once the rivet is started, I also like to tilt the sheath and rotate how it is tilted in a circle as I go. One last thing is I found it helpful to grind/file off any work hardening at the end of the rivet shank. I found that riveting the edge made by wire cutters didn't always work out well.

Great to see a finished knife from your material! Ditto to Emiliano and Alan about the pattern, it came out quite nicely. Are the twists made form two different irons? It looks like you have some decent contrast there. Incidentally, if a particular source of wrought seems to have trouble picking up carbon in the hearth, it can be a sign that it is high phosphorous, and good for pattern welding.

Nice job with the stitching! Did you use a curved awl for the tunnel side, or bunch up the leather/some other approach? Either way, it came out quite neatly.

I’ve recently been away from from shop, but have found a place where I can do some wood working and hand-tool work with metal. I’ve wanted to try making an ulu for a while and this seemed like a good time. Here is what I have so far, shaping with a hacksaw and files actually went pretty quickly: It still needs some tweaks (like finishing the handle shape and alignment), and any general critique is welcome of course, but my main question is this: in the future, how would you avoid those gaps from sawing the slot for the handle? I got to see some in person (below) and I don’t think most of them have gaps like that?