Alan Longmire

Up to you guys, but yeah, looks like everyone except Joel has posted.

Somebody send a PM to all the entrants to make sure we have everyone tomorrow.

This long weekend I managed to get one of the bunch of three folders I'm working on ready to add scales to prior to final assembly. The other two got new blades (one of them twice when the dovetail cutter slipped and broke through the first replacement blade ) and one got a new spring when it turned out the first one didn't want to be tweaked any further. All parts currently cooling down in their respective tempering ovens, the blades in the brick-filled toaster and the spring in the Evenheat. Here's the one that worked from the beginning. I kind of lik

I'd carefully tape over it and neurotically slowly file down the spacers. Call the rabbit a March Hare, he does look angry...

I was holding off on clay comments until I found out the steel type, but Emiliano beat me to it! Always do what he says, BTW, just remember he's a wizard and don't expect your results to be as good. But yes, thinner clay, by all means. With the Rutlands, just a skin is enough. As you noticed, it puffs up enough to really insulate. Speaking of which, insulation is not the goal here. The sole purpose of the clay is to interrupt the quench just enough to delay hardening by about 1/16 second or so. With shallow-hardening steels like 1095, that's all it takes to get the wide band

What steel are you using? Some steels will not take hamon. On the plus side, you now know the sound and feel of the dreaded "tink!" Sometimess it's a little click, sometimes it feels like something in the tank grabbed the blade, but somehow it's all the same feeling.

First off, welcome aboard! Now the bad news... What you have there is classic case of quench cracks. Despite what the description says, 1095 in thin blade form should never be quenched in water or brine. It's just too harsh a quench. Thick 1095 stuff works okay, but thin blades will almost always crack on you. On your next one try using hot (hot enough you don't want to keep your finger in it) canola oil or mineral oil. That'll be a fast enough quench to fully harden the 1095 without cracking it. 1095 is picky. It has to be quenched fast to harden, but the line

For damascus these days most people use a high-nickel steel like 15n20, L6, or 8670 for the bright line, so there's no problem with differing hardness. In the old days (as in 1980-2000) we used pure nickel foil or A203E for the bright layers, and that did indeed result in a blade with hard and soft spots (for the pure nickel) or a lower carbon than anticipated (with the A203E). We didn't care. It was still pretty, and that's what we were after. For Japanese-style hamon, a lot of what you are seeing is due to lighting. If you use a reflection of a black background in the blade,

For a first attempt that's pretty awesome.

I don't have any help on finding it, but you can mention the shop here. We don't ban people for spam unless they're actually spamming. Good luck! Surely there's an Australian office for Uddeholm-Bohler?

Dude! Don't show that, they'll all want to move here!

It doesn't really do a lot to forge scale if diluted the way we usually use it, 3 or 4 to one with distilled water. You might have a hard time neutralizing it because of all the little pits in the scale. I'd just carefully wipe some on the polished part and see what happens.

Same here. I could use some good fish & chips! I have the vinegar...

That's sort of how I see it too. My toaster oven does not overshoot, though, ever. I have a thermocouple in it because the dial is not at all accurate. It's also full of hard firebrick. I bring all that mass up to heat (usually 350-400 F), let it stabilize, and when I put a blade(s) in it it doesn't even flinch. The temp might drop ten degrees with the door open, but it never goes over the high set point. It will drop up to 30 degrees below that point, though. %0 without the brick chunks in place. I do the preheat because I figure the radiant heat off the elements during initial heatu

I second John on the tray behind the vise. You can even make one that swings out of the way, but any tray there is worth its space in gold. I learned two things today, one good, one not so good but informative nonetheless. Under the "informative but not so good" heading, I learned today that I need to pay more attention when making a run of folder blades/spring sets. Turns out if you're off by 0.030 in a certain critical dimension (distance from pivot hole to bottom of tang), make sure you notice before you spend a day doing the HT on a set of three. One set worked perfectly, o