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I started my first knife tonight, though I've had the design sketched out for awhile. I finally got my workbench up and running. Thank you to everyone who has posted in Beginners place for the helpful information and instruction, especially "BOLT EVERYTHING DOWN!". Tonight I took my 1095 flat-bar, sketched out the outline and cut it out. I'm still working on my grinding wheel, so I had to use my angle grinder, 1x30 belt grinder, and a sanding drum connected to my drill press, but I got my first blank mostly finished out.

Hey all! Here's an 8" chefs knife that didn't quite fit the order. To begin with, I've been so excited about using stainless that I forgot the order was for a chef's knife in 1084. I hammered this one out of the last piece of AEB-L that I had in the shop. It wasn't quite enough to forge the blade I wanted to make, but I continued on with the process. I got all the way to the point where I was ready to drill tang hike in the handle block. That's when I realized my mistake. I set it on the back burner while I forged a replacement blade this morning that left me with plenty of material to make the knife that was requested of me. After forging the replacement, I figured I'd go ahead and put a handle on. I chose a piece of figured mango I had sitting around for well over a decade and a piece of black and white buffalo horn. Like the title says, I'm adding pictures of the 1084 blade I would have made to begin with. I started with a piece of 1/4 x 1 1/2 x 8". I started with a solid shoulder, upset it to ensure I have mass to fill out the entire edge. There were a bunch of steps I should have taken pictures of, but didn't, sadly. Here's the rough forging before anything else is done. Here's the rough ground blade is with a cut out of the handle i put on the other handle

Back to some projects that were on pause for a few months while I relocated my workshop...here's the first: The inome (pronounced “ee-no-may”, 猪の目, eye of the boar) name comes from the pierced heart-shape designs on the decorative o-seppa (washers) on either side of the tsuba (handguard). This lovely motif is ubiquitous in Japan, seen often in architecture, furniture, and sword mountings. In this context, the inome symbol conveys the idea of the always forward-moving wild boar of Japan’s forests and mountains, never giving up or retreating. This tanto was forged from an antique horse-drawn carriage spring in 2016, was used at several demos as an example of the forged surface as it comes out of the fire, made a cameo in a short film in 2017 as one of the filing stages, was finished with geometry inspired by a visit to Japan in 2018, and is the first of my blades to incorporate antique sword parts in its mounting. Here's where we are headed... Materials for the chisagatana style koshirae mounting include Japanese hounoki wood for the handle and scabbard, copper bus bar for the habaki, reclaimed brass doorplate for a seppa, buffalo horn for the mekugi and kurikata, and an iron spike salvaged from thirty feet under the Pacific for the tsuba. The centerpiece of the mounting comes from an outdoor antique market in Kyoto, a gold-accented Edo-era fuchi made from nanako-ji (魚子地, fish roe) textured shakudo (a traditional alloy of gold, silver, and copper). The tsuba sits between two Showa-era zouheitou (officer’s sword) o-seppa with pierced inome (猪の目, eye of the boar) motifs. The saya is finished in black sabi-nuri (rust texture) style ishime-ji (stone surface) made from natural source urushi lacquer and ground tea leaves, and the koiguchi band is also antique. The blade is 8.75″ long, overall length is just under 13.5″, and the overall length of the koshirae is just over 15″. Specifications 長さ/刃長 Nagasa: 7 sun 3 bu 5 rin (222mm) 元幅 Motohaba: 9 bu (27mm) 重ね/元重 Motokasane: 2 bu 3 rin (7mm) 反り Sori: uchizori 中心/茎 Nakago: 3 sun 6 bu (109mm) 柄長 Tsuka: 3 sun 2 bu 5 rin (98mm) 拵全長 Koshirae: 12 sun 6 bu (382mm) 形 Katachi: hira-zukuri, iori-mune 刃文 Hamon: suguha, with ubuha 帽子/鋩子 Boshi: ko-maru 中心/茎 Nakago: futsu, kuri-jiri, one mekugi-ana, signed near the tip 銘 Mei: hot stamped katabami-ken kamon 拵 Koshirae: chisagatana, issaku (with the addition of four antique parts) Material: Reclaimed carriage spring steel, Edo-period gold and shakudo nanako fuchi, antique brass koiguchi and Showa-era zouheitou o-seppa, ocean-salvaged iron spike, copper bus bar, brass doorplate, buffalo horn, Hounoki, leather, natural urushi and tea leaves ...and here's where we started... Forged to within ~1mm of the final shape (including bevels) and filed only around the profile. This tanto was used at several demos as an example of the surface as it comes out of the fire. Using water on the anvil during the final stages of forging keeps the surface clean and smooth. Smoothing the surface with sen (scraper), files, and draw-filing in preparation for application of clay for yaki-ire. Habaki forged to shape, fire soldered, fit and cold hardened by hammering, and finished using hand files. ...on to the koshirae (mounting) next... A custom made tang shaped punch is used to create the opening in the iron tsuba and it is shaped, textured, and rust patinated before carefully hammering in copper sekigane (責金) to protect the blade. The rust patina is polished using an antler tip, boiled in water to convert red iron oxide to stable black iron oxide, then given a thin layer of natural fukiurushi lacquer and baked to cure. The weathering process used during forging, called yakite or yakinamashi, involves oxidizing the surface using high heat and an oxygen-rich charcoal forge blast, periodically dipping quickly into water and wire brushing to reveal naturally occurring hard and soft areas of the iron. The exposed high areas of harder iron that remain after wear and weathering are known as tekkotsu (鉄骨, iron bones) and compliment the hammer textured (槌目地, tsuchimei-ji) surface. The habaki is patinated using a blend of copper salts similar to rokusho. When just the right shade is reached, old and newly crafted parts begin to work together as a team. After carving, the leather wrapping is secured to the tsuka using nori-urushi, a mixture of natural urushi lacquer and sokui (rice paste glue). The wrapping is fit between an Edo-period fuchi in shakudo and gold and a newly carved and lacquered horn kashira. The horn kashira has a tenon made from horn that fits into the wood core of the tsuka and is attached with sokui. After carving the inside to fit the blade the halves are rejoined with sokui and the scabbard is shaped with kanna and smoothed with fine rasps. An antique koiguchi band is fit while carefully preserving the natural patina of the centuries. A horn kurikata is shaped and fit to the saya using a carved sliding dovetail. The joint between the halves is reinforced with washi paper and sokui along both sides. The first layer of natural fukiurushi seals the wood and prepares the surface for the following layers. A second layer is used to adhere finely screened ground tea leaves and allowed to cure. A third layer saturates and seals the tea and is filed down to create the desired surface texture. After wiping clean (shown above), the rough filed lacquer with tea showing through the surface resembles a true sabi-nuri (rusted steel surface), similar to an old cast iron tetsubin tea kettle. A fourth and final layer of very thin black urushi is wiped over to seal and darken the surface. The black fukiurushi highlights the combination of smooth peaks and pitted valleys and turns the look to ishime-ji (stone surface). A look at all the koshirae parts before assembly (with the exception of the kashira already glued in place). Once all the parts are made and fitted the blade can be taken through the final polishing stages using Japanese waterstones. Several fine natural stones make up the last steps, right down to small fingertip-sized stone flakes with washi paper lacquered to the back for strength. ...on to assembly next...

I am teaching A 6 day long falchion Class at Grizzly Ironworks in Phoenix this week. First day in in the books and the students all have blades forged to shape from 1084. I managed to demo or have examples of several styles of falchion.. tomorrow we grind in preparation for heat treating!. MP Q

Two little Damascus hidden Tang knives. Ready for fittings and handles

Thought i would start a WIP on my next project, a bird and trout hunting knife. First up is the design process. I wanted something that would come in under 250mm (10") total length, and be nice in the hand and easy to control for skinning or delicate work. Its going to be used for hunting and fishing here in Zim, so should be able to fillet a bream (Oreochromis niloticus) which can have quite a deep body on a big one, and be tough enough to slit the throat of a thrashing wildebeest that my uncles .375 messed up on... again. The steel used in going to be old leaf spring, from the same piece as my previous blade. After some performance testing I have no doubts as to its durability and edge retention. Handle will once again be teak (Baikiaea plurijuga). Im still torn between full tang and hidden tang construction. any one have any thoughts? here is the working design: if anyone wants to weigh in on the design, now's the time

When I'm making something I've never made before I start out with plain bar stock until I get all the forging and shaping right. I started with damascus, since I had a billet left over from last year, but I realized that I would need to figure out some forging tricks and make some tools to reproduce the complex shape of pesh kabz. The pesh kabz is an Indo-Persian blade made to pierce chain mail. It is long, can be straight, curved or decurve/recurve. It has a very strong point that widens to open up the links of chain mail. They have a T-shaped spine for rigidity, and a thick edge for strength, but the flats are deeply carved or fullered to make a light blade. A very good example can be found at the Met: http://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/aa/original/36.25.721_002june2014.jpg I forged one out before this one, but there were some burnt spots in the 1095 so it's not worth finishing (got distracted by visitors). This one I started with a 1 1/2"x1/4" bar of Aldo's 80CRV2, which forges very nicely. I started forging out the profile to get some thickness in the spine and edge. Here I've just forged some of the flat in with a spring fullering tool, and the spine is spread out into a T by forging with a light hammer and not much heat, dark orange to dull red. I can clamp the flat of the blade in a leg vise and shape the spine. This works very well once the spine is established. Yes, it looks very rough at this point! The spine and edge are a little over 3/8" at this point.

Hello fellows, Here I will record my efforts to create my first sword. This project started about two years ago when I managed to get a hold of a rather big piece of wootz made by Peter Swarz-Burt of Dragon's Breath Forge in Connecticut. Fun story, as I was in talks with Peter over email to buy some wootz he suddenly dissapeared to Hawaii, so I had to wait for the wootz a bit longer. A few months later I was watching the first season of Forged in Fire and I though "Hey that name looks familiar...". It was Peter!! [spolier] He won, and happily proclaimed that he was gonna take his wife to Hawaii for the price money! Really cool to see these amazing smiths compete in their craft. Don't worry about the extra wait Peter, it only took me two years to gather the courage to forge the wootz! No stress! I'm a very mediocre smith, kind of a newbie accually. So I wanted a simple shape. First I wanted to do a single edged viking, Norwegian style, but changed it to a proper double edged sword with almost parallell edges and a rounded tip. Slap on a very Norwegian type H hilt and call it a day. Part I: Making guard and pommel I made these parts almost two years ago and only recorded the progress using a crappy old iPhone 3 camera, so please excuse this poor attempt at photography. The guard and pommel is made from a big chunk of cast grey iron. I shaped it with simple tools; hacksaw and files. I did the rough cut with a bandsaw at my work. Slowly the shape gets closer and closer. This material is quite easy to file and saw because the graphite in it lubricates, so that helps, but the massive size is something new to me. Pommel and guard are shaped and boiled in concentrated lemon juice for 20 min to reveal the fantastic texture of grey iron. Grey iron is cast iron with enough carbon to have graphite crystals in the structure (3-4% carbon). But the pommel needs some bling bling and brass is flash! I did copper inlays by filing with a needle file with lenticular cross section and then cutting in overhangs with knife and hammer. Hammer in copper like so. Sorry about the photo. Finished pommel. But i dipped it in ferric chloride and I don't like the surface. I'm gonna re-polish the surface and do a new finish by boiling in lemon juice, like the picture above. Next up will be forging the blade of wootz and rough shaping with angle grinder. I need to edit and select some photos first. Cheers!

I have one for you guys: How much distal taper do you think I need for proper geometry on this blade? It's 3/16 thick at the ricasso and the blade is 4" long. Draw filing is exhausting and I wouldn't want to have a weird geometry at the end :/ As you can see I tapered the spine. This is fun Thank you!

Hello! Yesterday I started new project - pattern welded pipehawk. It is my second attempt to forge pipehawk. I started with a sketch with dimentions: And then I cut pieces of steel for billet, one were made out of 50HF spring steel and S235 low carbon steel, and second out of 50HF and NCV1, Billets ready for forge welding, the bigger one have 30 layers and 1640 gram of weight, smaller one has 20 layers and 888 grams of weight. Few pictures of forging using power hammer, fluxing and heating up. Billets ready for grinding, cutting and welding After welding both have 120 layers, I marked and forged the bigger billet into the U-shape Now is time to forge the pipe: When the pipe is ready, I improved it's shape and then I cut out piece of smaller billet for a blade. When everything is alright, it's time for forge welding entire hawk. The pipehawk after forging: At the end of this day I finished the pipe on a lathe. Now it's weight is 890 grams. Enjoy

This is a thread on a knife that has been designed after extensive testing of a great number of production and semi production knives for the safari hunter. It will not be used to skin lots of animals as the skinning staff will do that but it has to be able to do so. It would be best if I post the important parts of the thread that lead to this series of knives so you will have the background understanding for the design concept for both the knife and the sheath. A reasonably long test report but it sets the paremeters for the eventual design I will make up for aproval. I have C&P the relevant bits from the African Hunting forum where I have been for a number of years. Best Safari Knife Shoot Out – 2017 D. Troy Moritz & Austringer Outfitters What makes a knife a “safari knife” and who does it best? We logged hundreds of hours distilling the core requirements for a proper safari knife, created testing criterion and ran some of the best knives in the world through their paces. Who reigns supreme? Our requirements which we determined based upon reasonable use cases can best be described as follows, although none of the entrants actually achieved all functional and non-functional requirements: 1.) Suitable for General Field Craft. Examples of this trait would be cutting a few branches from a blind here and there, sharpening a stick or two for grilling up the sand grouse skewers for lunch over the mopane wood fire and other basic bushcraft duties. 2.) Fit for use as a Standard Hunting Knife. Can the knife dress a large game animal at least to the point of quartering, removing loins and backstraps, basic bird/fish cleaning and other standard and customary hunting duties. 3.) The tourist’s Odd Jobs while on safari. Is the knife razor sharp enough to do the near impossible task of cutting a fine Cuban cigar in the bush without destroying a fine stick? Can it act as a cigar cutter 10x in a row without being dull? What about cutting into biltong all day as you try to snack on dried cross grain cut meats and jerkys? 4.) The multi-tool of unforeseen and inappropriate jobs. Contrary to all good sense and fair judgment, can the knife do things you ought not due like pry open rusted small lock to get at the tools or tire? Can the knife endure the abuse of use as an emergency ice pick to get perfect size shavings for your gin and tonic? In short, can it endure misuse and abuse that in good conscience should void the warranty on any knife? 5.) Maintains its edge and sharpens with minimal effort. Dull knives are not useful and they serve as a particular nuisance when you’re 8,000 miles from your Japanese Whetstone. Does the knife have a Scandinavian single bevel grind that makes sharpening imbecile proof in the field? Does the steel alloy make touch ups of the blade against a leather scabbard or inside of your leather belt possible? We dulled all the blades and went on to see how easy they touch up with a quick strop knowing a proper sharpening is not likely. 6.) Proportionally appropriate for the tasks of a safari in both form and function. The knives tested all were fixed blade models that could provide slashing, thrusting and <gulp> prying abilities. Proper handles that fit adult hands with good indexing and blade geometry, reasonable 3-4” blades, quality sheaths and all within the realms of suitable “bushcraft style” knives that are clearly multi-purpose knives that would be suitable proxies for traditional hunting knives when called upon. We ran a great many contestants through their paces under many different conditions in a three phase process. Phase 1 – Over 30 knives were tested in the USA in backyard conditions to see if they held any promise as contenders. In addition to the knives featured here we looked at everything from classic WWII Kabars, Case, Bucks, Beckers, Condors, Ontario, Benchmade, Gerber, Helle, Spyderco and Moro. Phase 2 – More than a dozen knives made it past the initial testing and got to be used on an actual hunt in Texas. During this field test we field dressed several deer, started fires with ferocium rods, cut a few cigars to celebrate the day’s successes and even used them as utensils at some dinners. Phase 3 – The preliminary finalists were sent for final testing in Zimbabwe for more than two weeks of rigorous use and carry in real world safari conditions. During this third phase Professional Hunters, Clients, National Parks Rangers, Skinners and Trackers all got to put these knives through rigorous endurance tests to see just what sort of punishment was endured. In the end, we had four winners that will surely guide your decision making towards the right knife for your upcoming safari. The winners are:

Today was a good day. I took my class on a spontaneous field trip. Our quest, to locate and harvest some bog iron ore was a big success. All thanks to a fellow smith Karmo who provided us a quest map with location markers and an example of the desired loot. As a side bonus we found 50+kg of railroad memorabilia, that will all be forged into something fun and useful. Next we need to build a pair of bellows. Any suggestions on how best to prep the ore for the smelt?

On a hunting forum the guys had seen a couple of my knife projects and it was sugested that a group buy might be in order so this is the result with them all profiled with coarse belt today. Nine round butt skinners on top with a pair of boys knives, 2 light hunters, a reverse angled hunter skinner, 2 wapiti hunters and 3 boners on the bottom row. May get the egdes all tidied up with fine belts tomorrow and start cleaning up the faces.

Good morrow, fellow smiths. I present for your consideration my first attempt at a small (one-handed) battle axe in the Viking mode. If I did my research right, this should be something like a Petersen type C axe, though I'm not going to try to claim historical accuracy on this one because the eye shape is a tomahawk-style teardrop, and because it's made of one solid chunk of steel. I documented the whole process so that those of you who know more than I do can critique it, and hopefully it will of value to those of you who are looking to get into axe-making. Anyway, without further ado, the pictures: Starting off. For the love of Weyland, get fresh steel bar stock if you can. Forging a jeep axle into a rectangular bar by hand is terrible. The blank. It weighs about a pound and a half, and is about 1x1.25x4.5" (don't quote me on that, I forgot to measure it). I've upset the lefthand end a bit to give me more flare for the beard. I also tried to keep the top side of the bar flat while upsetting, because I want a much greater curve on the bottom than on the top. Starting to punch the eye. In the past I have slit the eyes, but I have found that punching gives me tidier ends on the eye. This punch, as it turns out, is actually too big for my drift. I usually start punching/slitting on the top side of the bar, because for whatever reason the side of the hole that I punch first seems to get larger than the side I punch second. Hole and slug. Opening the hole. Usually right after this I will start using the drift to do most of the eye shaping, but I knew that my eye hole was too big and that it wasn't going to take much forging to size it, so I moved on to forging out the bit. After getting the bit profiled, I drew out the langets a bit on the horn of the anvil. You can use the drift to do this, too, but the drift cools the axe head very quickly and shortens your forging window. I try to do as little work as possible with the axe on the drift. Also, if you're not careful, you can get teh axe head stuck pretty solidly on the drift as it cools. It's bad, m'kay? Final sizing of the eye, and doing the last bit of tweaking to make sure the blade is square to the body and handle. Profiling with files. I wanted a sort of filed finish on this one, so the vast majority of shaping was done by hand. Also, my grinder is not set up in such a way as to allow me to grind the large flats of an axe like this. The axe head ready for heat-treatment. I eventually decided to trim a bit off the edge towards the toe to improve things aesthetically. The eye did get a little wonky because the drift wasn't quite big enough, but I managed to compensate with some creative filework. Stay tuned for part 2: Making and fitting the haft.

Hello all, I have been studying most aspects of Katana making for about 8 years now, and have been using them as a martial artist long before that. I have just now got the guts to try my hand, and as I attained so much valuable information from this forum I figured it was the least I could do to give a little back by documenting my progress here. First I would like to show a process I've used to analyze swords digitally. I use Google Sketchup to do this. I import images (finding good images is half the battle) after turning on high resolution in sketchup, then scale it to size based off of the nagasa measurement. Then I can trace the edges with curve tools, which allows me to analyze the radius of every part of the blade. Here are a couple of the Sue Bizen katana I studied for this project. This coupled with a lot of reading on the shapes and characteristics of katana at the time period I was looking at allowed me to come up with my own plan for a sword that fits this style. The curve of a katana is not defined by a single radius, but several. The most important 2 are the main curve along most the length, and the heightened curve along the first 5ish inches from the machi (often the term fumbari is used here, which is confusing because that can also relate to taper in width overall and not this specific area, correct me if I'm wrong?). From studying many swords I have found that the smaller radius in the first 5ish inches is almost always very close to half the radius of the larger one. Making me think that exactly half is what they went for. The next couple photos will hopefully make sense of what I am talking about. Two circles, one of 100" radius, one of 50" radius Zoomed in, 3 sections created. Where the circles meet, 5" before, and 21.5" after. A little trimming and here is the final desired spine curvature (the only change later will be the kissaki, which curves slightly up) From here I can add my desired blade widths from my 3 major points. The first 5" contains about 1/3rd the overall taper from machi to yokote. I can also use a geometrical shape to consistently lay out my shinogi. The main curve on the ha mimics the radius of the main curve of the mune, and the curve in the fumbari area is a tangent to this and is usually in between the radius of the the large and small circle Once I had all this worked out, I needed to create a sunobe that would turn into that shape once the bevels are formed. This is actually fairly simple. The sunobe is straight and curve comes from forging the bevels or quench, so make everything straight and add or subtract curve where you want more or less in the final shape. In this case, I left everything straight in the sunobe except the first 4-5 inches on the mune which will have a slight radius already, accounting for the non-even taper. After a lot of back and forth forging, drawing out more and cutting back down due to lack of experience, here is my rough sunobe made from Aldo's 1075

working away at things...but time to emerge from the shop for a few minutes and post... Satoyama are the managed forest areas that border the cultivated fields and the mountain wilds in Japan. Historically they provided fertilizer, firewood, edible plants, mushrooms, fish, and game, and supported local industries such as farming, construction, and charcoal making. Balancing the interaction of wetlands, streams, forests, and fields is an important component of the satoyama landscape and allows for sustainable use of the rich resources they offer. About the Tools for Satoyama Project (more: islandblacksmith.ca/2016/03/tools-for-satoyama) The Tools for Satoyama project is inspired by this mutually beneficial interaction between humans and the natural world, a robust way of life that sustained both for centuries. Among the goals of the project are contributing to the growing awareness of the satoyama concept, sustainable practices, thoughtful approaches to intentional living, and related historical learning. The four styles of kotanto knives designed for the project are named for the four main areas found within the satoyama landscape: stream, field, forest, and mountain. In addition, the forest and mountain models also come in a full sized tanto configuration. Some of the core characteristics of the knives produced for this project are the reclaimed and natural source materials, use of traditional techniques, and a humble and simple style of carving and finishing. About the Mountain Kotanto (more: islandblacksmith.ca/2016/08/process-making-the-mountain-kotanto) The wider profile of the mountain style kotanto is inspired by a kamakura sword and has a more deeply curved tip (fukura-tsuku) and shorter drop point. The simple and humble mounting style is inspired by the age-old style of farming and foresting tools traditionally used in managing satoyama lands. Project Overview Video

Hi! I want to show You my current project, it is an ulfberht sword blade, welded from 4 pieces, 2 turned 18-layers bars(50HF and S235 stell) and 2 blades(50HF steel). At the moment the blade is fully welded and place for inscription is chiseled(2 days of chiseling, the grooves are 3mm wide and 4mm deep) Tomorrow I'm starting to weld a bar for inscription. After matching the bar inside the grooves and welding it, it is time for forging edges and fuller. It is the hardest part for me, previously I failed at this point. The blade delaminated on edges a little after forging the fuller on dies with power hammer. Do you have some advice for me at this moment of work? The chiseled inscriptions: The pattern on rough forged blade (it is flat at this moment): And chisels I made from NC6 steel: Regards, Rafał Garbacik!

Just forged this beast up from a chunk of leaf spring, this photo is just after profile grinding. I kind of made this on a whim, I started with a drop point camp knife in mind but it just evolved into this. I do not currently have a plan for the level of polish, fittings or handle so I am up to your suggestions. Thanks for the help all

I'm finally starting on my first completely custom Longsword that hasn't been made from scrap and spare parts from the shop. Haven't quite gotten around to posting many of my past works yet, so I'll start with my current build! Starting off, the design of this sword is pretty sizable.I am also loosely basing it off of an Oakeshott type XX. At 46"(116.64cm) in overall length, it'll have quite the reach. The blade will be 36" (91.44cm) from tip to shoulders. It will be made from stock removal of a pre-tempered 5160 blank, cut to profile.The guard and pommel are pretty hefty. Made from a mild plate steel, the material on the guard is starting out a 3/8"(.9525cm) in thick and the pommel is 1/2"(1.27cm) thick. they will be extensive sculpted and blackened. Hopefully my idea of a copper wire inlay will pan out. I'll be doing a heat blackening, I'm not sure how that will affect copper wire. So if anyone has any info or other suggestions, I'm all ears) An interesting feature will be a channel which will start at the bottom of the pommel and continue through the handle and end in a sort of arrowhead depression in the center block of the guard. Engravings all throughout the channel, as well as the large fuller that runs about 2/3 of the length of the blade. I started on the guard today, but forgot to snap my pictures. More will come tomorrow. For now i have a sketch that is pretty close to accurate in terms of proportions. Let me know what you guys think!

Double Twist Seax I’ve been sneaking in some morning practice before work this week. So far this week I was able to prep some previously forged out 10 layers stacks. I twisted two 8 inch bars and stacked them between some wrought iron from old wagon wheels. Then I welded those bars with the 1095 edge bar together with a handle for ease of forging. Next I forge welded that whole set together. That’s a fun and tricky process. The hard part is keeping the temperature consistent throughout the whole piece since the wrought iron needs to be worked at a temperature where carbon steel can burn up. However, I was able to get a good weld. I checked this by grinding out the side topography and concentrating on any potential problems. I did have to take one side pretty low for a weird twist flaw so I will have to take care not to thin that section out any further during the remainder of the process. Once the bar is solidly welded and ground, I was able to forge the blade profile. I started with the edge profile working up to the point. This “pushes” steel up the edge into the tip which helps make it protrude further. I did do a little grinder clean up on that, more will be required soon. Next I used a handmade tool to help me forge in the tang. The tool I use sure does make it much faster to forge a tang than just using a hammer. As you can see the pattern is starting to show a little bit through the scale and it looks pretty good. I still need to do the final profiling and straightening before I do a grind then heat treat and final grind. If I get some time this weekend I may just be able to make that happen. My fingers are crossed. Follow this build on my blog here.

1095, 1/4" thick, distal taper and a LONG way to go before the blade is finished. Going to be a threaded through tang, cable mokume guard and pommel. Handle material is spalted hickory.

Hi ! During summer I build a new workshop, made a new power hammer and now I start a new project, Polish saber, karabela type. I decided to made it from damascus steel, I choose 1045 and ncv1 steel, 3 billets, 18 layers each, 450 g. weight. After the first weld: Heating to the welding temperature in my gas-forge: And after forging on the power hammer: After forging I use the stell rolling mill to get flat surface and equal thickness on the lenght: 3 billets after forging: After grinding and forging the weight get loss from 1350 to 1083 gram. Each billet cut into the 5 pieces, restack and after forging i get the 90 layers: Forging: and all three billet after forging process: Now I loose less weight then previous time: And now all three prevous billets weld together to make one big billet, after forging I get 270 layers: And ready to forging 7mm thickness bar: It has 3 cm width, 60 cm length, and 870 g. weight. Here is the bar after the forging process, I got the 85 cm length blade, in the widest point is 34mm, After first grinding I mark the fullers and start to grinding the blade: During the forging and grinding I did not notice any delamination, so I'm very happy of welding quality in this piece. Now it is after the grinding, near the tang I got 2 wide fullers and 1 narrow fuller on the back of blade, in the middle near blade is 1 wide fuller, near back is 3 narrow fullers, and at the point there is 2 wide fullers. I hardened the blade already, and now hand grinding the blade, after that I made a video showing flexibility of the blade Regards, Rafał Garbacik

Today I started my KITH project, I'm still working on the actual design for the build, but figured I should start my billet now... Yep, all hands in, (my own two that is) making a pattern weld by hand hammer for this! Starting with four layers of 1095, and three of 15N20, for a seven layer first weld. Here goes nothing!!!

Cross y'all's fingers.....

Hi guys, so just for something completely new on here, i thought i'd have a go at making a seax i'm aiming for something reasonably accurate, but since i haven't done all that much research on them we'll see how it goes. my plan is to finish it to look like a well aged piece with lots of pitting and worn high spots, so i'm not too worried that there's scale and hammer marks. here is the blade forged from leaf spring annealed, rough ground, and carved into with a sharpened concrete nail (far from an ideal graver) on top of concept sketch view of spine trying to show tapers any tips on how to clean up the carved lines? wondering if this makes any sense? i'm trying to write "saul made me" on the other side of the blade. and whether it's from the right time period? the spine is 5.5mm at the widest point and tapers slightly towards tang and tip. blade is roughly 210mm or 8 1/4 inches long and 29mm or 1 1/8 inches wide any thoughts or criticism more than welcome!! more to come, thanks for looking