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Hello, I have been building blades for a couple years now, and working metal for over 20. I have not yet worked with any Damascus, and my daughter bought me a billet for Father's Day. My question is, can I put it in the forge to shape it to a blade, or should I go with stock removal. I would hate to damage it by heating and hammering.

Here is a video on forging a dagger.. It is what I like to call "Run and Gun forging".. This means the blade is simple forged from stock as you go along and not use a preform.. I wanted to forge a dagger and sadly, A dagger because of the geometry and the blade profile is not a great "run and gun" example.. I had a very hard time not making a preform because Daggers are excellent when done as a preform.. ON a "Run and gun" forging session the blade width and shape are constantly being adjusted.. This adjustment occurs and then needs to be fixed again and again.. For many this is how they forge.. there is nothing wrong with this.. But, there are also ways which using Run and Gun can be applied like any technique to good value.. I love to forge daggers and my preferred method for daggers is preforms.. I had a really hard time not just switching to a preform.. The corrections in blade width and sexiness were constantly modified.. This leads to a longer forging session and I prefer to forge to finished shape.. Preform short video: https://youtu.be/s7CAzGyZWQE Preform long video: https://youtu.be/2GPFMQuMTBk and Forging a dagger, run and gun sorta..

Hi all, I'm finally getting back into forging and bladesmithing after far too long. I'm curious about when other smiths forge in the various features of a blade. I typically forge the tang first, followed by tapering the point. Next I forge the profile and taper the thickness at the same time. Lastly, I forge the bevels keeping the desired profile as I do instead of precurving the blade.

Forging table legs.Table legs of metal with their hands,using hand forged fixtures for flexible components.Original design wrought iron legs for table from the forge Kovanca.

Hello, I am very new to knifemaking and bladesmithing and I am confused about hammering techniques and more specifically which side of the hammer to use for what. My hammer that I use is a 2lb engineer's hammer found at harbor freight that I modified into a rounding hammer on one side. I don't know if I made the "round" part well. I just ground off the edges until the face of one side of the hammer was dome-shaped. My understanding is that the rounding hammer is used to upset the metal in order to move it around quickly. This is because the force of the impact is concentrated into a smaller area when using a round hammer rather than a flat-faced hammer. So from this, I believe it wound be best to use the rounding hammer when forming the tang of the blade and forming the rough shape. Bevels are where I become confused. I'm not sure if I should use the rounding hammer or the flat side. Does anyone have a list of when/where to use the round and flat side of the hammer? Or is there another thread I can read?

This is a 25 minute film from around 1925~1931 of Belgian French or Flemish (not sure) Damascus gun barrel makers. I thought it was interesting enough to post here. https://youtu.be/fa9dlvRDuQU

So I had some iron or mild steel my brother discovered. He gave it to me and I was processing a bunch of curved and round bars the other day to be squared and straight for various stuff not for blades, but when I got to this one, something went wrong. It completely crumbled between cherry and orange hot. The whole thing just flew apart after a few hammer blows. I quenched it, put some WD40 on it, cover it in borax and attempted to weld the big crack back together. This time more of it fell off so I quit while I still had bar left. I can't seem to get the picture of the end of it. Strangely it seems to have a difference between the structures of the very edge and most of the center, kind of like carburized steel. What is this? Is it wrought? If so, how do you forge this without it crumbling? Thanks!

Nate Bocker has been busy, and is too shy to toot his own horn... so I wanted to share this with you guys. It's an ongoing activity, and a few of us are working with him to help expand it as we can this coming year. http://www.wusa9.com/story/news/local/2014/11/11/wounded-warrior-uso-turkeys-for-troops-tra-madkins-jonathan-porges/18824125/ Video won't embed, but the page it takes you to is one of our local news stations. Feel free to spread the love.

Hi Everyone! My 3 year old son, Kainen, who practically tries to take over everytime I smith or runs off with my Blade magazine because he wants to get first peek at all the goodies is going in to the hospital for the first of two surgeries this coming Thursday. Due to complications from his FPIES (Food Protein-Induced Enterolocitis Syndrome) a NG Feeding Tube is being placed in preparation to put in a G Tube 4 weeks later. He's my little forge buddy and loves to get mail, so I thought maybe you guys might want to send him some to read while he's stuck in the hospital. Who better to get cards/pics from than the same people who make all the sharp, pointy objects he loves soo much! Mail can be sent to: Kainen Norris 11708 South 35th Street Bellevue, NE 68123 He also has a wish site at Hero Network: https://heronetwork.com/wish/index?id=1520389 And a Donation Account at Great Western for donations to help cover what our insurance does not: "Donation for Kainen Norris" Account # 3113544657

Greetings, gentlemen. I recently tried to do the stainless Damascus for the first time. In my blacksmithing master's shop (not having my own yet) we followed instructions by Ariel Salaverria to the letter (http://www.aescustomknives.com/docs/tutorial16.htm). On the first attempt, the container burned through after several minutes, hence the stacked steels were too cold to weld. We thought that perhaps the temperature was too high or there was too much WD40 inside. Hence, on the second attempt we put paper soaked in WD40 only on one end of the container and we poured out WD40 after squeezing it inside. We also started with slightly lower temperature. Result - after several minutes the container exploded, scattering burning coke around the shop. Luckily, nobody was injured and the shop didn't catch fire, but it wasn't very nice. Please see the attached picture of container after it was recovered. Any ideas how to do it properly? Is there any other way to do stainless Damascus in the forge? It is a simple coke-burning forge. Many thanks!

Greetings, gentlemen. One important question for you, please: My bladesmithing master installed power hammer in his shop - the type embedded in the floor in a deep pit, with proper cushioning (as per instructions). However, when it's put to work, the entire house is shaking - and since it's fairly old house, the end result is that he is unable to use the power hammer at all. It was quite costly, so we're trying to figure out what else can we do to be able to use it. Recently, my master came across notion of some kind of "pneumatic absorption pillows", that could possibly solve this problem. Do any of you, please, have some idea about what might help or where I might get pair of these "pillows"? The desired size is 28x28 cm (that would be about 11x11 inch). Any info and help is much appreciated! Many thanks, Tomas

Hello all, one question regarding stainless Damascus, please. I'm going to try my hand at creating my first billet of stainless Damascus this weekend according to the method described by Ariel Salaverria (his site is unfortunately down at the moment.) I have two steels - N695 and 1.4116. From what I gather this should be very similar to what Markus Balbach uses. The important question is - what happens with the square tube used as a container for the steels? My guess is that it will weld to the steels and have to be ground off, right? Many thanks for your replies, any & all input is much appreciated. Tomas