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about 19" Silicon Labelle 2 leather over rayskin stainless fittings green laquered 2nd photo is same blade, differential polish - i found it would require obsessive care to maintain - and it's my Daughter's.. 13, so i would have kept it tho - but the blade was just too meaty so i scrubbed it to regrind - finished on worn 220 grit (?) lengthwise on the 6x48 w/a softener on the platen

Here was another odd ball project Iv partially finished up. I inherited a celtic leaf shaped blade roughed out from a leaf spring with a plasma cutter from a friend who was moving a while back. I forged it out to adjust the proportions and rough ground and heat treated it with a pretty minimal setup. It took a few kinks in hardening which mostly came out after clamping in the second temper. It just barely fit diagonally in my kitchen oven. I ground the convex fuller in with an angle grinder mostly after heat treating. The handle was carved in yew sap wood for the scales and heart wood for the pommel. Blade was rust browned to look very vaguely like bronze. At some point I want to do a matching russet steel sheath in a La Tene style, but that may take a while to get to. Hope someone finds it of interest.

So im very green and new to the bladesmithing community. Im currently teaching myself with the aides of " The Complete Bladesmith" by Jim Hrisoulas (very helpful), this EXCELLENT FORUM, youtube (of course) and by trial and error. I wanted to just share a few items that I've forged. I haven't completely finished any pieces yet as I have been practicing forging blades. Ive done some grinding and filing and am now starting to focus on that as well as the heat treating process. So I've been trying to learn in stages (not sure if thats the best way to do it or not so I welcome the correction if thats the case). These two are the same knife. After a few throwaway railroad spike attempts i got this and then grinded the heck out of it with tiny harbor freight belt sander. Another railroad spike knife I was messing around with a piece of rebar and forged this I got very ambitious and tried my hand at damascus just to see if i could do it. With the help of a couple of volunteer strikers (poor man's power hammer) I came out with a somewhat successful piece and learned a lot. So I forged a mjolnir pendant. This is a knife I'm working on at the moment and filing alot. I will make my first attempts at heat treating with this blade. These are my most recent endeavors. Once again I may be getting ahead of myself but I started working on a short sword as well. Im learning slowly and my challenges right now are grinding/filing with uniformity ( which will be my biggest challenge with that short sword and welcome any tips that would be given). I also need to learn some techniques on grinding/filing with uniformity. Also if there are any tips on heat treating and also what sort of thickness I need to forge to. There's no way to adjust the environment of the forge I have that I can figure (I purchased a ck forge. if that rings any bells and know of any modifications that would be most helpful) and Im sure it shows in my work with all of the pitting of scale in the blades. I've been searching the forum as best I can, when I can but if there can be any quick tips given I'd greatly appreciate it. Ive only been at it for a few months so I need all of the help I can muster. I'm sure this will not be the last time I ask questions. Thank you very much! Also this is my setup...