Forged fuller katana wip

[Kenon Rain.]

Last week I stopped into my friend Tom Tasker's forge and we worked on this blade together. It's stretched out of a rail clip like the one next to it by hand which I've heat treated many times and it takes a pretty impressive hamon. They are higher carbon that the spikes and growing up with a railroad through the property was something I used to use a lot. 

 

The fuller was done pre beveling with the guillotine tool pictured, its offset 45' to its frame so it can be used to draw material lengthwise too. There is a little bar and tube on the post that can be swiveled to act as a backstop or guide to help stay in the groove. Its pictured here without the lower die or hardie peg on it yet. Will update with a complete pic of the tool later.

 

Kind of stressful forging ha, would be very easy to make a big unfixable ding in the fuller groove but it worked out well. Dies are gapped about an 1/8th inch so the fuller is a uniform depth.

 

Will be grinding and posting pictures of it as it progresses. No grinding has been done to the blade yet so that is all forge work shown. Tried to get as much blade as I could out of the hunk of steel 

Edited January 18, 2020 by Kenon Rain.
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[SteveShimanek]

That is some very clean forging!

[Alan Longmire]

16 hours ago, SteveShimanek said:

That is some very clean forging!

Indeed!  I look forward to seeing that cleaned up. 

[Joshua States]

On 1/18/2020 at 1:15 PM, Kenon Rain. said:

Will update with a complete pic of the tool later.

Very interested in seeing that.

On 1/18/2020 at 1:15 PM, Kenon Rain. said:

would be very easy to make a big unfixable ding in the fuller groove

Don't I know that laddie! Did that on a Euro-sword I'm working on. Every time I think about finishing it, I see that ugly fuller and find something else to do.

 

The forging is quite formidable. I must say that I am impressed. I am also curious about those rail clips. I think we have one or two in the stock yard. I wonder if the wife will miss them? 

[Kenon Rain.]

Here are a few shots of that tool, the hardie peg is 1/4 flat bar and it fits diagonally into the hardie hole, and is slotted so you can beat a wedge into it to lock it to an anvil. 

 

The dies are gapped, but the bottom one takes spacers to make the gap smaller for thinner cross sections. The hole on the underside next to the hardie peg is for if dies or spacers get stuck.

 

The tool takes different dies too, cutters, flatters, basically whatever fits. I made them out of leaf spring.

Edited January 22, 2020 by Kenon Rain.

[Alex Middleton]

Pretty slick design Kenon.  I'm working on something similar right now.  I really like the side gauge that you have on there, I hadn't thought about that.  I think I'll have to revisit my design and see if I can incorporate something similar.

[Alan Longmire]

Slick indeed!  Spiffy, even! 

[Chris Christenberry]

Nice tool.  I can see where something like that is pretty much going to be a requirement when working alone.

[Brian Dougherty]

Yep.  I'm going to have to steal that tool design.

[Emiliano Carrillo]

Before you get into finishing I would suggest forging the nakago/tang further down to make it more in line with the curvature of the blade. Even tachi with extremely curved tangs have a step down where the mune meets the nakago mune, where the habaki sits. You can still have a funagata style nakago after that, but the step down from the mune is necessary for a working blade. 

 

 

[Kenon Rain.]

5 hours ago, Brian Dougherty said:

Yep.  I'm going to have to steal that tool design.

 

Go right ahead the backstop is the only thing I might change in a redesign. It would be nice to have two points of contact with the blade. Right now you basically butt it up to the backstop and eye parallel off the face of the tool and whack to establish the groove. It works good but is a little more reliant on carefuness. And it was a very simple guide to build two points of contact would require a redesign. As you rotate it on the shaft the gap grows. 

 

Actually now that I think about it, you could put on two guides like mine but cut the flat bar into an L shape, point the upper L leg down and the bottom one up so they overlap then you could put them on either side of the shaft and have two parrallel points of contact by rotating them towards and apart from each other in relation to the center of the dies. 

 

I'll draw it If that wasnt clear. Maybe I'll make a thread for the tool.

 

3 hours ago, Emiliano Carrillo said:

Before you get into finishing I would suggest forging the nakago/tang further down to make it more in line with the curvature of the blade. Even tachi with extremely curved tangs have a step down where the mune meets the nakago mune, where the habaki sits. You can still have a funagata style nakago after that, but the step down from the mune is necessary for a working blade. 

 

 

 

Emiliano you are absolutely correct and I appreciate the input and example.

 

The blade as shown is rough forged, I'll dial it in a little more before grinding. I can get a little more width out of it too I think. 

 

How far should the fuller run down the nakago do you think? I know they dont go all the way. And I know the habaki needs to be able to slide home and fit the groove on the blade itself, so I'm assuming it goes a ways, and then the nakago's taper makes the fuller transition away. 

 

Edited January 22, 2020 by Kenon Rain.

[Kenon Rain.]

Thanks for the kind words guys, nice to be doing this again.

[Joshua States]

38 minutes ago, Kenon Rain. said:

Actually now that I think about it, you could put on two guides like mine but cut the flat bar into an L shape, point the upper L leg down and the bottom one up so they overlap then you could put them on either side of the shaft and have two parrallel points of contact by rotating them towards and apart from each other in relation to the center of the dies.

Why couldn't you take a single angle iron and mount it to a square bar so it forms a T. Then slide the square bar through a square tube welded to the base. Put the set screw in the square tube. Have the angle stick up past the top of the lower die and parallel to the die holder. This would form a flat guide to push the blade against at a set distance from the fuller dies.

I can draw a picture if that doesn't make sense.

[Joshua States]

Like this

[Kenon Rain.]

1 hour ago, Joshua States said:

Why couldn't you take a single angle iron and mount it to a square bar so it forms a T. Then slide the square bar through a square tube welded to the base. Put the set screw in the square tube. Have the angle stick up past the top of the lower die and parallel to the die holder. This would form a flat guide to push the blade against at a set distance from the fuller dies.

I can draw a picture if that doesn't make sense.

 

You could, I just liked how simple this was. I wanted to keep the tool compact for the anvil face and incorporating the post made it an efficient design. And it works good/quick to adjust.

[Zeb Camper]

Looking great here! I just wanted to add my experience with making curved blades. It's better to start straight. It makes grinding much easier. Then pre-bend prior to quench, either that or go the risky route in a water quench. Best of luck!