Joshua States 1,826 Posted December 11, 2020 Share Posted December 11, 2020 (edited) Now you have me thinking about building something similar. I was planning on a propane fired vertical forge, which is going to take $ to build. I have a 100# propane tank that is sitting idle........hmm Edited December 11, 2020 by Joshua States 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Toneguzzo 805 Posted December 13, 2020 Author Share Posted December 13, 2020 On 12/11/2020 at 9:37 PM, Joshua States said: Now you have me thinking about building something similar. I was planning on a propane fired vertical forge, which is going to take $ to build. I have a 100# propane tank that is sitting idle........hmm Hi Josh, If I had a choice I would go for a vertical propane forge without a doubt. I suppose I will ponder on this more and my options as the time gets closer. I have put a heap of hours in so far and want to give things the best chance of success. My grandfather ( on my mother’s side) used to tell me Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.... If I listen carefully I am sure I can hear his words again. Fire pig pic is for you... Anyhow .Day 7 (A.M as I may yet do some more this afternoon.) I have found some examples of Claymores with partial fullers so I decided that I would do this. Next will be the forging of the bevels where I will true everything up as best I can. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
kidterico 42 Posted December 13, 2020 Share Posted December 13, 2020 That is something to be very PROUD off. Fun watching the progress. KT 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Joshua States 1,826 Posted December 14, 2020 Share Posted December 14, 2020 I am really enjoying this. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
clint c 144 Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 Fantastic project, also following with much interest! Clint 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Toneguzzo 805 Posted December 15, 2020 Author Share Posted December 15, 2020 (edited) Day 8 Forging the blade all but done. I forged the bevels and have just a few final adjustments and tweaks to go. This was quite a mission for a blade this size trying to deal with the banana bends and twists when forging bevels but I am happy so far. It is starting to feel more like a sword and less like a steel bar. Edited December 23, 2020 by Rob Toneguzzo 4 Link to post Share on other sites
Alan Longmire 2,890 Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 Looking awesome, Rob! Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Toneguzzo 805 Posted December 16, 2020 Author Share Posted December 16, 2020 9 hours ago, Alan Longmire said: Looking awesome, Rob! Thanks Alan, the forging of the guard I just know will be a mission all in itself not to mention the heat treatment but......onward and upward Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Toneguzzo 805 Posted December 16, 2020 Author Share Posted December 16, 2020 I have been racking my brain thinking of how I will create the guard. I could not find any info on how they were made. I want it to be strong but not too heavy. Finally after much pondering I came up with the below dodgy drawing of how I will create the guard. Might just work! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Toneguzzo 805 Posted December 23, 2020 Author Share Posted December 23, 2020 What I intended to be a few little final tweeks ended up taking ages. 10 sessions all up but the Blade is now forged as closet as I could get it. I have not profiled it yet and the edge is about 2.5mm. I think I will just heat treat it as is and grind later. Oh..I think I have just found my guard. Merry Christmas to all. 2 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Bob Ouellette 76 Posted December 23, 2020 Share Posted December 23, 2020 I love that guard! That's a good looking forging, too. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Bjorn Gylfason 205 Posted December 23, 2020 Share Posted December 23, 2020 Enjoying the process of the project and thats some very clean forging and definitely going to save a lot of time grinding 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Daniel W 82 Posted December 23, 2020 Share Posted December 23, 2020 As a big fan of two handed swords, I give you a big thumbs on keeping that blade geometry original. I am not a fan of diamond cross sections in these later swords because they are made to favor a cut. Most of the originals I tracked down did not have that diamond cross section. Having fullers that are partial make a lot of advantages to how a blade acts. Mostly it's to reduce weight but also to redistribute mass. I would die to see someone make a clam shell style guard. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
peter fontenla 98 Posted December 25, 2020 Share Posted December 25, 2020 Beautiful project Rob, congratulations.! "!! What a good quality of forge, immaculate bevels. I think you can calmly do the heat treatment in your forge by taking the blade back and forth in the Japanese way Merry Christmas 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Toneguzzo 805 Posted December 25, 2020 Author Share Posted December 25, 2020 Thanks all. My family so very kindly got me this for Christmas so I no longer have to worry about how I will get the whole blade to heat. Cant wait for it to arrive. This will be a real game changer for me. 3 Link to post Share on other sites
Joshua States 1,826 Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 Awesome progress and an awesome Christmas gift. Just loving this project 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Toneguzzo 805 Posted December 30, 2020 Author Share Posted December 30, 2020 On 12/28/2020 at 1:22 AM, Joshua States said: Awesome progress and an awesome Christmas gift. Just loving this project Thanks Josh, waiting for the forge to arrive. It has arrived in Australia so hopefully will get to me in a week or so. Did some rough clean up and prep for heat treat. Got the edge to about 2 mil and will final grind after heat treatment. I got all the hammer marks out. I wire brushed the blade after each heat during forging and it sure made a huge difference as did re dressing my hammer faces. I also have to extend my quench tank. 4 Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Toneguzzo 805 Posted January 5 Author Share Posted January 5 Forge arrived today. Had to put it together and apply rigidiser but it looks really good and solid. Hopefully do heat treat by end of the week. 3 Link to post Share on other sites
Alan Longmire 2,890 Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 With a little luck you might be able to use the remnant heat in the bricks to temper that beast... 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Joshua States 1,826 Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 Who makes that and what is it called? Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Toneguzzo 805 Posted January 6 Author Share Posted January 6 2 hours ago, Joshua States said: Who makes that and what is it called? Devil’s Forge in Lithuania. They have an eBay store. Free delivery. They call it a sword forge but have all sorts. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Toneguzzo 805 Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 Well got up early and did the heat treat this morning before light. I connected the forge up the day before and gave it a test run. Everything went so very smoothly and I got a good quench that hardened along the entire blade. The blade is almost dead straight and I will be able to easily sort the rest in temper and grinding. For those interested in the how the new forge performed I am very impressed. It is easy to start and ran smoothly unlike my Fire Pig that coughs and snorts until it gets warmed up. It got up to temp in no time and was very easy to adjust. I ended up turning it right down and I was able to evenly heat the entire blade with no problem which made the normalisation cycles and quench a dream. It was so easy to set up and came with rigidiser mud and a complete fire brick floor other than painting on the mud ( which was a messy affair ) the set up was just easy. The flat floor made it easy to keep the blade straight too and the forge cooled to touch in under an hour. From now on I will use it to do all my heat treating and keep the Pig for forging.. I am actually so happy with it I gave it a name. On 1/6/2021 at 2:25 AM, Alan Longmire said: With a little luck you might be able to use the remnant heat in the bricks to temper that beast... Alan I did as you suggested...carefully.. and was able to get the entire blade to an even dark straw. I will go over the tang area and centre of the blade with a torch to finish off the temper. I believe with a bit of experimentation I will be able to temper long blades this way. I always quench my blades in the dark and in the still of the early morning darkness there was just something so magical about a glowing blade being born. Oh... while Smaug was hard at work the pig was busy playing in the left over mud. 6 Link to post Share on other sites
Alan Longmire 2,890 Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 Love that shot of the full length uniform glow. I give those forges a lot of grief for the two-burner model for general forging, but I can see that long one is great for heat treating. Looking great, Rob! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Joshua States 1,826 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Super fantastico! I am so pumped about this build. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Rob Toneguzzo 805 Posted January 13 Author Share Posted January 13 I have finished the temper and now moving on to cleaning the fullers before final grinding then sandpaper. So still a long way to go but I have no rush or deadline so I am just enjoying the process. For those interested in how I ended up tempering this blade- After I got a full straw temper from the residual heat in the heat bricks I utilised the flat bar welded to my vise (that I clamped the blade in after the quench ) and opened it up so that just the edges were sitting on the flat bar. I then worked my way along the centre of the blade with a propane torch. I figured the flat bar would act as a heat sink along the edges as I heated the centre of the blade. I think it helped as I ended up getting a bluish brown down the centre with a dark straw edge. I gave it a flexing as pictured and it came back to true but I am pondering just how much flex a sword like this should have. I will do a convex grind as I imagine the edge of this type of sword was robust. 4 Link to post Share on other sites
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