all the fun of the forge!

[woodwalker]

hi there,
just some pics from my forging last Saturday. Have put off posting until now because I have been finishing the first knife.

all fired up and getting rather hot!

blades ready to go (2 3" ones and one 3.5" - all O1 steel)

a trail of destruction! (or just general disorder and mess!)

made a custom axe sheath whilst waiting for desired temperature

post oil hardening

and a week later... the finished article!

and a custom sheath

thanks for looking, had great fun doing it,

woodwalker

 

[Bigman]

Very nice.

 

[Snufkin]

Nice work .

 

[running bare]

very nice but one question; how are the scales held on as i dont see any pins?

 

[stinkymilo]

Nice job, I like the sheath too. Just a quick question, what's the oil hardening process?

 

[Ogri the trog]

Nice going Woodwalker,
Heck your forge is even simpler than mine - I use the kitchen range
I've never done an oil quench, I use water, but in your photo, it looks as though the oil has solidified (blobs to the right of the handle) is this the case or is it a trick of the camera?

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[woodwalker]

very nice but one question; how are the scales held on as i dont see any pins?

hmm... magic...
no its just a load of araldite because I currently do not own a drill press and did not wish to miss the mark and wreck some perfectly good scales. Maybe next time though.

Nice job, I like the sheath too. Just a quick question, what's the oil hardening process?

essentially although there will be many more informative threads on BB and this site, oil hardening is where you get the metal red hot then quenching it in oil, causing it to go hard yet very brittle (for the science behind this, look on BB). To remove the brittleness, you heat it to about 250 degrees Celcius which makes it more maleable. This is called tempering. Here's a link to help you out - here

thanks for the comments,
woodwalker

 

[Josey Wales]

Is that a " home - made" forge???

If so, how did you go about making it?

A little description would be breat

cheers

 

[woodwalker]

Is that a " home - made" forge???

If so, how did you go about making it?

A little description would be breat

cheers

Basically, I started by looking at all the pictures I could find of brick built forges I could find with the original intention of bulding something permenant. However i soon realised that as a) I would probably get the design wrong and b) I might not use it again (this was about feburary time and since then it has been used a few times) that it should be less permenant.

Essentially, there is a brick high base with much space between the base bricks so lots of air can get in. Then, there is a heavy duty chicken wire square trapped between the base and second layer of bricks. After that it just tunnels up like a chimmeny in your a house but with an opening on the front.

However the most important design feature is the clay, which lines pretty much everything inside as no cement is used. This has a refelctive effect and stays relativeley cool. This is useful for the door as it prevents me from burning my hands on hot brick :bluThinki
here's a pretty bad picture but you can see the clay quite clearly on the door opening.

this set up works for me yet it could probably be improved to make it more efficient if I were to go into large scale blade manufacture.

not quite the 'little description' you asked for, but it does the job,

woodwalker

 

[Biddlesby]

Looks great fun! I like the rustic forge.