bladesmithing with Owen Bush

[DoctorSpoon]

For those of you not on BB, here's a link to my latest video: a fast and furious run through of last weekend's bladesmithing course featuring Owen making a serious bowie knife and Robin making a kitchen knife. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q3CzpozR9A

 

[Bodge]

Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q3CzpozR9A

I did indeed

thanks

Bodge

 

[John Fenna]

Not impressed - the hammers were not in time with the music!
Otherwise - bril!:notworthy
Great filming skills. Good music. Very enjoyable.
It looks like a good course as well!

 

[DoctorSpoon]

It was a very fine course. Owen has a fantastic set up ... plenty of space and all the big boys toys you could ever want! The power hammers were particularly impressive, and totally mesmerising to watch.

 

[Snufkin]

Very cool, especially since I'm in the middle of making my first forged knife. It's normalising now. Off back to the forge for some more fun.

 

[sparkplug]

That looks superb DoctorSpoon - thanks!

Excuse the newbie question, but does Owen run regular courses?

I'd be really interested in doing something like that but I have no idea where to start really. Is there a website with dates and pricing? Or someone else who runs similar workshops?

 

[DoctorSpoon]

I'd be really interested in doing something like that but I have no idea where to start really. Is there a website with dates and pricing? Or someone else who runs similar workshops?

Owen's just setting himself up to run regular courses on a more formal basis. At the moment he's just announcing them on the British Blades forum - take a look under events.

 

[sparkplug]

Thanks DS - found it and have just joined over there too!

 

[robin wood]

and here are some photos from the weekend

lots of space lots of forges

Owen demonstrating forging a big bowie

forging the bevel

Grace forging the tang after fullering

drawing a tang the quick way with the "small" power hammer

me making woodturning tools

using the slack part of the belt for a convex bevel

hard at work with the abrasives

the big bowie after hardening and tempering

and this one is for snufkin, I asked Owen how important the 3 normalisation cycles he recommends are so he quickly hot quenched an old file to give a coarse grain structure top then normalised, one cycle centre, two cycles bottom.

 

[Shinken]

Very cool!

 

[Snufkin]

I did three cycles on this one. The forging took alot longer than I'd hoped but I'll get faster with experience. Quenching and tempering went well, and the blade is glued up in a nice chunk of hawthorn. When do we get to see your creation?

 

[DoctorSpoon]

Robin's looks like this at the moment:

I'm sure he'll get around to finishing it soon!