New sword, and bowie in the works

[ApprenticeMan]

New sword, a Chinese broadsword styled blade, which will get a MUCH differnent hilt setup that the Chinese style, forged from 1050. And a big bowie, forged from 1075, 11-ish inch long blade with a 5 inch handle, not sure if it will get slabs or leather chord wrap. WIll have some pictures up later tonight

[ApprenticeMan]

Sorry for the wait, here is the pictures, as promised. Been having alot of computer and camera trouble lately. If you have any questions, I added some more pictures of some other new works, feel free to ask.

[ApprenticeMan]

Here is some more. Alot of them are 1075, or 1095, or 5160, like I said, please just ask.

[Don A]

Looking good, Sam.

I especially like the reverse-twist seax. That's good forge work.

Whada' ya call that little knife with the horn on it (1st post, bottom right)? Getting stuck with that one wouldn't be half as bad as pulling it out!

Keep it up,

Don

[ApprenticeMan]

Thanks Don, as you can see from the hammer marks on that twist, it almost wasn't anything other than a peice of scrap. I am not sure what I call that one, looks like a rhino, looks like a shark, how about a RARK? Yeah it will be one beast of a chopper, it is 5160, forged from 3/8ths thick stock.

[ApprenticeMan]

Here is some new knives, all done except the little ring hilt will get a leather chord wrap, i'll post some more pictures when it does. And there is an old one I finally epoxied up. Didn't think there was enough new blades to justify a new topic. These are DONE, except the ring hilt is gonna get a leather chord wrap handle, and i'll post some more pictures then.The big one is 5160 virgin stock warm oil quenched torch tempered spine and edg, ring hilt is 1075 double quenched and 350F 45 minute temper, and the spike is well........railroad spike steel, triple water quenched with just a touch of tempering on the spine with a torch. Enjoy.

The ring hilt is sort of accidentally chisel edged, by hammer ONLY.

[ralphy]

Nice work, I really like the knives with the curl or ring at the end of the handles.
I would like to do that, but when I try to draw the metal down to a "stem"
it tends to crack or split, not sure what I'm doing wrong.
But still I do like your work!

[ApprenticeMan]

Originally Posted by ralphy

Nice work, I really like the knives with the curl or ring at the end of the handles.
I would like to do that, but when I try to draw the metal down to a "stem"
it tends to crack or split, not sure what I'm doing wrong.
But still I do like your work!

Thanks! What steel are you working with? Most of my forging steps for forming the tail are done at a medium yellow to low orange. Also, if you do not heat up the whole stem and the part of the tang you might be stressing the part where the tail meets the tang, which might be causing the cracks. How I do it is, I take and heat up the end of the tang, set it on the corner of the anvil closest to me, keeping as much as i'll need to form the tail on top over the anvil, and the rest of the tang hanging over the side, then just hammer on the part of the tang that is over the anvil only, not moving my hammer out over the corner at all. Once I have formed a little square part, I just draw it out nice and slow, heating slow so as not to burn the smaller tail part, and yet heat up the tang part too to minimise stress.

[Blackbeard]

Nice work Appman. I like the twisted handle. Is it made out of one peice? Also the sharky- interresting shape!
Bb

[ApprenticeMan]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard

Nice work Appman. I like the twisted handle. Is it made out of one peice? Also the sharky- interresting shape!
Bb

Thanks BB, yeah, the trick to getting it to look like 4 peices is to form it into a square, then chisel a line down the center of each flat side, then just twist. Makes it look like an unopened basket twist. Yeah, hopefully will be able to get the sharky finished soon, seems like it will be a good seller.