2703adam

I have a question about your first post. The sawmill blades you are cutting out, you say they are cut out with plasma do you mean a plasma cutter? Surely if the saw blade is heat treated already, the plasma cutter will definately ruin the heat treat. I am just confused. Do you heat treat them at some point, or are you relying on the heat treat that the saw blade has when you get it? -Adam

I personally like the look of rr spikes made into different things. If you have 25 of them coming, and you mentioned you could forge weld, why not forge them out a little, hot split it, then forge weld a piece of high carbon steel into it san mai style and make a knife that way. This would give you a few things. One, you would get a cool looking rr spike knife, two, you would get a knife with a great cutting edge, and three they would be san mai! (which I love by the way) -Adam ps, the knife in my avatar is made that way.

That is the coolest idea for a makers mark I think I have ever seen! Great job on the knife too, I like the contrasting sheens between the grind and the flat. -Adam

Murray Carter at Carter Cutlery is making a Japanese style straight razor now. I'm not sure if he's offered any for sale yet but at the end of this video he shows it and shaves with it. http://youtu.be/c4oHzFNclzQ -Adam

Brasilikilt, Don't apologize about your finish work. Your blades look great, and the best thing about doing recreations is that a lot of the times they don't have to be perfect. These knives LOOK like they are from the time period. To me that is a perfect example of a recreation. -Adam

Scott, The knife looks great! Do you have a press or power hammer or do you do it all by hand? -Adam

I just had my first cable adventure about a month and a half ago. You can see my thread here: http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/22884-cable-damascus/ And yes, it was quite an adventure.... For the etching I used one part Ferric Chloride with four parts water. -Adam

How about amazing....I know thats what I think of when I see it. :)

Thanks guys. Altus: I too think that the cracks may at some point cause a premature failure, but hopefully not. As for the handles, they are made from two of my old t-shirts (a solid green and solid black one) and fiberglass resin. There are a lot of tutorials on making micarta already, so there's no need for me to post another one. I did the basic steps, cut shirt into strips, cover each piece with fiberglass resin, lay down in alternating colors and clamp between two boards until dry. It turns out pretty sweet and it will polish up to a glossy finish without the need for CA. As for heat treating the blade, I normalized for three cycles, then I heated to non-magnetic and did and interrupted quench in oil. I then check hardness with a file and wiped the blade off put it back in the forge heated to non-magnetic again and did another interrupted quench. (just to do it) Then I tempered in my oven (designated oven, not in my kitchen ) at 375-385 three times at one hour intervals. Bm: Great job on your knife, looks like you did a great job welding it. Post some pictures of the finished knife when you get done, I'd love to see the final product. How did you heat treat yours? -Adam

Alright, I finished up my cable project tonight and wanted to post an update to see what ya'll thought. The new owner is an friend of mine from church. He is in his sixties and is still a very active outdoors man. He has been asking me for a while for a throwing knife because he likes to throw them and occasionally hunts with one (Think an old version of Rambo ) but he has never had a balance knife specifically for throwing. I thought this would be a good challenge for me because I had never made a throwing knife. He was very specific about what he wanted. He wanted the guard to be part of the steel, not soldered on etc, and he didn't even want any type of scales on it, but I talked him into it. (I drilled out the tang to the same weight that the scales are so it didn't affect his balance any) He was so specific, he actually bought modeling clay and made a clay version of the knife he wanted and gave that to me to work off of. Well, I gave it to him tonight at church and he loved it. We went behind the church with my pastor and threw it a little and when he threw it the blade went THROUGH the fence!(I was holding my breath this whole time expecting the worse) When we pulled it out there was no damage what so ever to the blade so I was glad Anyways, the handle is about 4 3/4" and the blade is about 5 3/4 if I remember correctly. The blade is forged from the cable above. It weighs right at 10 ounces and the handles are green and black homemade micarta and the pins are stainless tubing. Oh and the sheath I made so it can be worn horizontally or vertically. Enjoy, Adam

Thanks for the compliments, I just found out from my other thread that my new hammer is not a hammer at all but a top swage.....oh well, what ever works I guess. -Adam

Oops, I guess I showed my ignorance on that one... Oh well, it does work pretty well as a hammer on cable -Adam

Hello all, My cable adventure starts off like this.... My uncle and I were talking about various knife type things when the topic of cable came up. I had told him that I would like to find some cable to work with because it would be a good learning experience for me, as well as it would make some sweet looking knives. Well, I get a call a few days later and my uncle says to swing by his house because he had something for me. When I get there I find a bag with 10 sections of 1" cable cut to 8-9" lengths. He told me that they have to change out the crane cable every so often at his work and he thought of me when they did. I couldn't be happier, I had already done some studying on how to work cable, and though it wouldn't be to hard. Well, I started last night trying to forge the cable into a bar and for one, I didn't really know what I was doing (as you can see from the picture). But after stumbling upon the perfect tool for the job today at the flea market, I came home and tried again. Much to my surprise I succeeded, and what I found is that with the first piece, I didn't clean it enough, flux it enough or let it get up to temperature long enough. The biggest problem was my patience level and I didn't rotate the cable while hammering like I should have, but the new hammer helped too! P.S. The failed attempt and the finished billet are not the same piece of cable, I started off from scratch the second time. I am going to save the failed attempt as a reminder to be patient while forging. -Adam

Hello everyone, Well, my wife and I decided to take a trip to J&J Flea market in Athens, Ga today. We live in Augusta, so it was about a 2 hour drive. I just had a feeling I would find something cool there because aside from UGA, there is a lot of farm land around the Athens area, so I figured there would likely be some blacksmith type materials. Well, this is what I found. It is some sort of hammer for working round bar I assume? (I really have no idea so someone please correct me). The reason I bought is is because I had tried to make some cable damascus last night, which ended in failure, but when I saw this hammer I new that it is what I had went to Athens to get!! I tried the cable damascus again tonight and I couldn't be happier. (I am making a separate post about that in the knife section) So, if anyone knows anything about this hammer such as name, maker, etc, I would very much appreciate it. Thanks, Adam

Thanks guys for all of the good info, I just might have to try making a folder after all, that is as soon as I get time. I just started a cable Damascus project that I will be working on for a little while, probably the rest of the week, but after that it's fair game.... ps. by rest of the week I meant next week. I just started long break so I consider friday to friday this week, which means I'll probably have to wait until next long break. :)