Michael Kellough

Man, that picture makes my eyes hurt. Please put the camera on the anvil next time Good job getting up to speed for little cost!

Maybe I don't need a forge for this? I ground out two test blades. I heated one using an ordinary propane torch and it got to bright orange. Even though the blade is very small it was still difficult to get the whole business end of the blank to maintain the same brightness but I quenched it in oil and tested the hardness with a couple of tools. A good sharp screwdriver blade skated across but the corner of a file scratched the surface a little. At first I thought it might only be scratching the scale but I cleaned the scale off and the scratch remained. One problem I noticed is that the blade warps away from the side I ground. I ground only one side so that one side is coplanar with the center of the handle and one side is a long flat bevel. If I can't keep it from warping I'll have to do a different grind/shape I guess. Since the blade was warped I decided to test the hardness a little farther and bent the blade back towards flat and a half inch snapped off. I have no idea how hard the blade needs to be prior to tempering. Is bright orange hot enough? I suppose yellow is the next hotter color. Do I need to go there? Is there a minimum time for the heat to be held at a certain temp/color? To treat the second blade I used two identical propane torches (in air like the first blade) and they created a larger hot spot so it was easy to get the whole blade section of the blank to bright orange very quickly, like under ten seconds. I kept it at that color for about twenty seconds and immediately quenched in oil as before. The blades are now cooling in the oven after baking at 375F for an hour. I hope I wasn't supposed to quench them Any comments are welcome, even virtual dope slaps as long as they're accompanied by explanation :)

Thanks for the extra notes on heat treating. I agree about trying to just harden the business end and I have been worried about the thin edge of the blade getting too hot to fast. I wonder about putting another piece of stock in close to the thin edge as a sink to slow the heating of the edge? Another thought, what about heating a piece of angle and letting the blade draw heat from the inside of the angle with the thick edge close to the inside corner and the thin edge much farther from the hot angle. Had a similar thought using pipe instead of angle. Finally, I wonder if I can just use a propane torch (or two from opposite sides) directly on the thick edge of the blade? A slot in some sheet metal could shield the thin edge from the flame. You may know the answer to these speculative questions but I know I have to just try it to learn. Still, it's great to hear what experienced people have to say.

I'm new so this may be a little off topic. I've been reading.... Kaowool insulates and ITC-100 consolidates and protects the Koawool. But ITC-100 is prized for it's thermal reflectivity, so, what stores the heat? Is this why many forges have a floor of firebrick? I'm planning to make a bean can forge for heat treating very small knives. Would I need to leave room for some kind of heat sink or would the air and insulation retain enough heat to soak a small blade?

This sounds very interesting and may be fairly easy with a smaller forge. But, I guess efficiency isn't so important in smaller scale equipment. As Grant said, the main way to improve efficiency is to scale the forge to the job. Pre-heating the propane and I suppose making it more volatile makes more sense than heating the intake air and reducing it's oxygen density. But it sounds a little scary.

Is this practical? Have people done this? Thanks for a very interesting post Grant!

Someone above said Rat Hole is an anvil. The Fontanini Anvil & Forge, formerly Rat Hole Forge. Copyrighted material removed and a link placed into the text

Of course! :rolleyes:

Very interesting! Thanks for posting. One of the comments about third world craftsmen reminds me of a carver I met in Belize. He had an old refrigerator in his outdoor shed workshop but he had no electricity to run it. I asked about it and he opened the door so I could see that it was full of tools and work in progress.

In that case, seems like they would qualify for inclusion in his glossary...

This is the kind of stuff that worries me because I don't even know why this is a problem in the hardening stage. The fine edge can't get harder than hard can it? :confused: After hardening and polishing, if I temper in the toaster oven the difference in thickness of the different areas of the blade won't matter? Another question, why should I polish before tempering and does polish mean what it sounds like? As a woodworker I might polish a blade (on a buffing wheel) as the last step following the finest sharpening stone but I get the feeling polish is a little different in this context.

I tried the glossary at anvilfire and found nothing so what is the meaning of the terms mousehole and rathole? I saw them reading posts about anvil stands.

Thanks Irnsrgn! One more question, since the anvil is stamped 200 below the maker's mark, does that indicate 200# or 2 hundredweight? I seem to recall that a visitor to my shop determined that the anvil weighs 225# so I was surprised yesterday to see that it was stamped 200.

Thanks for the ideas and sugestions for further search guys. So the goal is to conduct/absorb vibration away from the anvil? (lead sheet, silicone, chain, soft wood, etc.) In the case of the magnet it seems to be a more complex mechanism, it rebounds against the anvil's vibrations slightly out of phase?

So I should do this in order, 1. Cut stock to length 2. Grind to form (slightly oversized) 3. Harden (in bean can forge) 4. Temper (in toaster oven) 5. Fine grind and polish to final form Is that about right? Any corrections or additional details will be greatly appreciated.