Feukair

Hey all, i havent posted in a really long time, been real busy with the day job and some travel, but I have been up to some stuff. In June I attended the Guelph school of japanese sword arts in canada. It was pretty cool, learned alot from a very knowledgable instructor. I setup a web site where I'm going to start keeping track of my knife making projects, here it is www.feukair.com you can checkout the pictures from the class through the GSJSA link at the top. Here's a link to all the pics of my blade through the process...

Really nice blad Sam. I havent posted in a while but i've noticed you're outputing alot more blades. Does it have anything to do with you getting your kmg setup? That's got to be the next step for me... got to get a belt grinder going...

There are pics in this thread of my forge. One has the dimensions on it. http://www.iforgeiron.com/forum/f7/pics-my-forge-finally-3579/ This is only a hobbyist forge, it gets ran for a full day only 2-3 times a month. Mine is made out of 1/4 plate, i would rather have 3/8 or 1/2 plate. Also, the slats between the air holes are starting to wear down from heat and oxydation (basically they are disolving away... and that after only 2-3 days/month of use) Once those go too far i will either keep the same design of firehole but replace the bottom plate with a piece of 3/8 stainless steel or I will replace the slits with a single large hole with a single large clinker breaker in the center.

Dont assume the air has to enter the fire in the center. Lots of firepots are designed with a solid cast-iron clinker breaker that sits right in the center of the air inlet. When you rotate the clinker breaker it rotates and it's sides and corners break up the clinker. As air comes up through the ash tube it hits the clinker breaker and is diffused around it. Air is always more diffused by the coal and coke itself as it enters the fire. I have a firepot with a three slot design in the bottom so air enters directly into the heart of the file. Recently i used a firepot design with a centered clinker breaker as described above. I like the centered one better. It seemed to create a larger area of heat in the forge due to the air being diffused throughout more of the firepot.

Yeah, very cool that it has multiple meanings.

Nice work. You have a cool touch mark to put on your work Sam.

Very nice!

I can see where a rectangle or oblong octoganal handle would be better. You can feel the position of the hammer head in your hand. My handles are almost round.

I made my own hammer handles on the lathe and i left them pretty thick compared to normal handles. I don't have large hands, normal sized hands i guess... but I like the thicker handles, they fill my hand and i feel like i have more control while hammering. I do keep them smooth though...

I cleaned up our first blower also, this one is made of sheet metal rather than a cast frame. This blower worked well, we just couldnt pass up the deal we got on the cast body one. We are thinking of selling this one.

We got our new (old) blower cleaned up a while back. Here are some before and after pics. I'm glad to finaly have a solid cast metal blow, this thing cranks out some air...

Can you believe this? My Mom found this in the ground in her yard. It's a bit out of round, 18" at the widest diameter and 17 1/4" at the shortest. It is 2" thick. I'm going to make a mount and treadle mechanism for it.

It's like an axe/knife/saw, very cool!

Thanks for the link Glenn. I hadnt considered the issues discussed in that thread. Luckily, i have about 6 quarts of new 10w30 which had been sitting in a friends garage and he gave them to me after a recent (20year overdue) garage cleanout. Kind of an expensive quenchant, but i think this stuff had been sitting in his garage for nearly 20 years...

Thanks. I just got 5 or 6 quarts of motor oil from a friend who was cleaning out his garage. I'm going to use that.

Wow, awsome!

Thanks for the comments guys. I have two knives almost ready to quench, one is the failed one, shortened to a smaller but still perfectly useable size (about a 6" blade) for a sashimi knife. The other is a 2nd sashimi knife, same as the first, about 9" newly forged. I am worried about getting an even heat using a torch but i may try it on the shorter blade, using a map gass torch and moving it back and forth to try and heat just 1/8" or so along the edge. If thats not too dificult to evenly heat a thin area along the edge then i may try it on the longer blade. I think i will try oil for a milder quench as well. Can anyone recommend a temperature to heat the oil to or just do it at room temp? So... about doing this properly... sashimi knives are traditionally made by forge welding a piece of carbon steel along the edge of a larger piece of wrought iron. I have not any wrought iron, and even less of the skill necessary to forge weld a thin piece of carbon steel along another piece of anything. So the quest towards gaining experience and practicing techniques continues... I'm still having fun at this.

Nope, never get tired of looking at spikes turned into blades... Interesting way hou worked the head of the spike a little, rather than just leaving it.

Very cool shape. It looks nice and thick...