Stormcrow

I'd really recommend a digital controller. The cones work for firing ceramics, but you need to have a pretty good idea when your steel is at what temp instantaneously. The wiring isn't too complicated and the parts are cheap, I just don't have the kind of mind that can deal with circuits. Finished up the bush swords and got some pics. Tried to get some of the tomahawks and my camera ran out of juice! Off to bed. One day left to get everything finished up. :)

Scott - I have an Evenheat long furnace that I use vertically for hardening, then a big Paragon 3 phase kiln (that's the one in the photo) for tempering, both with digital controllers. I spent a fair amount of time and a little bit of money trying to re-wire an old kiln to use for hardening ere buying the Evenheat, but my lack of understanding of circuits led to a lot of blown solid state relays and bad feelings. I finally decided to stop messing around with it and lay down the money on the Evenheat. But if you can find a kiln in decent shape and have the kind of mind that can wrap itself around electric circuits, you can rig a digital controller on it fairly cheaply. Or possibly score one with a digital controller. Those tend to run more on Craigslist, though.

Here are the Benghazi Warfighters between their first and second tempering cycles. My goal for the day is to grind and heat treat tomahawks.

It's at the Planet Hollywood in Vegas. https://www.usngathering.com/ Back to sweating!

Don't remind me! Eek! Made some more progress today. First got the wraps impregnated with marine epoxy, essentially making a composite material in place on the tangs. They're solid now. Then worked on the Benghazi Warfighters. After cleanup grinding on the profiles, time to cut out the tangs with my fancy-shmancy high-moolah bandsaw. Some cleanup grinding. Drilled the rivet and lightening holes, then triple normalized. And now they're soaking in vinegar overnight to eat the scale off. All going well, they should have stock removal and heat treatment done tomorrow.

No worries, guys; I'm all recovered now. Just busy! :) Chinobi - You gonna be at the Gathering? Cool! Definitely come on by.

I have a knife show coming up over Labor Day weekend in Las Vegas. I had a few pieces left in stock from the Blade Show back at the beginning of June, plus a month to prepare. Figured I could knock out a few commissions and have plenty of time to build inventory. Then, I caught a cold/flu-like bug at my niece's first birthday party the last weekend in July that knocked me on my back where I barely left the couch for at least 10 days. And everything that I had on hand sold. So now I'm scrambling in 100+ degree south Texas late summer to get some work together so I won't have an empty table. :) And I haven't posted work in a while, so I figured I'd do so before getting a shower and crawling into bed. A batch of Benghazi Warfighters as pre-forms. And with the blades rough forged, trimmed, final forged, and awaiting final profile cleanup before cutting out the tangs and normalizing. A few cord-wrapped knives waiting to get trimmed and impregnated with marine epoxy. The one with the retina-searing yellow is a commission. A stack of tomahawks waiting to be ground. Probably not all of these will be done for the show. Gotta make strategic decisions on where to dedicate time. And finally a couple of bush swords post-heat treatment. The blunt-ended one is about a 14" blade and the slender, sinuous one is about 16".

Here's a long video with the hammer that I've posted before. The tire clutch is at about 4:21. Got the general idea from Ptree, who was very helpful with the whole process.

Eseemann - The Rusty design was what I went with, with the addition of a tire clutch. In complexity, it's not too much different from a treadle hammer, and the smaller versions such as the original (15 lb. head, I believe) will have a similarly-sized footprint. The design can be scaled up to about 100 lbs with commonly-available salvaged steel and/or off-the-shelf parts, though you'll need a bigger motor at the upper end, of course. Mine is about 100 lbs and runs a 3 hp, 3 phase motor. It doesn't replace a treadle hammer and a treadle hammer doesn't replace it. For what I do, I'll take the power hammer, though. A Depew-style helve hammer might be another option. Grant Sarver's Original Junkyard Hammer did pretty well with that general design for small forging. If you watch all of his YouTube videos, you see how much the JYH was a toy in his shop, but a useful one to help out folks who didn't have the equipment and shop space he did. Most folks aren't forging the size of stock Grant was, either.

This question came up in another forum and it gave me a good opportunity to answer a common question and show off a beautiful tomahawk made by Mike Deibert. "Are tomahawks designed for throwing made in a different, identifiable fashion? I guess I just have the idea that tomahawk = throwing axe, ahha." This is a throwing 'hawk made by Mike Deibert, an American Bladesmith Society Journeyman Smith who runs a missionary vocational school in Nicaragua. They have a blacksmithing and metal fabrication program that is kind of the heart of the school. http://www.esvoministries.com/ESVO_Ministries/Home.html I helped point him at Tai Goo's washtub forge back when he was setting up the school and was looking for charcoal forge designs that could be built with materials on hand, and have had the pleasure of getting to meet and visit with him in person several times when he's come to knife shows in the States. At the 2013 Blade show I gave him a forging hammer I'd made and he gave me this 'hawk, which my 1/64th Choctaw fiancé (now wife) promptly laid claim to. :) Here it is next to one of my 18" Wreckers, the one I busted some padlocks with a few months back. The overall lengths are similar, but design and construction are very different. Mike's is a traditional wrapped eye, mild steel with a 5160 cutting bit forge welded in. You can see the handle is widest at the top and tapers all the way down to the butt end of the handle. That lets it slip out of the hand easily when thrown. Mine tapers in the opposite direction and has a swell at the butt, making it not want to slip out of the hand when swung. The handle cross section and the 'hawk eye are a teardrop shape that keeps the head from rotating around the handle. The eye is wider at the top than at the bottom, of course, to accommodate the taper of the handle. The head stays on with friction and centrifugal force, like a pickax or a grubbing hoe. This is also related to throwing, which puts tremendous stress on a handle. If it lands wrong when being thrown, the handle will break. With the head able to pop loose if it lands handle-first, it reduces the shock in the handle and makes it less likely to break. But pretty much any handle on a 'hawk that is thrown will break eventually. This 'hawk also has a leather sheath that reminds me a bit of ladies' swimwear or undergarments. :D And a look at the back end. You can see where the eye was hammered true around a drift. So, there is a traditional throwing 'hawk differentiated with a modern, non-throwing 'hawk. They're aimed at different purposes and the construction is completely different for that reason. Many of the modern tactical 'hawks are built with retention in the hand as one of the design considerations, so they have various kinds of appropriate tapers and butt-swells to provide for that need. The America Tomahawk Company LaGana 'hawk is a notable exception, as it is designed with combat throwing in mind. Footage of Peter LaGana demonstrating combat tomahawk throwing in simulated contemporary (Vietnam-era) combat situations shows just how well his design and skilled hands allowed his weapon to throw. Different design considerations, different designs.

Cool beans! I think it'd look right at home on Gimli's belt. :)

That is just gorgeous. A lot of skill there.

Very nice! The 3D printing trick has a loooooot of applications. One off designs, or building parts for a line of mid-techs.

The smaller Rusty-type hammers use pickup leaf springs, the larger ones use truck springs. I'm sure there's an exact science to it, but it's beyond my scope, or that of most folks who build these. :) Here's a video just posted by a fellow up in Wyoming, Joe Calton, who built a 50 lb.hammer based on my Gunnhilda.

I got a chance to put the carcass splitter to the test doing the kind of work I grew up doing and which has informed my thoughts on cutting: dismembering a mesquite tree. I think it's a lot more informative than a water bottle test or trying to cut multiple coconuts (though that may be because I failed to cut multiples due to the blade deflecting). But see for yourself. :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z3enZ_sADQ

Frosty - Well, this is one of the more fantasy-ish pieces I've done. :) But the chain is flat and is actually reasonably comfortable to walk around wearing. Got a bit of cutting video. Unfortunately, the button didn't get pushed during the 2" x 4" chop. :( But it cut over halfway through with each swing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awGv1RY5uqU

Finished up the carcass splitter. It'll be on my table at the Blade Show. 17 1/2" blade, 20 1/4" handle, forged from 2" x 1/4" 5160. The handle is paracord over leather, with a three-strand paracord Turk's head knot, all impregnated with epoxy. My buddy and fellow knifemaker Tobin Nieto of Stonehaven Knifeworks made the lined rawhide sheath for it. One of the avenues that led him to making knives was an interest in movie props and replicas of movie props. He perfectly captured the vibe that I envisioned for the overall project: something that would be carried by a boss character in a zombie video game or the antagonist of a slasher movie. I had my hand in the sheathwork, though. Namely, the "blood splatters". They're actually brick red India ink. :D The chain is a shoulder sling. It originally was part of the mechanism for opening and shutting a heavy door in a huge slaughterhouse that my landlord's father worked in. I don't know what position he had, but he told me there were 600 men working under him, and he supervised when the slaughterhouse was torn down. The hooks are forged from a high-carbon farm implement tine. The blood splatters look pretty authentic, huh? Like something Leatherface would have hanging above his bed. :lol: Here's one of the ways of wearing it with the sling. "Forth, minions!" One of the things I like about it is that although it is large and has plenty of power, it's still light and lively enough to wield one-handed. I have some materials gathered for a little cutting demo video later on in the week, weather permitting. Oh, Tobin plays guitar, too. B)

Just dropped this carcass splitter off with my buddy Tobin Nieto to get a rawhide sheath built. I'll do final cleanup and sharpening when I get it back. It'll be on my table at the Blade Show. More details when it's finished. I can't help but get this maniacal grin when I pick it up. :D

Thank y'all! I poke holes in myself and burn myself enough that I don't particularly want to add to that. :) This one's going on my table at the Blade Show.

The latest addition to my Aggression family of large, double-edged, aggressive knives is interesting to me in how I can see the evolution and refinement of the basic idea and in the execution. It has a forged 5160 blade 12" long that is fully sharpened on the top edge for about 2/3 of the length and a gentle recurve to the profile. The handle is a curved coffin outline wrapped in epoxy-impregnated retina-searing neon orange paracord with a black overlay and three-strand Turk's head knot, the butt end of the tang left exposed. And it comes with a Luke Swenson sheath featuring a dinosaur hide inlay. Or ostrich leg. They look much the same. :D The sheath has an adjustable-height belt loop. And to give a sense of scale, a couple of shots of it in hand. It has the same overall length as one of my 18" tomahawks. I think this would look great on a T-shirt. :)

I had a couple of customers who are friends who wanted Benghazi Warfighters from me. The one had already gotten a War Chief tomahawk, and the other wanted the blade on his to be extra long. Both were forged from 1/4" 5160, both got black canvas Micarta handle slabs. The regular-sized one is 11 1/8" overall with a 6 1/2" blade. Both also got black Kydex sheaths with TekLoks. Here it is with the War Chief. I think they go well together. The oversized one has an overall length of 12 3/4" and a blade length of 8 1/8". By way of comparison: In spite of the significant difference in blade length, they both balance at about the same point at the choil. That's because I left out the lightening holes in the tang of the long one. The new owner commented on how lively it is, "feels like an extension of my hand." :) Both gentlemen have served in the armed forces, Air Force and Marines respectively. Thank y'all, fellows!

A fellow in Australia who hangs out on another board that I do contacted me for advice while working up prototype blades to be manufactured by one of the khukuri manufacturers that sells in the U.S. a lot. It let me get a few interesting glimpses into their process and business. One thing that I hazarded a guess about that the Australian confirmed is that one of the reasons that khukuris tend to have such massive spines is that they're being forged by hand from 1/2" truck springs. The labor to work them down to a blade thickness with muscle power is tremendous. I don't know if they ended up doing so, but I recommended they see about ordering some 1/4" 5160 from Aldo Bruno. They were certainly interested in doing so; I just don't know if they followed through. The owner seemed to be fairly forward-looking. He apparently owned the only CNC milling machine in Nepal, not only for his own business, but would hire it out to other businesses. They were investigating power hammers too. If you are going to use salvaged steel for a blade, I'd recommend going with pickup leaf springs. They tend to be a much more workable thickness and should be good blade steel. Not guaranteed, though, and there's always the possibility of microfractures in a used car spring.

Thank y'all! I'm happy, the missus is happy, and the preacher is happy. :D

Thanks, Jerry. :)

I had wanted to be able to give this knife to my preacher the day he performed my wedding ceremony, but just flat ran out of time (and Kydex) to do so. I got it finished up after the honeymoon and handed to him yesterday. He does a lot of deer and feral hog hunting and recently used some other knives he had gotten from me to process out six feral hogs while I was out of state. Very satisfied with them, and was quite happy when he saw his latest addition to his sharp-and-pointy collection. :) This one was forged from 3/16" 1084, with mesquite handle slabs and brass hardware. The light shining off the lanyard hole's brass flared tube makes it hard to see. Black Kydex sheath with a TekLok to match the sheaths on the other knives he got for his kids. I know it'll get put to good use. He sent me home with some sausage and pork steak from the six feral hogs. :)