cliffrat

Um........ We have a saying in our Black smith's Association (AABA, AZ): Why buy something for $10 when you can make it for $20? I didn't say what I was going to sell it for.

For the record, I think it's kind of silly to get irritated with folks who ask a question that was answered in another thread a long time ago. If, answering the same question a couple of times when asked by different people annoys you, just ignore the question and let someone else take up the talking stick. There's no need to tell people "that information is already covered somewhere on this forum or another one, so go look for it." Personally I think that is counter productive to maintaining an active forum. If you want to be thought of as a teacher, and you want to be respected as one, get used to the idea of repeating yourself. It is always beneficial to go over the basics again. Remist: There are numerous ways to temper tool steels, some folks use the eyeball method at the forge or with a torch and watch the color change, some folks look up the specific heat treating data for the specific tool steel, and specific hardness desired, and use digital electric ovens (kilns), or hot salt baths, or burying it in a mixture of bat guano and ape urine and lighting it on fire (not really) to bring the steel up to specific temps for specific lengths of time. Your question would be best answered by starting out with what tool you are talking about, then getting into a lengthy discussion (some might call it an argument) over what is the "best" steel for that tool, then that leads to another lengthy discussion about size and shape for the planned use, Finally when everyone is either exhausted or disgusted, and has forgotten what the original question was, you can bring up the subject of heat treating and get into another long discussion about quenching oils, then when you are just about to give up hope, someone will start mentioning tempering. By that time you will have gotten so much information out of these cranky old farts, you will not know where to begin. You'll probably have a "new tool wish list" several pages long and wish that you had just taken up fly fishing instead. Oh, and don't mind Frosty, he's an all right guy when you get to know him a little better.

Kal is correct. They mention the tempering process at about 49:30. I had missed that the first like, 7 times I watched it.......

I really like: The general shape and form of this piece. The fittings are really well done and I don't mind the copper pins at all, but can understand how some folks would hate them. The handle shape looks comfortable and well executed. The general fit and finish looks good, although I don't see a pic of the blade against the guard, so the jury is still out on that. I don't like: The choice of wood. There are so many better woods, stabilized or otherwise, that would have really made this handle an eye popper. For the next one, try a stabilized burl from K&G Supplies, or Jantz, or half a dozen other knife supplies vendors. A decent looking stabilized burl block will only set you back about $30. The lack of a ricasso on the blade. Someone who buys this knife is eventually going to try and sharpen that edge and end up grinding the stone or steel into that beautiful cast fitting you worked so hard to achieve. Not a great design feature.

looks like a knife laddie! About the Hamon not turning out as you had planned, tell us more specifics. Like how long you etched (BTW-I think your ferric solution may be too week by half), how you sanded the finish, etc. These items may be why you didn't get the results you were trying for.

We have a saying in our Black smith's Association (AABA, AZ): Why buy something for $10 when you can make it for $20?

I think I will now bombard the tech support with requests to fix this situation.....

Frostyitis! Forbidden again! And again. This is infuriating! I have tried to post something to this thread 7 times and keep getting Frostyitis.

I'm using a fairly "rich" alloy (about 50-50) and my ingot starts out at around 3/8 inch thick. I'm using basically the same technique that tsterling shows in his tutorial, except my ingot mold is a piece of stainless tool wrap folded into a box and pushed into a cut-off piece of steel tubing. I have ingot molds like he has, but I needed a thicker piece of material for the knife guard, so I improvised a mold. question for ts: your tutorial says you anneal and pickle often. How often? It seems I am needing to anneal after about 3 passes through the mill. I'm considering putting the drawing dies on the 25# little giant.........

Do you know what truck the spring came out of?

Anyone out there making Shibuishi? I have made my first round of cast ingots and am trying to form this stuff. It's very difficult to move under the hammer or rolling mill.

For best results with Super Quench: Order before midnight tonight. Forbidden again! I've caught the Frosty Problem.........

So I just got the "Forbidden" thing after trying to reply to another post. Man that's annoying. I guess you are supposed to copy every post before hiting the "submit" button, just in case you get "Forbidden" and lose everything you just wrote.

I don't think I've gotten the "Forbidden" notification yet. I did get an email warning the other day for "spamming" that I didn't understand. Then I looked at the post in question and found that it had been edited for (what I assume to be) foul language. It would be a shame if you got blocked or booted. I was just starting to like you!

My favorite knife fight rules are from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

A blacksmith buddy of mine tried de-rusting with electrolysis, and ended up stumbling on a really cool way to hyper accelerate the rusting and creating wild textures and the ability to etch designs in steel without all those acids and chemicals.

I was forging in my shop today. It was only 102* in the shop, 110* outside.........

IMNSHO, we smiths have brought this burden on ourselves to some degree. Honestly, think back to when you were 14 years old. Didn't you want to make or own a sword, or both? I know I did when I was 14, but there was nothing even remotely like IFI then, the internet wasn't even in science fiction, home computers were made by Radio Shack, heck, even ABANA was still less than 2 dozen guys sitting around an anvil in GA pondering how to bring the art of blacksmithing back from the dead, and literature on sword making was nonexistent except for a few dusty old tomes in the public library. None of which had any practical information. We live in an era and a culture of instant gratification. Information is always available and right at your fingertips. The trouble is that most people do not understand that information is not knowledge. The other problem is that when we were young, we all (probably all of us anyway) took every shop class that our junior and senior high schools offered and most public and private schools don't offer shop class anymore. The youth of today has no real concept of what a skill-craft is, what it takes to become a craftsman. They just see all these forums on-line with all these folks talking about making this stuff, and posting pictures, and they must naturally come to the conclusion that it can't be all that difficult, if so many people are doing it. Whenever I am approached by a young person interested in making knives or swords, I always very politely encourage them to contact the local chapter of ABANA here in AZ. I give them our website information and let them know when the next meet is coming up and tell them that they should attend and they will get to meet a whole bunch of smiths, making a whole lot of different stuff (including knives and swords). The ones that show up are serious. The ones that don't I never see or hear from again. Some of them actually stick around.......

This is going to sound counter intuitive, but cold bluing works much better if applied hot. Like around 170-200*F. Even a light lick with a propane torch immediately after application increases the effectiveness of the bluing significantly.

I also remember reading about smiths who begin the hardening quench, only to remove the blade from the liquid before it goes fully "hard". I think there was an article in Blade magazine some time ago about a knife maker in the South Pacific islands who used Jeep leaf springs as his "really good blade steel" and quenched them in water, but removed them at "the right moment" when he was certain it had reached the right hardness. Maybe Rik Furrer will chime in on this. I think he did something similar with that +Ulfberh+t sword in that Secrets of the Viking Swords documentary. http://video.pbs.org/video/2284159044/ I may be totally wrong about that, but that's what it looks like is happening at around 46:20 and there's no mention in the video of any tempering process following the quench.

Nice video thanks for sharing. I don't think the wife will be too keen on me trying it in the kitchen though! Ian Ferguson has a short section on this method in his book "Mokume Gane" (I knew I'd read about it somewhere before), but he said "Whether the process is of any great advantage over contemporary procedures of casting in a closed mold, has never been sufficiently analyzed...However it would appear that casting copper and its alloys under water goes some way to excluding gasses from the ingot and provides a clean, dense surface." (p. 58).

So do these restrictions apply to commercial shippers only, or to private individuals as well? Can let's just say hypothetically, a friend of yours in the lower 48 UPS you some stuff and not worry about all those inconvenient regulations?

Have you tried getting liver of sulfur? My wife uses that for coloring silver, copper, bronze, brass, etc. Mostly adds black to the metal surface. Concho makers use it to darken the engravings on the conchos. Is that on the "No Fly List" too?

"A person has to go through a licensed and bonded gunsmith to buy bluing" What about cold bluing supplies?

Sounds like a business opportunity.............