Ed Steinkirchner

a sen id a flat scraping/cutting tool used to make long flats, it has a handle at both ends sen and a fuller scraper is used to scrape in or clean up forged fullers. i would just search the forums here for info on that. i like the slot drift to be the shape of the blade-tang union and slightly small, so the guard can either be heated and press-fit on, or filed slightly for a sliding fit. definately make them out of high carbon steel or they just don't hold up. Ed Steinkirchner

well if your going to forge in fullers instead of just grinding them, you'll need some top and bottom fullers, spring style, so they stay lined up. and i second the long quench tank, and add a long heating forge just for the heat-treat would be very helpful. if your into hand work, a sen and fuller scrapers are nice, but a grinder is soo much easier. i think most folks use a 2 inch belt if i'm not mistaken. that is what the grinder i am building runs, so i hope it is enough. but it seems that you got pretty much all you need. on a side note you may want to make a drift of a standard sword tang or tangs so you can forge guards more easily. whatever you make remember to keep us posted. hope my rambling helped some Ed Steinkirchner

are you going to haft it or just have another spearhead lying around? because i usually end up with a spearhead lying on my bench for a long time until i decide to haft it or store it. anyone else have a hard time finding a shaft long enough and straight enough to use with a spearhead? its just been bothering me for a while now and i figuerd now is as good a time as any to ask. one more question Sam, what is the overall weight? since its steel i would expect it to be fairly light. Ed Steinkirchner

looked good before, andlooks even better now. very nice work as always sam. what is the diameter of the socket at the open end? also. do you roll the socket on the anvil or start it in a swage? Ed Steinkirchner

any time someone asks a question about those clips (creepers) i have to ask the shape. those things are many different shapes and as such are different in time used and steel makeup. i dont know all the specifics on times used, but the ones i like the best have a sort of 3 leaf clover shape and are medium carbon as the others have said. but there are many shapes, and many I dont even know of yet. i know of about 5 different shapes. all have different shapes, cross-sections, and steel makeups. the hardest ones are j-shaped with a T cross-section, and are high carbon steel. the clover shaped creepers are about 1.25 in X about 5/8 in, and when straightened are about 13 inches or so long. never made a hardy out of one, but none of the ones ive been able to get are big enough. anyway, i would think that they are med carbon and should be tested before you use them. by tested i mean spark tested and hardening/tempering tested that is the only way to be sure(without lab testing of course). just my thoughts on the subject. Ed Steinkirchner

ive tried to do that kind of bend/upset maneuver on one that i forgot i made(because i sold it)and i couldn't get the transition at the inside right. it was too square and it wanted to crack. ive done square corners and even so i couldn't get it quite right, so i figured that upsetting would work. as for handling it, that wont happen for a week or two because i totaled my car i can't go from college to home on weekends because i need picked up, and that isn't possible every weekend. so it may be a while till it gets finished. but, oh well, stuff happens. Ed Steinkirchner

the eye is slit and drifted, then opened on the cone mandrel until round. this was more an excercise in upsetting than anything. what makes it easier is a pair of tongs that can grip from the head end of the spike so the blade can be thinned easily. it took about 6 or so heats to upset enough metal to make the blade broad enough. on the next one im going to draw the offset part of the head so it supports the handle. im trying to make something a little better than a novelty. just to see if i can. Ed Steinkirchner

couldn't find the original pics of the kuksa so i had to find it and take new ones. oh well. here it is i carved it quite a while ago and i use the same techniques to carve it as i use on my scabbards and handles. it is sugar maple from the smokehouse wood pile. the last pic is of my seax in progress. the carving is done on both the wood and the antler, unless i decide to checker them, but i digress. the same carving tools and techniques were used for everything that ive posted pics of, so really all that is needed to make these carvings is 3 chisels, a straight, a skew, and a gouge. all you need is the technique to do it. Ed Steinkirchner

i made my first spike hawk when i started out smithing a few years back, it turned out awful and i havent made one since. so now i figured i would try it again and see if i can do it right after 4 years of practice. this is the result. the eye is round because i didn't have a drift other than a hammer drift so i used my cone mandrel after using a hammer drift. i actually like how this came out. thoughts and comments welcome Ed Steinkirchner

the way i carve is with 2 chisels, a skew and a straight. it gives more options in design and allows you to make smoother carvings once you get used to it. if you want to see some great stuff look into the work of Jake Powning. he has a carving tutorial here, http://www.powning.com/jake/commish/progress3.shtml this is the same way i carve all of my scabbards and handles. Also i second the use of contact cement for gluing leather, but in a pinch ive use gorilla super glue, which i always have in the shop. once again great work Ed Steinkirchner

very nice, carving always gives a nice effect. what do you use for carving? you can shape the leather to fit the knife. just wrap the knife in celophane(so it doesn't get wet), soak the leather with water to soften it, then wrap the leather around and rubberband around the handle, press the blade part with pieces of wood and a clamp and let it dry. finally cut the string holes, glue, sew and trim. this method always works for me. and if you want it harder as well as waterproof, just melt in a little wax and wipe off excess. i have a sharpening stone i made a leather case for and this was the method i used. it is fairly simple to work leather when you do it a few times. and if you want to get fancy, you can tool the leather. great work, cant wait to see the next one. Ed

here is the dagger with the grape and leaves carved in Ed Steinkirchner

here are some pics of 2 scabbards i carved, thesmall one is my seax and the bigger one is my khukri. they have been in earlier posts so i wont go into detail on them. the otgher thing is the fine stone i use to sharpen the chisels. it is made out of leather from an old pair of boots and the "clasp" is antler. it is sewn with hemp twine. i will post some pics of a maple kuksa i carved with knotwork when i get to the computer at my house this weekend. ill see if i can find the pics of the dagger with the grape carvings. Also, there are some simple carvings on the chisel handles them selves. Ed Steinkirchner

ive posted a few of my knives with carvings and never really showed the tools i used to do it. so here they are. they are forged from whatever i had that would do the job (scraps) and were about the right size. the bigger gouge is lawnmower blade with an oak handle, the skew chisel is different lawnmower blade and has a hickory handle, the larger straight chisel is triangle file with a hickory handle and penny for the bolster, the smaller straight chisel is couch spring and birch, finally the small gouge is hay rake tine and sugar maple. the gouges are for hollowing the halves of the scabbard (wooden sheath) and the others are for the relief carving on the surfaces on each. the only one that can be struck is the big gouge, i originally made it to hollow out kuksas and bowls, but it works great for roughing in scabbards. als the straight chisels are 1/4 and 1/8 inch wide, the skew and 1/4 straight are both about 7 inches long OAL and the big gouge is 8.5 in long. feel free to ask questions because i dont know things to mention sometimes. Ed Steinkirchner

where i am there are about 3 kinds, 2 rectanguler cross section and one j-shaped with a T-shaped cross section. the j-shaped ones are super hard and the others are pretty tough, 1050-1060 sounds right. one of the railroad workers i talked to called them creepers. i can tell you that they forge best at orange to yellow heat. ive forged tools from them plenty of times and personally i think the alloy is satisfactory for many tools when properly heat treated. as for those ones with a t-shaped CS, i still havent found a good use for them yet. i would post pictures but i am 2 hours from my shop and dont have a car. culinary school really can make it hard to get to the shop, even weekends. dangit, rambling again. anyway, i bet you arent getting it hot enough. that is an easy thing to do. also what is the shape of the clip? Ed Steinkirchner

add sand to it because usually red clay is lower temperature than grey or brown. if you know any potters in the area that dig their own clay, they would be able to tell you what kind of clay it is for sure. all the clay here ,except for a few places, is pretty poor so i havnt tried dug clay. this is all based on my limited stoneware experience. Ed Steinkirchner

not only that, it is kind of nice so you can see if you bottomed out or not

incredible like always. one question though,how long is the tang? also is there a nome for the waisted grip or did you think of that? and what do the characters on the tsuba mean? Once again, amazing work. Ed Steinkirchner

there really isn't a clear cut boundary between a short sword and a sword or a dagger. it really depends on what you want to call it to an extent, although a blade that is 32 inches probably couldn't be called a shortsword and a 7 inch blade is no longsword, but in the case of a 19 inch blade it goes to whichever side you like. personally consider a shortsword as being 20 inches or less, but that is just my personal opinion. P.S. post pics good luck with your project Ed Steinkirchner

one thing about chef's knives is the edge is very thin and the cross section is a triangle so there isn't a lot of mass to keep it from chipping or cracking. the geometry is great for a knife to chop wegetables or meat bus could be a bit frail for a working knife. it would make a great skinner or boning knife. also factory knives are tempered the same throughout, so the spine is usually as hard as the edge. and i would suggest using an angle grinder to finish and the grinding wheel to get rid of steel. ive reground a few knives and after breaking the first i started drawing a bronze to blue color only on the spine, not to the edge, and this makes them a bit tougher rather than brittle. only used carbon steel knives because i dont know how to treat stainless. like Mr. Powers said, dont let it get too hot when grinding. also if it gets too hot to hold its too hot.should be able to make a servicable knife from it that was a bit longer than i intended but if it helps it doesnt matter good luck Ed Steinkirchner

thanks a lot! ill use a scribe. it is something like that, that i would not have thought of myself. glad i asked. work will be progressing and i'll post pics as i finish. maybe i'll even post a step by step progression of the steps. who knows? not me! that's for sure. thanks again Golgatha! Ed Steinkirchner

ive hit a kind of stupid snag on transferring my drawn pattern to the knife grip. i usually use carbon paper to do this but this wood is too dark for me to see the lines. does any one have any suggestions? i'll probably rub the back with white or silver pencil and trace it on that way. it is always small, trivial things that hold me up. Ed Steinkirchner

Had to take pictures, so here it is assembled and shaped. still needs carved and sealed. also it isn't mahogany it is black walnut, i forgot what it was because it sat on my bench so long. the peening should have been nicer but it was very cold in my shop at the time and the cold bolster cooled the tang faster than i anticipated, so i had to use a center punch to really get it set. oh well. any way the only thing left to figure out is what to carve into the antler, because ive already drawn up the wood part, that's it in the last pic. more to come Ed Steinkirchner

here are the parts with the bolster fit and the pieces roughed out and ready to be riveted together. the gap between the blade and the bolster will be closed slightly before i peen the tang. the gap is there because the tang is slightly thicker than the blade, but i don't know of a better way to fix that this far through so i'll shrink on the bolster(ima gonna smak it witha hammer!) Ed Steinkirchner

the different materials should look good together, tha hardest part is getting a perfect fit between them. i tried to peen the tang once but the antler bolster split, so i glued it back together and noe i need to make a brass bolster to go before the antler. then peen and shape. then carve the wood and antler. and finally make the scabbard, and carve it. so the work has only begun. Ed Steinkirchner