leafshadow

ty for the tips. forging1,i would try to look for it, and if i couldnt find it, i ll just come back and ask you ^^

lol i dont think ive been around long enough to remember any of them, but i like that cleaver thing there, on the bottom right of your second pic

reporting back: i've tried all except the paint and copper plating. rust changed the color pretty good, tho it's not really the color i wanted. copper burnish worked too, and it made my scrap shine with a tint of copper red. but i think the greatest success is in tempering, or "blueing". the steel turned into shades of bright purple-ish red just before turning blue. i shall have some pictures up eventurally, right now i couldn't get my camera to capture the shininess of it... =

hey gerald, i just took some time looking ant enco's catalog, it's pretty cool, thanks for telling me about it :)

okie, thanks =]

ya i thought it would be something like that... =/ where do you guys get your steel? i would've gone to a junk yard to dig up leaf springs, except the closest junk yard from here is still at least 2 hours of drive... as for how did i try to add carbon, i read in the alchemy section that you do do it by putting your steel in a container filled with carbon compounds and heat as long as possible. so i got myself a ceramic container that was just the right size and filled it with carbon dust. then i heated my blade, buried it in the carbon dust in the container and threw the container into the forge and let it stay there till the fire burned out. (the glazing on the container got pretty messed up.... lol)

thanks! i shall give a try to all the ideas leasted above and report back lately =]

thanks =] i bought the stock from home depot and the guy who worked there told me that he thinks it's 1085 or something like that, though i think he is mistaken about it... it's labeled as 'plain steel'. who knows what that means... i thought it was some kind of low carbon steel, so i tried to add some carbon to it, not sure if it worked. =/ and yes, usually i heat treat my knives according to the direction give by mr lively on his web site. =]

last photo

more photos:

I made this blade from a piece of stock from bought from home depot. it looks cheap, with all those dents on it. that's because i dont have a proper anvil, and my sub-anvil had a rough surface.. designed for extreme survival situations. the handle is wrapped in nylon. in a needed condition, you can undo the handle wrap and use the nylon string to strap the knife to a stick and make a harpoon/hunting spear. the hole along the blade's surface are connected by shallow fullers and form a system of blood groves. the little 'pretty thing' dangling from the hilt could be made into a cheap bait for fly fishing. =D over all length: 9inch blade length: 4 inch

im working on a bloody thrusting knife, and i want to give some parts of it a reddish look. any one know a good way to make the steel look red?

thanks for rambling dude, that actually helps... :)

thanks buddies ^-^

hmmm, i've only been using what i can find from my dad's garage (he's an engineer, lol) and so far i haven't got any rust yet. [i just had an idea this morning to make a self-oiling scabbard using the kind of material they make stuffed animals with. think that'll work? ]

lol... a bad day for werewolves... i like that. but are you sure you wanna stand up to a werewolf with something that small....? personally i think silver bullets and arrow heads would work better... lol

when i first started blacksmithing, (and that was only some months ago) i use to make aluminum pieces, using bricks as my anvil. the rough bricks gave a interesting texture to my knives, and you might want to experiment with it. you'd smash several bricks before your work is done though, lol

alright here's my first post, lol i been told it's a good habit to ask questions, so, here's my question, how do you make those rivets that attaches the wooden handle onto the tang? i've made knives with metal handles and handles wrapped by strings, but for my newly finished piece, i wish to give it a wooden handle... but i dont know how to make rivets.... T.T

yo, thanks for posting this. i'm also a noobie blade smith, i made some blacksmith's knives based on the designs made my mr lively (see livelyknives.com), and it made me feel pretty good that i can shape a piece of metal to resemble a master piece so closely. lol i've only recently started working with steel, made three pieces so far. (before i made things from aluminum, which was a lot easier to work with, at least most of the times) my first steel piece was a 'stolen' design, and i am pretty satisfied with how much it resembles the original work. i think for a beginner like me, it's better to try duplicating some one else's work, 'cause it give you no excuse to "change the plan". some times, when i try to work an original idea i would just wonder away and make something completely different because i'm not yet skilled enough to make what i want or i just messed up and decided to keep going. when i try duplicating someone else's work, i always sit down and plan out the whole thing, and there's no "ooops, oh well...", and what comes out in the end always satisfies me, and 'cause the finished work is already made for me, i would know exactly what i want. so ya... i think that's a great way for me to get the practice. lol ;]