John Martin

1060 Steel. 9" Blade, 3/16" thick, 1 1/2" wide, 4" handle. Kydex sheath. Stabalized Burl Handle with forged guard. Comments and criticism welcome!!!

30 Layer twist 1095 & 15n20. 7" overall, 1/8" thick, 1 1/4" wide. Handle material is like micarta, but used for counter tops usually. Comments and criticism welcome!!!

Well I have made some progress on the big bowie and one of the little ones. I got a little over zealous on the peening, and now I have to grind it off and re attach new scales. Not a big deal, just takes more time.

Also, W2 is no longer made. You have to find people who stocked up on it and are willing to part with some. Besides Don Hanson, the other person that I know who has quite a stockpile of it is Doug Ponzio.

Thanks man for the inspiration and great job! I have been meaning to make something for my room that is bigger than that, but that is the perfect model for me, for sweatshirts and stuff. Really looks nice!

Tom, great video, and great job!

I plan on HTing the last two damascus ones, and polishing them up, and maybe finishing one this weekend if I have time. Thanks for the compliments.

I have a gas forge, and have it setup so that the exhaust is blown outside. However, whenever I am doing anything besides forging which usually involves grinding or sanding of some sort whether it be a knife or a handle for a knife, I wear an air filter. It has exchangeable filters that are good for so long, as well as ones that are built into it that take chemicals out of the air. It only works as long as YOU use it. It mainly just keeps dust and grit out of me.

I like the first one the most! I also like how you always manage to keep some of the original forging in the knife, it just accents it so well!

I made a lot of progress on the recurve bowie today. I finished profiling and grinding it, and managed to HT it with success. I also forged a damascus guard for it, and have my handle material picked out. If I have time on the weekend I will start to clean the blade up, polish it, and fit the guard. It will be an S guard with half hidden tang, I will prolly put a pin in it as well just to be safe.

Well, tbh it looks like you aren't spending that much time grinding. It usually takes me about an hour or two to get a knife completely ground and ready for HT. Also, I don't use a wire brush for scale. I just wet my anvil with a spray bottle and the face of my hammer. Steam explosions knock the scale off. Also, make sure you aren't oxidizing your metal. Also, old steel can be well old steel that isn't good anymore. Forge thick, grind thin!

Well, I finally got out to the forge over christmas break, and I hope to finish all 5 of these up by the end of the month. The recurve bowie is 1055, 10" blade & 5" tang. The fat knife that isn't grinded yet is a totally random and twisted damascus no specific pattern. 3" blade, 4" handle. The knife with four finger grooves is 20 layers, and an attempt at a ladder pattern, it worked, but obviously can be improved in many ways. 3" blade, 4.25" handle. The knife with three finger grooves is 23 layers, twisted. Same length as the above. The little knife is an old one that I need to finish still. but 30 layers, twist. Any comments or critiques are welcome! Thanks, John

It's great to hear that you are back!! Hope you're doing well! Almost there!

When I was working on a knife for myself, and I wanted it perfectly flat, had a machinists block to check it with at the time, and I was doing a distal taper. One little section was a little bit lower than the rest. I finally gave up when I realized how much more grinding a I would have to do. So I just through the handle slabs on. Not a big deal. But it could have had more work. No one is gonna notice it though

Some updates. Have profiled the first finger notch a bit more. Turned it into a drop point. Have also grinded the bevels in. Also, if you look in the photo close up, I have a tiny inclusion near the edge of the blade. I got lucky. It will grind out when I grind the secondary bevel in. Thanks guys!

You did take care of details! That looks like one fine tool. Great job!

This knife is made from 15n20 and 1095 from knife and gun. It is a 23 layer twist billet. Knife length is currently 3.5" and handle is 4". Pictures aren't that great, but the final will be. The blade has not be ground yet, but I dipped it in vinegar just to see how the pattern is coming. The design of the blade might be a bit odd, but it is very comfortable and allows great control of it. Lemme know what you guys think, what you would do differently, etc... Every bit helps me with the current knife and future knives. Thanks

That's another milestone! Keep it up Frosty!

Hello all, I have a two burner diamondbackironworks welding forge. It is a great forge for welding, but I do not need the two burners. I lose a lot of gas because of the two burners. I am planning on modding the forge and making it shorter, and a one burner. I will then have an extra burner. I want to setup another gasser for just forging blades. So I need to make it super efficient. It only needs to get around 1900F because I am just forging. Should I use the extra burner, or should I buy or make a new one? Also, I plan on making this blade forge only about 10 inches long, and probably about a 3x3 inch interior. Going to go square as I believe in that design. I want to know how much inswool I should use and what I else I can use to increase it's effciency. Thanks!

Glad to hear that he is doing better!

Avadon, post pictures once you get those billets made! Thermalcycling comes down to what you are going to do with the billets, and how you have gotten best results with your method. Tinker around a bit with normalizing and shrinking the grain if your going with blades.

I am not sure, I think mine is a like a ball valve, with the lever. I don't like messing around with my propane stuff, so I bought mine with my forge from diamondback ironworks.

The knifemaker forges are for welding hands done! You have reviews of the three main forges, now all you have to do is figure what kind of work you will mainly be doing! lol. I wish I would have bought the one burner diamondback. The two burner is overkill for me. I don't weld up billets that are like 12" long.

Yupp, forging by hand is hard but fun. It's how I make all of my damascus as I have no mechanical helper yet. Yupp, just thermocycle after you forge them and then you can HT to whatever you like.

Avadon I didn't mean like hard to forge, as soon as you heat it up, the hardness goes away. I am saying that those are some huge billets, and it's going to be fun to forge them out by hand :)