Matthew Paul

Man do I need to get some proper rest..... Ric Furrer. :D

Thank you Thomas. I'll have to pick up that book when I get a few dollars to spend. That's a good idea of letting it soak while forging other things, save some gas. And Thank you for the compliments on the blade. I'm not normally a fan of wraps or knots on knives but I decided to go with it on this one. It's sealed up with some CS glue but I could always remove it later on.

The eye is marked out, 1 1/8" for the first side of the eye, 3/4" for the poll, 1 1/8" for the other side, and 1" for the scarf/weld.

Not too long ago I did some playing with making blister steel and shear steel. I dont claim to be an expert at this and I know that there are many people out there who have much more experiance with this aspect of blade making. I also know that there are a lot of people out there who have not had the chance to do much experimenting with this sort of thing. So, I will share what I have learned so far, and if anyone would like to add to it, that would be great. When carbon is added to wrought iron through carburization it becomes blister steel. It is called this because the carburization causes small blister type formations on the surface of the steel. Carbon is added to the steel through the use of charcoal in a mostly sealed container. I say mostly because I left a vent hole to vent any moisture that was held in the charcoal, so that I did not have a pipe bomb sitting in my forge. I did a test run. I welded up a small container to house the wrought iron and charcoal powder. The iron was set in the center of this metal "crucible" and crushed charcoal was packed in around it. Then the container was welded shut. The container was brought up to heat in the forge and left to soak for 45 minutes. After this the "crucible" was left to cool and the container was cut open. I did a spark test to determine if any carbon hand been added to the iron to create steel, and if so, roughly how much. This is a photo of the container in the forge coming up to heat: This first photograph shows the spark patten of the wrought iron as I found it in a friends barn. Notice that it is a dull spark with no starburts. You will see the star bursts that I am talking about in the images following this one. This photograph shows the spark pattern of the 1095 steel that I use to forge my knives. I use as an example of carbon content. 1095 contains .95% carbon. Notice how the sparks burst off into other sparks. This photo shows the spark pattern of the carburized iron, which is now steel. Notice a similar spark pattern to the 1095. It appears as if there is more carbon on the surface metal than the 1095. This material started off as the wrought iron in the first photograph. It is from the exact same bar shown in that photo. The "Starbursts" in the spark patterns show the carbon content of the metal. Less = less carbon. More star bursts equates to more carbon. So, I heated it, quenched it, and hit it with a hammer. And it broke like a file... That's good news! However, the grain structure is very large, So I will have to see how much I can shrink that down. I'm not sure how fine it can become as this started out as wrought. But we will find out soon. The "grain structure" appears to be very large at this point. I did not normalize before I quenched and broke the piece and I did not do a quench and break after I normalized it. I should have. Would anyone know if this large grain is due to the fact that this was/is wrought iron or simply from the extended heat exposture, or more likely -- both. I think I did a good job for not really knowing all that much of what I was doing on this run at it besides my own experiances and the little that I read on the internet and saw on Rich Hale's youtube vidoe. I forge welded the two halves togeather and hammered it into this little 3" bladed "Seax" so that I could test the steel. As forged. Cleaned up. So here is the finished test product. I did not go crazy with the handle or etching as Im more worried about how this will work out. Just a little hickory off an old sledge handle. There is a small inclusion on the left side of the blade just above the cutting edge, tword the rear. I wouldent sell something like this but I wanted to do some testing. It has proven tpo be a non issue this far. I wound up using it for several weeks, beating on it and it has held up well. No different than a 10xx steel, except for a little more frequent sharpening. Since this has held up well, I rehandled it in elk antler that my grandfather shot while hunting at my uncles ranch in Idaho. I split some leather down with this blade, and put it togeather. Well, here are the results. I love it. Thank you for having a look. Any additions or comments would be appreciated. From what I have seen, Next time I would like to use some more charcoal and/or give it a longer cook to get some more carbon into it. I'll have to weight the charcoal and steel, and also use some thinner stock next time. The iron was 1/4" thick, and I think that I could get more carbon per volume of iron if it had a much thinner cross section. But, we will see.

fantastic piece

Amazing Sir. That is something to be proud of for sure.

Wow. Nice one! more pics when it is in the new home?

Very nice

There are some very nice anvils in this thread! Here are mine. This one is a 150# Emerson on a 560# steel and concrete base. It's the one that I use everyday. 140-150lb Fisher And the stack while I was moving the bases to the new shop. The top is a 128# Peter Wright that the face is separated a little on. I use it as a striking anvil and for others to use. And Ill be picking this one up by the end of the month. I finally struck a deal on it. That's a pack of cigarets on the left corner of it :) .

Yes Sir, and thank you. Three of them I did by myself with just a chain and pickaxe head as a weight for a hold down. Those were fun. Basher does some phenomenal work, no doubt.

Thank you guys. I've worked out some things to improve on it. not to just get the time to do it..

Thank you!

It's a craftsman 2x42 sander that I use belts from trugrit on. It works great for the money. I've used it for about two years now. I'm in the process of paying off a bader though.

Very nice!

Ok so I found a video that I did a year ago. I have changed how I do things a little bit but this will give you a fairly good look at it. I soak the blades in acid to remove all of the scale after heat treatment. The two blades in the first post were hit with a wire wheel after the soak, and the one in this video was lightly polished on a wheel. and here is part two which shows some of the finishing of the knife.

I'm not sure what you mean by what steps I follow. I forge the blade to shape, and after heat treatment the edge is ground in. yes the bevels are forged and left about a nickles thickness before heat treatment. The clip point was an old forging that I had found when I moved to my new shop. So, it was done with a rounding hammer and not flattened or planished after forging to shape. I might have a video, I'll take a look.

Thank you

Thanks guys. Scrap rat, I am a member of bushcraftusa.com and have been there for a long time. I do a majority of my sales through email from word of mouth.

Thank you all!

This blade was forged from 1084. and this one from 5160 Thanks for looking. Matt P

Tantrum, the blade is just as it was from normalizing hardening and tempering, with a little oil on it. Thank you Zanshin. I don't like grinding, so I try to get them 90% shaped with the hammer instead of 10% hammered and 90% ground - not that there is anything wrong with ether way..

Thanks guys. yeah the handle is just one that I cut carved an fit while in the woods camping over the weekend. Just to try it out. I cut a length of dead fallen maple Carved an fit the eye section Made some wedges and beat on it.

Yes! Gary Huston was the fella. Thanks for the compliments too.

Ive learned a lot on each of the 10 axes that Ive forged so far, and this one has come out the best yet. It is also the first that I have cleaned up on the belt grinder, but besides the finish the lines and proportions are almost spot on to what my goal was initially. Like the others, this was forged from a 2" x 4" x 3/4" block of A36, asymmetrical wrap with a 1075 forge welded bit.

Thanks. Forge welding is an important skill to have no doubt. I still have welds not take from time to time. One out of the 10 or so I had an issue with on the eye weld. Also, I brought the heads out to my buddy's wood working/carving shop for him to carve and put some handles on the axes. So, I took some photos of that. My buddy carving a spoon with one of the axes: