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I Forge Iron

Matthew Paul

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Everything posted by Matthew Paul

  1. That knife is nice, but that sheath.. Your leather working skills are fantastic.
  2. I got this wild idea to forge a folder. I saw a video about a gentleman who made a similarly designed knife on youtube, but I cant remember his name or find the video. So, If you're that guy - feel free to speak up. Anyway, the frame, blade, rivet, and thumb button are all forged pieces. I called it what I did because it reminds me of something out of "Wild Wild West" which was based off of the steam punk culture and designs, from what I know. I like that kind of stuff anyway. I used brass for the pivot pin, 1018 for the frame and thumb pin, and 5/8" round stock in 1095 for the blade. There is a small groove fullered into the frame in which the blade sits in, to protect the edge, and your flesh. The frame is offset at what would be the pommel to accommodate the blade opening and closing while still offering some protection from the edge while closed. The knife and design still need some tweaking to improve the function of the joint. it works but the angles of the flats are a bit off. The next one I'll probably use a steel pivot pin on with maybe a couple brass or bronze washers. Enough chit chat.... here are some pics. Thanks for looking, Matt Paul
  3. I drew up a design, and got to forging the knife from some 1/4" x 1" 1075. The blade is 8" in length, 1 1/4" tall. It's not my regular style of as forged finish, but it should be nice no less. Here are some photos of the progress... The concept: Mid Forging: As forged: After some intimacy with the grinder and a 50gr belt: I made the guard out of black linen micarta and put a wenge handle on it. I heat treated it tonight as well. It's got a differential heat treatment, edge quench. I just have to finish sand the handle. I always plan on doing the blades like this with a clean satin finish but I love the way they look after normalizing cycles and the quench. So here it is as of now... A few hours of hand sanding and it should be good to go. This blade is so light, its crazy. I'd say this one is lighter than a drifter as well. This thing is SUPER light weight and feels great in the hand! It was forged from 1/4" x 1" 1075. The knife measures about 14" in overall length. It's got an 8 1/2" cutting edge. The blade is 1 5/16" tall. The spine thickness starts at 1/4" and tapers evenly to 1/16" at the tip. There is a 45deg bevel/chamfer/false edge along the first 6" of the spine. The blade has a slight recureve to it with a drop of about 1/8" along the edge. The tip of the blade sits about 1/8" under the center-line. The handle is 5" in length and 7/8" tall at the narrowest, and 1 3/16" at the palm swell. The handle measures 3/4" thick at the guard and is 15/16" thick at the palm swell. There is a single 1/8" brass pin through the handle and tang. Here are a few photos of the finished knife. It still needs some more oil on the handle and the edge needs to spend some more time on the wet stones. Thanks for looking, Matt P.
  4. Thanks. They are just over 1 1/2 # I did some more work on this one today and got a few photos of splitting and welding the bit. I got the edge split, beveled/tapered, and opened back up. Then I forged the bit (1075 on this one) I cleaned it up a bit. A bit. Get it.... Never mind... Teeth chiseled into the bit so that it will be held in place until the forge weld is done. And all welded up, ready for heat treatment after I flatten it out and true everything up one last time. If you have interest int this I'd suggest picking up James Austin's DVD. It's very good and I hear that he is coming out with a second one.
  5. Thank you and you are most welcome. I'll try to get some better pics of splitting and welding the edge if I can. I did some more work on a couple today. A shot of them starting out. Just a couple blocks of A36 Starting to fuer and draw them down. Stepped down and drawn out. And one of the eyes formed wrapped and welded with the bit forged out some.
  6. And here is the top fuller/crosspien that is soft, as you can see by the mushrooming. If I did one again I would for it at a 45deg or 90deg angle to how this one is. It's a 1/4" radius 1/2" diameter - roughly.
  7. Thank you fellas. Eddie: I do use a roughly 1/4" top fuller that I made from a pick axe to form the eye before it is wrapped. I'll attach some step by step photos. These two photos show the stock marked for the inside front portion of the eye, as well as the poll. I used a chain attached to the silencing chain on my anvil, with a weight on one end - to act as a helping hand while I fullered and forged this piece - as I did it by myself. You can see that I fullered about half way into the stock to start off the forging. Then, using the corners of the anvil face, I forged the fullered area into a taper, or bevel, however you would like to describe it - A gentle transition from the deepest forged spot to the level face of the stock. I'm not a self proclaimed expert, so I may not be "proper" on the lingo. Then I used a small cross pien that I forged to draw out the ears, while offsetting the stock over the edge of the face - The same positioning used to taper the initial fullers. When forging these with a striker, or helper, I use the same 1/4" top fuller used to make the initial depressions, to draw the ears. This is what the forging will look like at this point. Poll forged, eye preformed, and ears drawn out. Then the forging is wrapped back on to itself leaving about a 1/2 to 3/4" space, which allows me to clean the scale from the forging to insure a quality weld. And that is how I generally form the eye. These photos are from my first attempt at this. I do have photographs from the group of 8-10 that I did, but am waiting to get them back from the photographer/striker/friend.
  8. Thanks Basher. I did a few more. Here is one without the flare to the heel and toe. You can still see the weld seam some on the eye. And another that I need to slit and weld the bit in still. this one you can not see the seam on. I used a 6lb and a 3lb rounding hammer which seemed to blend it in quite nicely.
  9. You could do it if you kept the part that says "Antivibe" wrapped in wet rags and keep wetting them. I'm not sure that I would go through all of that on this piece of steel - to make an axe from it... but its possible if that is what you wanted to do. I keep welded handles cool that when when forge welding pattern welded and for some "blacksmiths" knives. I'll attach an image as an example on a small knife that I did, where the blade was heat treated and sharpened prior to the bends being forged into the handle. I simply wrapped the blade in wet paper towels and kept them saturated. It worked great as you can see by how tight the "temper" colors are on the steel.
  10. That looks great! Out of curiosity, how thick is the bit just before where you started forging the bevel?
  11. Thanks Larry. I will probably be there, although I have not registered yet. I do not have a power hammer, unfortunately. Although, I do have two people who can occasionally operate a sledge for me. I am near Goshen/Florida NY. Than you for the compliments everyone. Matt P
  12. Thank you All! Ive been very busy, and went a bit over the top with the axes. Ive got a bunch of progress photo but I'll pot some of the pictures that stand out. I think I'm on #10 or 11 of the heads. Thank you for looking! Matt P
  13. They look great! Congrats on the show!
  14. Like i said before man - I Really like that. Such a unique look, in the best way possible.
  15. Thanks fellas! Tanto, I agree - But I was lazy and did not feel like setting up the soft box and all of that.
  16. Historic knives and tools have always interested me. After much field time with my modern rendition of a broke back seax, I have decided to attempt to dimensionally recreate The Sittingbourne seax, as close as I can. This seax was heavily decorated and forged from iron, and although I do have iron, I will be attempting this first blade from A36 and 1095. I am more concerned with getting the technique down with this blade, and later on I can progress to using Iron with a steel insert. Although, from what I understand The Sittingbourne seax did not have a steel insert, but I could be wrong. More information on this blade can be found on the British Museum - Here Here is a photograph from the above URL: The only dimension giving was the overall length. So, using a little math I measured the scaled image on my computer screen and came up with what should be the actual dimensions of this blade, shown below.. The blade will be forged from the 1"x1/2" A36 (replacement for Iron) and then slit and have a 1095 insert welded in. So, here is what I'll be starting with. So, here is the start. I'm not sure how the welding of this bit will go. I may have to alter how I slit it and weld. The welds are taking fine, I have not had issues of that.. It's just that I need to adjust the material a bit more I think. (I ended up not compensating for the taper/clip on the tip when I forged the 1095 insert. I'll have to keep that in mind on the next one) It started by tapering the 1/2x1" stock. Then I brought the clip back some more. Forged it out a bit more and started the tang. More progress.. Slit and the bevel forged. Slit opened up. Cutting edge forged and notched. So the 1095 edge was welded and I did not get pics of that as I was more worried about making it happen than taking photos. Once I started to draw the knife out I remembered to take some. So here is a shot of the cutting edge welded in and the blade starting to get drawn out. And here is the blade all drawn out and ready to be cleaned up a tad with some files and then go on to be hardened and tempered. Its a tad short, but now know for the next one to use a bit more of the A36. The blade s very thin between maybe 9/64" and tapering to about 3/32" or so - It should be light and cut well. Here it is after a little cleaning up with some files and a stone - Ready for heat treating. I heat treated it, stoned it to 8000 grit and carved a nice apple wood handle for it. Thoughts? I like it, nice and simple.
  17. That sounds like it would work, slitting and welding in a bit. Maybe upset the stock for the eye section or do a wrapped eye so that there was more material for the eye to support the head on the haft? Just some thoughts... Ive never worked with spikes before, although I do have a few.
  18. From what I can see in the pictures, I like it!
  19. Thanks! Here is Number 3 - Some improvement. This one was forged from 3/4" x 2" 4" A36 with a 1095 bit. From this: To this:
  20. I just finished this one up for a fella. It is hand forged 1095, with full "tribal" styled vine file work from tip to pommel which has back accents on the tang area. It has a threaded stainless steel pommel which has been polished. The handle material is blue dyed and stabilized box elder burl. There are 1/4" mosaic pins, each one turned 90degree from the other creating one diamond, and one square in their centers. The rough finish is left on the blade not because I'm lazy, but because that is what the customers want. Thanks for having a look, Matt Paul
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