guzzo

Thanks,

The ones I had were all rusted out.

Thanks for the reply's I will look them up.

I am sure many will be saying "Oh no here we go again" but please bear with me. Firstly I do not have the current ability to properly make anything in a forge let alone feel delusional enough to attempt a sword. But I do like reading and as there are no blacksmiths that I am aware of in my area this site is my main source of information.

Anyhow to the point of this thread....I started reading this forum ( as my interest mainly lies with blade smithing) and after reading all the comments on sword making and how difficult it is etc I decided to google sword makers to see who was out there and what they produced.

One of the sights was Cold Steel...they had some impressive video clips which included chopping a pig in half and pushing the sword through a car bonnet and what really got me was the bending in a vice.

So for someone who does not know and thought this was impressive.....Are they as good as they claim to be? Can anybody post me the web address for what you would consider to be a great modern day sword maker?

I have no desire to own a sword (unless it is Excalibur) but I do appreciate them.

That's a real beast. We put ballistic armor jackets on our dogs but they still get cut up sometimes. My son had an old Catahoula dog (he died of heat stroke a couple years ago) who would grab a pig or cow on the nose and spin, which caused the other animal to flip. I saw him turn a 1000 steer over on its back - and the dog weighed about 70 lbs. Best dog judo you ever saw...<LOL>

I'll ask my son to bring his knife over for a pic. It is nothing fancy; I used a stag horn butt for the handle and put a full loop finger guard on it so CW doesn't lose his grip when the blood starts flying.

Blade is 2 1/4 inch wide, 12 inch long and weighs 2 lbs....It is a bit ugly but it can chop through the jaw bone of a pig without blade damage so it does what i made it to do.......here is a pic of why a lot of hunting dogs in my area never come home

I love the knife; nice and heavy with a wide blade...

We often hunt hogs with dogs and kill 'em with knives - although I personally prefer a pistol. Sounds much harder than it is except on the big ones (which is 300-400 around here). My son had a nice pack of pits, black mouth curs, a heeler and one giant Rhodesian Ridgeback - he's down to one BM and the Ridgy now. I made his pig sticker out of a file with a wide tanto point because IMHO the chisel tip cuts arteries better than a point.

Stay safe - piggies can be a real bad trip under the wrong circumstances...

really nice! Probably a good idea about the blood and bone, why do you chop out the jaws? what are the specs on the blades?
Josh

Here are a couple of my knives made from 5160. I am a bowhunter and I use the Bowie for chopping out wild pig jaws and other heavy work. I have some picks of it in use but fear blood and bone may offend some.

Love it..looks great

Looks nice i like it dont know about the carbon content in older ones it's possible I guess I was always told that the carbon is lower in the spikes then what people really think worst case is you need to sharpen more often

This is my first attempt at a Spike HAwk. I have learnt a lot (from all my mistakes) and will make lots of changes next time round. Getting heaps of good ideas off this site. One last thing....I hear rail spikes are quite low carbon and dont heat treat so well....this one I found all rusted on an old railway and had no markings. Anyhow I heated it up to non magnetic and quenched in oil and then tempered at 240 c for 2 hours and then cleaned it up and when i tried to sharpen it on my stone it is a lot harder than i expected...I had a basic edge after cleaning it up but it is as least as hard as a big bowie i made from 5160...is it possible very old spikes could have had higher carbon content than the newer ones? it was very rusty.

I just pick out a likely looking branch and cut it and remove the smaller branches. Then drawknife the bark off and slightly refine the shape. I usually try to use downed wood that is partly dried already. If I end up using dead green stuff I'll cook the end that fits in the eye in a fire to get it fairly dry... otherwise it is likely to loosen too much as the wood dries and shrinks. If I can get a nice crotch at the end I like that as the cross grain there will tend to make a stronger knob to fit in the eye. Another crotch at the handle end is ideal if shaved down a bit and rounded for smooth handling. You can dry in a microwave too if you can fit the wood in there. Best to do this when you are home alone. Be real careful as the wood gets nearly dry in the micro as it will overheat or burn quite quickly. Short bursts that keep the wood too hot to handle comfortably but not hot enough to burn you work best.

I rive out and then drawknife to shape. Lately I am doing some branch handles that use the whole diameter of the branch and are just debarked and shaped minimally with the drawknife. So far I am liking these too! I like to use forks and branch joints to add strength and size where needed. This can be a bit of extra work in selecting and shaving as the grain is a bit tricky there but worthwhile IMO.