Steve Sells

I go for the bluish-to-brown on heavy beater things like machete, spear, axe, heavy contact swords. at least 2x for addressing the retained austinite.

he he he another one hooked good for you

The United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters aka UA So saith the union brothers I work with IBEW lu 305

I have noticed STILL no photos, what a waste of all our time :(

Its never a good Idea to leave blades out in the rain anyway. put them away after you finish using them. and black heat beeswax applications will ruin the temper.

Where did it state he used mild steels for knife blades? I missed that part... but he does have some nice blades

this makes a lot of SEN-ce jim ;)

Be careful if you ever allow anyone to use it, all those fractures are potential for a shattered blade. As for looks, its very nice.

now that is a real bird knife. While what I have seen of your work has always been first rate, I am impressed with this.

Things like this really put my petty troubles into perspective. While I think my family has had its problems, its nothing like what your family has been living with for years, now being compounded with his loss, My prayers are with you and yours.

Thanks everyone, Due to school having issues and NOT wanting to follow doctors diet, we have pulled Sean from public school. So far home schooling has worked well. Our 14 yr old is a so called 8th grader. He is now half way through Algebra I, and started 9th grade studies in the rest of his classes, and one of my Jujitsu students is a teacher, and he is over seeing our work with Sean, so he keeps us all Honest on Sean's progress. While not cured, he has had only minor symptoms, and nothing major> No Emergency room visits since we took his life and education in our own hands. Thanks everyone

that THAT smell is entirely dependent of your brand of Air freshener, my Grandmother had this one that did smell like roses.

That would ruin the heat treat if you are not very careful. Use gun blue.

Very punny Pete, and no problem Kevin. Part of my problem was getting the size to look and feel right to me, as we both agree smaller guards are preferred, Unless the man paying the bills says otherwise, but it worked out, and he seems to be pleased. Now, may I PLEASE have a normal blade order? lol

Thank you for the comments, the Client wanted a Willow leaf theme, so I did the guard as down swept branches, and the blade is the shape of the leaf. I don't really do fantasy but this one got my interest, took longer than planned but I like the final result, but as always I wish I had more time to do more to it. My First pommel was a failure in that it did not match the pattern of the other wrought, so I remade it and folded one extra time to thin it out and its much better this way. Personally I like a sword to have the smallest guard possible. But this has perfect balance, I am just waiting to hear from client after he uses it, as that is what really matters most. the focus is bad, but here is a rear shot showing how it attaches to a belt. also wrought and pinned.

Thanks for pointing that out Thomas, I just corrected my typo on the weight. My scale is only metric, and I misread my math. Weight is in part due to spine of .31 inch thick. till the 1/3 nearest the tip. Percussion: I don't know exactly. Before mounting I hacked a 3inch limb off the maple tree, it cut clean. I didn't really feel anything, very solid on the cutting through most the middle portions of the blade.. This was commissioned for a LARP, by a sword forum member, who is a Japanese martial artist. Client didn't want any nickel or brass on it, so I went for the restored antique look with the wrought, and the grain of the wood.

you will find even more information if you read in our blade smithing section.

I just sent this out today: total weight 1.174 kg / 2 lb 9.4 oz. PoB @ guard 25 inch blade of 5160, double tempered. over all length 33.75 inches. cross guard width 11 inches. All fittings are of old wrought Iron, folded 4 times, etched with dilute ferric chloride. Wood stabilized hybrid English x Clairo fiddleback walnut. satin finish

So Frosty you are saying Motorhead may harden it faster than Kansas ?

have you looked in the Non ferrous metals section?

Your biggest problem, is what strength is the Muratic acid YOU are using to start with. That is another name for Hydrochloric acid in case you did not know. If you don't know the strength to start with, then dilution of this can be another crap shoot, one that could get your burned bad, or worse. Acids are not toys, If you don't know already, PLEASE get trained a bit in person with someone that does know.

I get a lot of sq inches of damascus steel with a 40 grit blaze belt, then I move up to 100 grit blaze, getting 6 to 10 blades easy with the 100 grit, 3 to 8 with the 40 depending on how much shaping I have to do after forging. 2 x 72 on my bader B3, having said that I cant get one blade from a budget AO belt. to cost is about the same, PITB from stopping work and using partly worn belts is worth getting better belts and just working smoothly.

While we are complaining, Anyone notice we have NOT moved/relocates the lost posts to where they should be? But as requested by so many Whiners, we have left the anvil, heat treat and axe questions scattered all over the forum among the other 100k+ posts, some in places that no one actually trying to find them would look, and I do hope no one really has to find one of them in a hurry now, hard to find; but so many seemed to demand we not move things in a category, we have left them and spent out valuable time (unpaid I might add) on more appreciated things. Maybe someday after all the categories here loose meaning and someone can't locate a topic that THEY need to find, because its lost, I can get my journeyman curmudgeon rating as well :)

I use 45 minutes in dilute RS Etchant @ 1 pt to 3 pts water, but the Katana on my web site is 1 to 1 water Vinegar for about 7 or 7 hours, a slow etch is a nicer and smother etch.

Well said basher, thank you for have a calm and cool reply to this. It started as a simple question asked, and was given a simple answer. Sad it had to get blown out of proportion by one voice. I agree about Ash how works, I also agree that when we are stating out, make things as simple and easy as possible to reduce the chances of failure. We can get fancy and complex later if we wish, but to make it hard to get materials, or results for a person just starting a new technique, is asking for problems.