Steve Sells

It doesn't smell like a rose.

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

The easiest way is to get the metal a little hotter than you would for waxing and rub a cotton rag on it so the rag chars and then apply lots of wax so that some of it burns and blackens the piece under the wax coat.

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.

"total weight 1.174 kg / 1 lb 9.4 oz. PoB @ guard"

Steve you got a typo in here as 1kg is 2.2 pounds; shouldn't that be 2lb 9.4 oz?

Sounds a bit hefty probably has a real solid "chop" to it; where is the COP on it?

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.

Thanks for the all the help and advice everyone.

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?

should i use straight muratic acid or dilute it 1:1 or maybe 2:1 water to acid?

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.

this method is often referred too as an Interrupted Quench, to reduce stress in the metal from thermal shock.

I don't understand your problems here, using a machine or hand tools, it is easy enough to twist 1/2" square bar or equivalent cold. If you want a really tight twist, then heat is the way to go, but an even heat if you want an even twist or you can spend time making it even. If you want to twist 3/4" square bar or equivalent cold ....

The problem here is that he is not twisting a solid bar, but a hollow tube If i understand his usage of the word box, that tends to collapse if precautions are not taken.

Thomas. If jackhammer bits are not S series, then what are they likely to be? Thanks Jerry

Some are, but many are not. THIS is the point we are making about salvage.

sadly many so called reputable sources are still wrong, many seem to sadly re quote what they heard, not researching for themselves. History channel is a good example, with a few reports with blatantly wrong information.

Just for fun, sometime try to poke a 1550F blade into any hunk of meat and see what happens. FYI for those that wont try this, it may not get through with out becoming a twisted blob, as most any meat is much tougher than the hot metal, and bone...

You could use it for a while, but the metal dust from its use will eventually kill the motor, but its only $3so how long does it need to last to be worth the effort is your call, I would go for it. if a guess is 4000, then most likely in US at 60Hz 3450RPM at 50 Hz 2850Hz

... I have found that when one seeks professional advice, it is sometimes given in a way to make the professional more money and not efficiently serve the client. ....

IMHO Seriously if that is the case, get another accountant, if they cant be trusted, as ANY employee, fire them

Knee mail sent

good Idea, I will see what I can do after the change over is worked out

At least I can say you have a better reason for not reading it that most have in the past. LOL the term sticky is used simply because the article was tagged to make it "stick" to the top of the listings, for easy locating.

Since you are a long distance away from the oven you should come up with other methods, the simplest is a stress relieving temper by conduction, meaning after you harden; allow that to cool while you heat up another section of metal, rest the back of the spine of the blade against it and allow the oxide colors to run up the edge till you get desired color (nearing light straw) near the cutting edge. then cool this off before it goes "too far" with a fast quench to stop the colors from running further. This should prevent stress cracking before you get to the oven for your temper cycle. also most advocate more than one temper cycle anyway.

No reason to Apologize for just starting, we all were beginners at some point, asking is how we learn.

At risk of getting flamed, You should ask your accountant not a bunch of faceless people on the internet about tax/business issues.

I ran my own Electrical Company 16 years before I sold it and joined the Union to work for someone else. I tracked everything in a simple database and the accountant knew what was allowed and what I had to pay taxes on. so if I got consumables for myself under the number I was still covered legally. I had all that licenses/tax/Insurance stuff and it was not that much of a pain, but the risk of going to jail for tax fraud, or losing my house for no insurance to cover an accident is a pain, my forge has its own tax number and is insured.

Remember Al Capone, Chicago mob boss... they finally got him ONLY on tax evasion.

My portable forge has a 22 x 28inch sheet metal surround to the cast fire pot,( its 10x12 drop in), 12 ga I think, easy enough to work with tin snips. and after 20+ years I have finally seen a need to repair it :)