jgirard13

My shop is pretty much a my back patio, its about 16 ft x 14 ft. I do my best to have space saving tools and multi function tools and I make everything from knives to gates. You can run a pretty efficient shop from a 1 car garage if you plan right and have good ventilation regardless if you do coal or propane. Oh ya don't forget its a really noisy hobby so think about space from neighbors.

Swing two hammers (1 wood and the other fiberglass) close to the same weight (don't have to be the same style of hammer) See how they feel. Don't be to picky at first

typingon an android sucks! just read my reply and noticed the middle of the paragraph doesnt make alotta sense... hope anyone who read it understands what the heck i was talking about!

Watch the beer man, i live in phoenix and work in a metal shop and 1 thing ive learned is to not drink beer for a couple hrs after work and after i feel GOOD! alcohol dehydrates you fast and after you have had heat exhaustion then start to feel better isnt a good time for a frosty delicious necture of the gods beverage (trust me that you have a good chance of feeling like crap tomarrow if you do.) Hope you feel good the rest of the night and happy forging!

If in the future you want a smoother forged knife try reducing the force of your hammer blows once you are close to thw desired thickness, make sure you hit flat and your hammers been dressed. Using a flattiner that you bought or made will also help

Ever notice how forums are kinda like the game telephone? first post "question on making a knife" 22 post later "Jesus never ate tomato soup" wierd...

Learn from the best by watching, listening then doing and doing and doing... basicaly you want to practice the correct techniques that have been tested by the ages.

have you checked out centaur forge? id look in my catalog for you if i could get the old lady to tell me where she hid it (put away as she calls it) im sure they have sledges in that weight but if you have a hulk hogan arm and a hellava lot of energy then guess you could cut the handle down (I could maby do 10 swings before my arm fell off) good luck

followed Rich's instruction and so far the whole heat treatment has gone great, sitting in the toaster oven as I type this via android. does anybody know where to buy fine grit 1 x 30 belts from off the internet? home depot only goes to 120 grit so i do all my finishing by hand after that. thanks everybody for yer help!

had 2 pcs of wrought from an old pc of railing that got desposed of in the scrap bin at my shop. 3/4" x 3/4" x 24" each is what i scavenged, I saved them for the "perfect" art pc but one day my fellow metal worker/roomate collected up all our scrap steel and took it into the recyclers and accidentaly took my 2 beautiful and old pcs of wrought with him. I went to the scrap yard but couldnt find them... that is my tale of woe....

where do you live Sonoran? i work in a welding shop in Cave Creek (n. of phoenix) and we get all sorts of scrap coil and leaf springs that i rescue every time.

i did try to normalize Loneforge, but I think Thomas nailed it with the thiness. probably affects the method of normalization to. Been a sheet metal worker for 15 yrs, welding for 9 yrs and blacksmithing for 4 yrs and ive only been trying my hand @ blades for several month now ( im way to use to mild steel, ss and alum from my trades) tool steel is pretty new to me

no i didnt but im going to tonight Thomas! since you mentioned its a thinner blade and it ups for a knife blank cut out of a 2 man saw that im sure is close to 100 yrs old ( judging by its hardware and style) what quench should i try first for hardening and what temp in the ol' toaster oven? any idea what type of steel am I workin with? only thing i know is the saw blade before i plasma cut out the blank is very hard and very flexible. All my other knive have been made from coil springs coal forged out and gave me very little headaches

just screw up another knife blank! wasent anneled completely and went to tap on it to straighten it and it cracked! i let it cool down to much before I started tapping on it i guess. any suggestions on keeping it straight after i pull it ou of the fire? seriously i never have these problems with a forged knife

I've always started my forged knives with creating the racaso by hammering a pc of sq stock into where i thought it should be then being careful not to hammer beyond that point. I never wanted to do stock removal before but my old lady brought me home a 100 yr old plus 2 man saw and i figured it would be better to make it serve a purpose again then be hung up as an orimant. it acted like spring steel before I tourched it out then was as hard as a file afterward. i anneled it in soot after then hardened it in used oil (after i profiled it) but it was still very soft and flexible after. may its a air hardenable or water quench steel. anyone have any idea when air hardenable steels where created? ( ps i left the steel in to xxxx long in my coal forge while talking to my old lady and burnt my blank in half... i need to pay more attention) sorry if my post have any flaw but i do all my interneting via smartphone

I've forged several knives and all have turned out quite well but im trying for the first time a stock removal blade. What the best way to create the racaso with this method? any and all imput would be greatly appreciated and help speed things up.

it loses its charm after your 500th burn... im more scar then skin now

just noticed you have a big ol hole for your burner. wont work well.... try cutting a pc of s.s plate 3/16 plus for your air hole and drillin a bunch of hole around 1/4" closely together (dond forget to use alot of oil) it eavenly disperses the air to the coal so it dosent just shoot up and follow the path of least resistance

modernblacksmith on youtube has a good vid on lighting a forge. 8 sheets of news paper tightly crumpled up then super heated. try to push coke into it as soon as u think its burning hot as xxxx then add coal around it so it can coke up as well. i use an old 100 yr old hand crank blower and crank it kinda slowly and evenly when i light mine and only takes several mins to get it up to forgable heat. do you have a dampener setup on it?