Pigeonpie

Hey everybody Thanks so much for all of the input. I rounded my hammer face a bit more and let the steel get hotter - problem solved! Just finished my first "knife" - a letter opener for my girlfriend for Christmas. Well, I call it a letter opener but it's actually pretty sharp haha. I'll be sure to post a pic later with her permission. Thanks again, and happy holidays everyone! Daven

Thanks very much for the reply. Aha, so red isn't hot enough... I think the problem is that I've been trying to work it too cold because I'm terrified of letting the grain grow. I'll definitely try heating it more and hopefully I'll have something to post about in the near future! Edit: Rich's reply snuck in while I was typing... Oh the joys of cellphones haha.. Thanks Rich, I read all of those knife making posts as soon as I can. I have a gas forge which I've built myself out of a small propane tank. It gets plenty hot enough if I let it. I use a big piece of scrap steel for an anvil, and based on the advice from those classes I've radiused one of the edges to act as an approximation of a bottom fuller. Unfortunately there aren't many blacksmiths in my area so anvils are hard to come by, and shipping a block of steel across the country is a bit beyond my budget haha. I've also rounded the faces of all of my hammers which range from 2-3.5 lbs. Unfortunately I don't have a nice engineer's hammer yet - that's next on my list - so I don't have a nice stright peen to work with. I guess I just underestimated how different mild and knife steels are to work. I'll try working it hotter and see if I can find some way to make my 'fuller' more effective. Thanks for all the info Daven

Hi everyone. This is an amazing forum and source of information you have here, I've been reading with interest for the last 8 months or so but I have encountered a problem which doesn't seem to have been discussed... I am a new knife maker based in the Cape Town area of South Africa. Recently I was given some 5160 leaf springs which I intend to use to make some fairly simple camp knives for my friends and family as practice. The only problem is that the darn things hardly move under the hammer... From what I've read 5160 is supposed to be soft and easy to forge, hence why I'm using it as a practice material. I know that using scrap steel is less than ideal, but due to my location it's going to be another month or two before I can get some nice 'known' steel to play with. I read somewhere that it might be because the steel is unannealed, and that annealing it should solve the problem. I would really appreciate it if someone with more knowledge on the matter could give me their opinion on whether or not this would help. Thanks Daven