billyO

Hello, all. Hope the autumn/spring finds you well. I got a couple weekends at the forge the last couple of weeks, and besides my 4 Damascus blades, here's the other project. The idea has been rattling around in my head for a while, finally had the motivation to try it. It's a gift for a friend who just bought her first house. It started as a 4-5" length of 1 1/2" square bar. Got lucky and it fit the intended guitar right out of the forge. Comments/critiques are always welcome

Well., apparently I made a couple of wall hangers. I guess I didn't pay close enough attention to my heat as I was forging, and post etch polish, I noticed 3 fractures in the steel in the handle. blade did fine through the heat treat, so I can only assume it happened during the forging. I may use the longer one as a kitchen/utility knife and avoid heavy use to see how the edge lasts.

Hello all, hope the newly arrived autumn (or spring for those of you in the southern hemisphere) is treating everyone well. Got another day in the forge yesterday and pounded out these two new blades. The top one is from a billet of 88 layers of 1080/15N20 and the bottom one is from one of 352 layers of 1095/15N20. Didn't really have a pattern or plan on either as I'm still learning this craft and seeing how the steel moves under the hammer, which is why the shorter one ended up with a little bit of a drop point. Here they are after rough grinding: and here they are after the heat treat and 3 one hour tempers at ~400 degrees: Not sure how to finish the forged swell at the finger guard before etching, most likely a lot of hand sanding. Was thinking about leaving it as forged, but not sure how that will look after etching the rest of the blade. Any suggestions? Comments and critiques are also welcome. Have a great day.

Thanks, guys, I hope to do more soon. 50/50 mix of distilled water/Radio Shack PCB etchant (Ferric chloride). 2 -15 minute dunks with a good scrubbing with a firm bristled toothbrush between the baths to remove any oxides and get a deeper/more uniform etch. Was planning on doing 3 but was able to feel good topography with my fingernail after the second so I decided to stop there.

Thanks JHCC, I hope to do more of these in the near future, playing around with the Damascus pattern. Here it is, pretty much finished, handle wet sanded to 2000 grit, I may go to 5000 to see if that helps. I'm a bit upset I scorched the handle around one pin as I was cutting it off, feel free to provide other critiques/suggestions as this is my 4th knife On a mildly related note (as it has to do with this knife...) I was planning on giving this to the guy at the mill who gave me my stack of 15N20 saw blades this upcoming Monday, when I have a day off work, should I feel obligated to supply a sheath for it? Is this good enough to give as a gift (to hopefully get more saw blades in the future...)???

and here it is, etched and ready for the handle and final shaping...

As I was shaping the handle, I noticed that the handle isn't that long, but the butt fits in my palm pretty well and I'm wondering if this is a flaw due to my lack of planning or is this an OK design feature for a knife?

Hello all, hope the summer treated everyone well. Got a new well pump yesterday so have water for showers for the first time (at my weekend home) in a few months, so I decided to celebrate by spending the day at the forge, a first in about 6 1/2 months. I decided to forge out a piece of a Damascus billet from I made a while back following what I remember of Dave Lisch's demonstration at the NWBA annual conference in April, and here's what I came up with, 1095/15N20 quenched in Parks 50 followed by 3- 1 hour tempers at 375-400F (my oven isn't the most accurate). Also my first blade I did completely on the belt grinder. Not finished yet, but close (I left my 800-2000grit sandpaper down in Longview, so won't finish it until next weekend, most likely) Comments/critiques are always welcome

39 posts from this side of the pond and only 2 from where the law actually is...do we have too much time on our hands??? or...don't we have enough to worry about with our lawmakers???

Excellent!!! Well said! Thanks for sharing. Not sure if it was your joke or the wasabi on my dinner that brought tears to my eyes just now....

That probably doesn't help... but having a flat and smooth anvil may.... (sorry, I just couldn't resist....)

Wonderful! Thanks for posting. (I REALLY miss having that much time to play in my forge, but I REALLY, REALLY like the bi-weekly paychecks I'm now getting.....)

I, too, like the pattern. Good idea on adding material in the middle of the forging to give wider layers.

Thanks Theo, hopefully I'll get to your level someday. Thanks Frosty. Are you referring to the area near the guard where the ladder 'rungs' don't quite go all the way across? Here's a few more pics of other views.

Hello all. I apologize for starting this as a WIP, as it really hasn't been a great one, but this weekend I finally finished the knife. I added some ebony and bloodwood I had lying around to the handle, sanded to 5000 grit and wiped it with some citrus paste wax I had. Learned a lot and hopefully the next one will go faster.

Latecomer to the show (as usual)... Hi John, good looking knives, glad to see/hear you're back in action and getting stronger again. (If I can offer a piece of professional advice, keep up with the therapy.) Me too!!! Question: Do you think L6 give a better contrast than the 15N20 I've been using? If you've got the time, Terry, Darryl, and a few others are going to be in Longview this Sat to visit with Mark Aspery while he's here. I'm planning on being there in the morning. as always peace and love billyO PS - Did you stabilize/use any of the maple? If so, what did you think? PPS - Why an I a "Senior Member" and you a "Junior Member"???? jr/sr tags are because of the number of posts. assigned by the software

Didn't see this mentioned elsewhere, but red hot? If the steel was red, then that's your problem there. Need to be at a welding heat to weld, and that'll be closer to yellow/white depending on the materials and lighting. Also, you need to clean the surfaces for the first weld. IMO, if you use flux, use it to keep the surfaces clean, not to do the cleaning. My apologies If that goes without saying, but I often say things that are better left un-said.

Or, you could do what I do: use the shades when you are looking into the forge to see if the billet is completely soaked through, then when actually forging the billet, I take the shades off and just use my normal forging goggles. You shouldn't need to look into the forge to take the billet out and start forging.

Reposting pics... Thanks for the kind compliments all.

OK, John, here's a pic of one of my first experiment blades when in progress. If I remember correctly, it's a mix of sawzall blades, a few circular saw blades I cut up and a couple of hacksaw blades. Don't ask me about the heat treat, I'm pretty sure I guessed with a warm canola oil quench, but have no idea about the resultant hardness.

Also late to the game, but looks great. One question to the more experienced with Damascus patterns, if I may... I notice on the final blade there are a few twists (X's) that are the nickel steel and a few that are carbon, not entirely uniform throughout the length of the blade (not a critique, mind you). Is this normal for a twist pattern?

Not sure how you'd define electricianally-inclined but when I read the post I had to check to see if I hadn't written it and forgotten because it's almost exactly what I'm doing. The answer I got when I asked the same question was that it depends on how many amps you're planning on drawing/what equipment you'll be running. I'm planning on adding a heat treat oven, and occasional welder use so was told I could run an adequately sized line in a trench I dug and put a 50amp 220V breaker on the main panel in my house and I'd be OK. I'd be curious to if others have other opinions. BTW, I live by myself and heat with wood so there will be no other real loads on the main panel when I'm in the shop..

Hello all, hope the holiday season is treating you well. Not much of a WIP, sorry about that but with only 1/2 day a week in my shop/forge for the past 9 months.... Anyway, I'm making progress and am almost ready to glue on the handle and do final shaping, but have a question about final etching before gluing the grip on. I polished to a near mirror finish to 1000 grit, washed the blade, air dried then soaked in vinegar for about 6 hours while at work. Got home to a nice black blade, neutralized with baking soda, rinsed oxide off while rubbing with fingers under running water, and had a really dark, pattern like shown in the picture, only very uniform and not washed out at the tip. I wanted a sharp/bright contrast, so I gave each flat a few swipes with a hardened and polished block of 4140 and 2000 grit wet/dry paper. The pattern got really washed out and looked mottled and awful, so I re washed, re-etched for a few hours in the vinegar and after neutralizing and rinsing with mu fingers, here's where I am, afraid to go further and washing out the pattern again. Notice almost no etching on the guard and lack of black on the tip in the second picture. Any suggestions? Thank you

At risk of getting banned from this site.... My biggest pet peeve(s) are updates/changes to computer programs/websites that MAY "improve" the overall functions of the program but usually don't, but DO force the user to learn a new way to get the same result. as always peace and love billyO

Here's a link for those of you that want to help. Taken from the NWBA website. If this link is not allowed, my apologies to the moderators. link removed Given his long time support of us here at IFI we will allow this, all are case by case decisions with the owner.