viking-sword

Well dang! I was really hoping someone would have actually given an idea as too answer the op's original question. I have done so much reading I can no longer get my eyes uncrossed. I've been forging for 34 yrs making knives and ornamental ironwork and at present, my damascus forge has an interior dimension of 16x9, and very well insulated, using T-rex burners and does very well, but does go through the propane, and have been looking into making a ribbon burner for it hoping to eliminate hot spots, and save on propane. In the last few years the billets I've been making have increased in size so going smaller is not in the cards. Didn't mean to hijack a thread, my apologize to the op, but if anyone could help me out, and maybe the op, I'd be most greatful! I thought I'd also mention that I'm absolutely awful at math, so figuring formulas is a serious issue for me. Wes

Yep! My bad, meant Maganese rather than Magnesium.

Do a check on Gloc quench, I've used it for the last 5+ years and love it! Warmed to 125 degrees it works flawlessly, extremely consistent. I use primarily 52100 but also the more common simple high carbon steels. After 29 years of this I'm only just now making my first Japanese sword using Aldo's 1074/low magnesium so I'm anxious to see how it treats this steel. As a side note, I probably only harden about 50 blades a year (never figured out how to do this any faster),and I've only needed to do and oil change once in that time.

JPH is absolutely correct! This is a result of your differential heat treatment. The reason you don't see this line on many of the damascus blades out there is because those blades were fully hardened before tempering.

Thanks Steve, that's something that has always haunted me, I'm a better craftsman than a businessman. I've been to only one knife show in my life(Blade show 2000) to get my JS rating, and never been to a hammer-in of any kind (though I'd love to sometime) so experimenting with the market is something I've never done and am told quite often that I'm underpriced, which is why I'm 50 plus orders behind and I go into work with my head spinning each day. Guess I've always been more afraid of being to overpriced and not moving my work but I suppose bumping it up a little might slow things down a bit so I can catch up some. Wes

That's what I call this knife because made it for myself, as I do every year, and I was determined I was gonna keep this one no matter what, so what did I do? I priced it so folks would KNOW I really didn't want to part with this knife. Well, it's gone. Has a new home in California,. 26 years of making knives, one for myself each of those years, and all I have are photo's of each, oh well. This one I really liked the profile on, and I now have eight new custom orders for this blade design going on now, so what do I call this design,,,MY Knife! Blade is forged 52100 Guard is of deeply etched wrought iron from wagon wheel Handle is of a nice grade of walnut, with silverwire inlay I make wood lined sheaths for all my knives these days Wes

Yes it is, I split the rod(38 square) and then forged each tine. Of course in the finishing stage a slight amount of whitesmithing was done. Wes

I've started making a lot of these sets and usually don't get them finished before there spoken for. The toughest one by far, and the most time consuming, was the spatula, which actually started out as a RR spring clip, thank goodness for the LG powerhamer for the initial drawing down. This also gave me opportunity to make use of the cutoffs from elk and deer that were not suitable for knife handles. Wes

Something that may help in teaching yourself how the metal will move under your hammer is to aquire some modeling clay, shape it similar to your work piece and put your hammer to it(only lighter) and it will give you a great overview how your metal will move. You can practice different blows till get the response you want without screwing up your workpiece. Hammer control is one of the most important elements of this craft. Wes

I have often thought about slitting a spike, spreading it to insert a HC bar and forge welding it up but never tried, but it's in the works. Glad it worked out! One thought I had is that 300 seems a tad low for a temper, I mean, yes it will hold a great edge, but at that hardness I would think the edge would chip on you? Let us know how well it holds up. Nice work. Wes

I would also be inclined to ask about the type of heating method used. The reason is that by looking at the texture of this blade it looks like maybe a very oxygen rich fire was used and that also alot of low temp finish forging was done at the end. The excess oxygen will cause a great deal of pitting as well as scaling, at lower temps these pits and pock marks can be forged over not to be seen until you clean grind after forging and thus causing you to grind away more of the blade than intended to give a good clean surface. Low temp forging is okay but a majority of the benifits gained by it can also be gained by proper normalizing to reduce grain structure, something very necessary for good heat treatment any way. By forging in a reduced oxygen atmoshere and good finish forging on a good clean anvil face you can forge much closer to dimensions. There is also another way to forge for scale free finish that some smith employ nowadays, and that is to to wet forge, and what this is, is forging on a wet anvil face and periodically dunking yor hammer face in water just before forging. The water turns to steam as the hot blade comes in contact and litterally blows the scale off as you forge leaving a cleaner blade surface, just something to consider looking into. Wes

Thanks for the comments. Actually I do forge knives, as I am by trade a custom knife maker and I've had my Journeymans rating with the ABS since 2000. I make custom knives, blacksmithing(ornamental ironwork) and sharpening and repair services; keeps me really busy but it's a xxxx hard way to pay the bills and put food on the table, but it's all I have and I'm greatful for it. Yes a good many spikes are marked with the HC stamp, but even with this designation they still do not have enough carbon to make a knife with a long holding edge. Wes

OH but don't ya know they scraped the building for the nails Actually, I hope they did save those nails(probably not). Wes

My table vise is heavy duty and is marked Rock Island, Ill. My 6 inch post vise is affixed to my swage block stand, it has a large C stamped on it and a date of 1913. And finally I have 4 1/2 incher affixed to the forging table and stamped 248.

Now thats what I would call using your creative juices, I like that a lot, for sure I will never look at another pitchfork in discouragement for lack of ideas for it, thanks. Wes