julian

Dutchman those Centaurforge firepots are very good. I have the X-heavy duty coke firepot and I love it, it's a real workhorse. Cool forge, clean shop too :)

Ron I love the look of that knife, how did you get the cool rustic-looking finish on the blade?

nice job jens! crown antlers are a pleasure to work with the hamons are nice and the finishes are great. Good job on the handles, they look like they fit real nice.

sorry not sure why I thought you had a brake drum forge; on second thought I would probably stick with welding peices of steel rod into where the grate rusted away to fix it. the charcoal grill grate idea is hard to describe through typing and I don't want to point you in the wrong direction. :)

if you have a welder or know someone who does, you can just weld some steel rods in there, about 5/8" and something as small as 1/4" might work. If you have the drum set up on some cinderblocks (or if you can lift the drum itself off the stand) you could probably put a small charcoal grill grate underneath the drum. My first forge had a grate of two small grill grates under the firepot, and it worked fine. Don't use the grate if it's galvanized.

Wow, that was an extremely long...description? Is he also selling one of Elvis' teeth, a peice of Nixon's chewing gum...;)

I can't see the hilt picture sam, could you explain it? Nice job on the knives .

Fredly you should be fine, i welded up a knife blade from motorcycle chain/nickel using a small coke forge; the only problem i had was i overheated it and it broke into three sections. Other than that I had no problems with it.

knives are addicting I found that out the hard way. Welcome, Mooch

Most old files are good quality carbon steel, W1 or W2. However, many new files from overseas are casehardened and not appropriate for tool and knife making. You can put it in your vise with a small portion hanging out and whack it with an old hammer. If it is thru hardened high carbon steel it should snap right off.

always wear a face sheild and eye protection while doing this too . From experience I can say files made of W1 are very good for learning to heat treat properly.

Files are very good for knives, they are all high carbon steel of some sort. To work with them, you need to anneal them first; all annealing is is taking a peice of high carbon steel, heating it up to orange and then letting it cool very slowly. you can do this by heating the file to an orange then putting it in a bucket of wood ashes and letting it sit there for a day or two.

Nice work Jens! That stuff takes a lot of work, good job on the blade :)

I purchased a $400 belt sander from grizzly recently, and it is wonderful; however, you don't need to fork out a bunch of $$$ to make knives. My uncle bought me my first 4"X36" belt sander, and it worked great for starting out. Before that I left the blade rough after forging and just used a bench grinder to put an edge on it.

If you really want to make knives more than anything else, I would reccomend saving up for a good belt sander. If you just want to tinker with knives on the side, get a 4"X36" belt sander from your local hardware store along with finer sandpaper for getting a nice shine/edge on a blade.

Also see if you can hook up with knifemakers that live near you, and soak up all the advice you can get from them! :)

I work with a leather glove on my right hand with the fingertips cut off the index, middle, and ring fingers. This lets me pick up small things (rivets, nails etc.) with my fingertips while still having my hand protected, and I think it helps me grip the hammer a bit better. Then again we don't get cold weather here in arizona :)

hey thanks for the heat treat document! I'll be reading it a lot :)

I think that is the Super heavy duty coal/coke firepot from Your best resource for farrier and blacksmith supplies.

It sure is; that's the only firepot I've ever bought, and it's served me extremely well. It's great because you can use any solid fuel in it and not have to worry about melting/cracking. It's easy to clean out too.

If you need to buy a firepot, I highly reccomend that Centaurforge X-Heavy duty coke one. :)

Rich that is a stunning blade, I'm glad you finally finished it; the damascus does look great, I'll have to see that one next time I see you. :)

keep on burnin that fruit jeremy those things are works of art, I haven't seen anything like the pineapple before. awesome job.

....I'm switching to Pepsi

actually Pepsi has more sugar in it than coke (so it'll rot your teeth faster), i'm not sure about it's acid content though.


Jr I'm going to pour myself a glass of water :grin:

jens, the seax on the right in the last picture is awesome. It's got a sort of "western" twist to it, with the bowie-style guard. Excellent job with the hamons.

I use motor oil for quenching knives, it works just fine as long as you don't breathe the smoke. The oil will light on fire when you dunk a peice in so wear good thick gloves when you do this. since water sinks below oil, i keep my oil in an old metal incense tube floating in my slack tub so spills aren't a problem.

Jens that's a very handsome blade, the bone looks awesome.

Now now, let's not go stereotyping...I'm a liberal, but also very open-minded and tolerant...the defenition of liberal is "willing to change, free of bigotry....". I am 100% against Bush's policy, but I won't group conservatives as "stupid".

I haven't seen anything on this Bush movie, but people do have a constitutional right to free speech.

Cable is great forge welding practice, and if it's good steel you'll get a nice knife out of it. I recommend folding the cable a couple times, and working it at welding temp. the whole time; that solved my gap problem.

Jens I love the little one, intresting knot you have on it. Good to see you got the big 'un done :)