MattBower

I second the recommendation to find a group nearby. Learning goes much faster with a knowledgeable teacher. That said, for my first couple years I didn't know any other blacksmiths and had no hands-on instruction. I read, visited forums (this is a great one), and started banging steel in my back yard with improvised equipment that cost me very little. I collected scrap wood to make charcoal for fuel, and used scrounged steel for material. If you're interested in knives and such, Tim Livey's video, Knifemaking Unplugged, will walk you through it from start to finish, including building a forge, making charcoal, and lots of other very basic stuff. That video got me started in smithing. Not everything in the video is Gospel -- for example, I've learned a lot more about heat treating and metallurgy since then, TIm's charcoal making method isn't the best, and it's pretty much impossible these days to find a hand-cranked blower for the price he quotes in the video -- but it'll teach you a lot, especially about how to get started with minimal equipment. You can watch it online for $2.99, or buy it online for $9.98. http://www.amazon.com/Knifemaking-Unplugged/dp/B000MW4WIW/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1315187611&sr=1-1 You can also buy the DVD, but it costs more. One of my favorite books on smithing is The Complete Modern Blacksmith by Alexander Weygers. That's another resource that starts from zero and is very much oriented toward low-budget, improvised (but effective) solutions. http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Modern-Blacksmith-Alexander-Weygers/dp/0898158966/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315187947&sr=1-1

Just an idea here. Instead of the casters, what about a couple of big ball bearings mounted on shafts in nice, beefy brackets? Kinda like the ones on that woodworking vise, but fabricated from steel. https://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?item=1-205-16-B&catname=powerTrans I'd be more inclined to go with the old-fashioned method myself. But the pin for the moving jaw on my post vise is -- well, I've never actually measured it, but I doubt it's an inch in diameter.

@Vic: Some guys have all the cool tools. @knots: I agree with Dave. I think you could cut the grooves prior to hardening and use clay slip -- or just a good reducing atmosphere -- to keep them from decarb'ing. By the way, what part of Northern Virginia? I'm just a little south of the Beltway off 95. Are you a BGOP member?

Yes, This is why I asked what kind of HT setup he has, and wrote, "'Ideal' in a perfect world and 'ideal' with what you have could be very different." I also said (about A2, D2, HSS, etc.), "But none of them are easy to forge, and none of them are really suited to simple blacksmith heat treating methods." I was trying to get him to realize that making one from the "ideal" steel isn't necessarily as simple as it sounds. If it were me, with what I have, I would use 1084, or maybe stretch and try 1095, O1 or W1. Those are all steels with enough C to make a very good cutting tool, and ones I think I could probably do a decent HT on with just charcoal and a muffle in a hand-cranked coal forge. (I know I can handle 1084. The others would be a little trickier.) But I'd do it knowing I was making a compromise. Just trying to get him to realize that he might have to compromise as well. I may have gotten a bit off on a tangent, though, which I sometimes do.

I think the certain characteristic they're going for is extreme wear resistance from the alloy carbides. I agree the HSS seems like kind of a surprising choice, although it's certainly very wear resistant. Apparently some folks like HSS for hogging really hard tropical woods, some of which contain a lot of silica.

I've never made one, but I would assume you'd want it harder than any blade it's going to be used on, which would mean nearly full hard. Here's data on some commercial ones, which range from 60 to 63 HRC. http://www.cookingfo...topic.php?t=813 If you were careful, you could probably use the teeth on the edge of a file to cut those grooves (held square to the work, as if you were draw-filing). I'm sure the professional makers have a much slicker tool for the job. Of course there's nothing wrong with a smooth steel, and some folks say the grooves are bad for blades.

If your hammer doesn't rebound you've paid for it with energy absorbed by the anvil. You want a nice, inelastic anvil so the only two (major) ways energy can be dissipated are by deforming the work piece or rebounding the hammer. A soft anvil allows for another route of dissipation. If you get rebound, it's a sign that you're also putting energy into deforming the work piece (assuming you're hitting the work piece). Try forging on a cinderblock. Little if any rebound. Is it efficient? How about a wood anvil? Harder faces are more efficient. They also generate more rebound.

That's just charcoal, and it works fine as fuel. Different woods have somewhat different properties as charcoal, but most will do the job. I haven't used juniper, but I can't see why it wouldn't. The Japanese have long used softwood charcoal for bladesmithing.

I dunno. Some of the hardcore woodworking guys -- the kind I'd expect to go for high end after-market plan irons and the like -- are pretty obsessive about sharpening, and spend a lot of money on equipment.

Sword-making by relative newbies is a somewhat controversial topic around here. There's the "go for it, dude," faction, and there's the "if you have to ask, you don't know enough to safely attempt it" faction. The former accuses the latter of crushing newbies' dreams. The latter accuses the former of being irresponsible. I note that the professional swordsmiths and highly experienced amateurs seem to shake out mostly into the second group. In my view, as someone "fairly new" to blacksmithing and evidently with little knowledge of heat treating, the best thing you can do is hand your buddy his piece of steel back and tell him you'll give it a shot in a few years. You're talking about making a sword that from the sound of it is going to be sharpened, then taken into the woods and used to hack away at whatever your buddy finds there. A mistake on your part, which frankly is not unlikely, may very well lead to a two-foot chunk of steel boomeranging off at high speed and embedding itself into your buddy, his younger brother, you, or someone else. Hilarity will not ensue. Mild steel is pretty tough and not especially predisposed to brittle fracture, and its low carbon content makes it difficult to form enough martensite in the stuff to make it brittle. But through overheating or burning it, repeated bending during use (which can cause it to work harden), etc., it's certainly possible to set it up to break. And that's very dangerous in a sword. Ditto for most stainless. Leaf spring generally can form plenty of martensite -- which probably only increases the danger of a brittle failure if you don't know what you're doing. Oil quenching will not appreciably harden mild steel, "goop" quenching even less so. The same goes for most common grades of stainless. Just my two cents.

Well, clay is mostly just silica and alumina in varying proportions. Get clay hot enough and it'll melt, too, especially exposed to fluxes like iron oxide. :)

OK. I get what you're saying. You're sort of swooping the tip of the file, down and then back up, as you push. And the point of contact with the work shifts backward, toward you, as you're doing that. Huh. I'll have to try that.

It doesn't sound like cast iron, then. Good. I would use it as is for now. You could flame harden or hardface it someday, if you feel inspired.

Yes, that was me. Thanks.

Not intentionally, Frank. I understand how a file cuts. I'm trying to figure out how to make a pushing motion while making the motions I think you described. You said, "In filing something rounding. you start on the side away from you. When you reach the top of the round, the file is horizontal. You finish the stroke going upward on your side of the round." I am trying to envision what that means. It is not obvious to me. Are you talking about one single stroke of the file? You're working on the top of the work piece, right? I do not question whether you know what you're talking about, Frank. We're just having a communication problem here. I'm not following your description.

As someone who's just working on his own grinder now, I'm not sure I'm the best one to give advice. But personally, I wouldn't buy poly for an idler unless my design allowed me to also use it as a contact wheel (which, in fact, my design does allow!). I think aluminum is a good deal more durable.

One thought: are you sure it's steel and not cast iron? 15% rebound is really low, even for mild steel.

So you're reaching over the work and drawing the filed toward yourself toe first, as though you were trying to commit seppuku?

I meant to ask about that. I'm having a hard time envisioning it. It sounds extremely awkward.

You are working on the edge, right? Mount it upright with the shortest face up to put maximum mass under the hammer. That's the ideal orientation for efficiency. Is it 7 cm thick, or 7 inches? (It has to be cm, right?) Either way, that'll be wide enough to make an anvil face. And you alread have pre-drilled holes for bolting it to a stand to keep it upright! I don't know why you'd say it's not a real anvil. It's 375 pounds of steel. What's your definition of an anvil?

I don't have much experience with 4140, but I did do a hammer head out of the stuff. Hardened fine in oil. The point of all that chrome and moly is to make it deep hardening -- and deep hardening allows for slower quenchants.

No, no cuts. Just road gunk. Hmm. I guess I could eBay it. Shipping could be tough.

I recently posted this in antoher thread, but I'll repost since it's relevant to this topic: Nicholson Guide to Files and Filing. Alexander Weygers recommends using the edge of a sheet of thin brass in place of a file card. You run it parallel to the file teeth and it conforms to the shape of the teeth, gets down into the grooves, and does a very good job of lifting out pins. The brass won't damage the files' teeth, while hard steel wire file cards can. This is the larger-scale version of the sharpened brazing rod that Frank mentioned. On the issue of sharpening, I have used muriatic followed by a very thorough neutralization in a boiling, saturated solution of baking soda or washing soda. It definitely improved the sharpness of the files. I've heard it said never to use muriatic on steel because the chlorine will permanently infiltrate the steel or some such. I don't believe that, at least with respect to low alloy steels. It does not correspond to my own experience, and I'd note that muriatic is widely used for pickling in the steel industry. The steel your file was made from was likely pickled with HCl before it was turned into a file. I mention this not because I have any special love of muriatic, but because it's very easy to get. As an alternative to acid sharpening, I have heard nothing but good things about this service. I have yet to use it myself, although I plan to give it a try when when enough of my files get dull. http://www.boggstool.com/ For those who aren't able to get out to a lot of yard/estate sales, you can often find batches of used files on eBay for not lot of money. Many look like they've seen better days, but many of those can probably be resurrected by sharpening. The ones that can't be saved will make good tools and knives. I got a well cared-for set of six, 6"-8" Grobet Swiss pattern, fine-cut files on eBay for about $30, including shipping. I'm very pleased with them.

Any hardware store ought to have at least one or two half-round files in its selection, and many carry chainsaw files as well. Some combination of those two -- possibly just the half-round alone -- should answer the mail. I personally wouldn't bother with sanding the inside of the eye. First, it's not visible when the hawk is handled, and second, a slightly rough surface in there may not be a bad thing. Spikes aren't that bad for hawks, since the relatively low carbon makes them inherently tough. They just end up being a little delicate, at least for my taste.

Hey, not bad at all. You know the jaws are fixable, right? We're blacksmiths. Reshaping metal is what we do. Some coal doesn't coke very well, or at all, so the problem may not be anything you're doing or failing to do. What sort of coal did you buy?