Latticino

Not sure if you are talking about the cylinder head or the engine block. Both of these are cast, as far as I'm aware, and typically not of ideal materials for anvils. The configuration doesn't seem to lend itself well for an anvil either. If the former I believe that most are relieved as much as possible behind the face to reduce the cylinder weight for efficiency. If the latter there just aren't many flat surfaces and the weight is distributed poorly for use as an anvil. You would do better looking for old fork lift tines in the scrap yard, end mounted rail sections, or large, solid drops of mild steel. Of course virtually anything can be used as an anvil in extremity, but some things will function better than others.

Very nice, in particular for your first full tang. The only suggestion I would have, other than stuff you have already identified, is based on my own personal aesthetic, so take that for what it is worth: I like to see a bit of distal taper in the tang as well as the blade. For me it gives a better feeling of balance to the work, both physically and visually. You do have a fairly massive blade though, so in this case it may not be completely applicable.

You can also typically join at a monthly meeting. Check the website for the regional group closest to you and show up at the monthly meeting. It's just a bunch of blacksmiths, so typically pretty casual. Note that there is an "All Hands" meeting in Rochester in May as well, where there should be representatives for all regions getting together for a weekend. For most regions there is a nominal annual fee for membership and a monthly fee (of some sort) for use of the groups forging equipment and supplies. Our meetings typically have a demo portion (for some great training) as well as some free time for open forging and just shooting the breeze. See you there.

I'm going to quote a portion of one of your own posts back to you: "Pick a burner design that is known to work well and then *follow the build instructions exactly*" You are beginning the stages of experimentation in the design of a temperature controlled forge burner assembly (which includes the design of the gas train). Experimentation implicitly includes the possibility for failure. If you are just trying to save cost of construction you need to be prepared to have the first couple of iterations of your design fail, possibly even catastrophically. Your rebuilds and testing time may end up costing you more than going with a vetted design, not to mention the safety issue. The reason I recommend having the propane connection at the mixer is that I don't like having any obstructions to the propane/air mixture before it gets to the ignition point (other than the ribbon burner ports or flame retention nozzle, if used). God forbid that your 1" air solenoid valve on the high fire side is closed and the gate valve on the low fire side is close to closed as well (say if you were trying to fine tune the low fire setpoint). With the nominal pressure that a bouncy castle blower (BCB) can develop through a 1" pipe (aren't the outlets on those blowers closer to 2.5"?) I can easily see the propane pressure overcoming the blower and backing the mixture up into the BCB. Bet the BCB isn't spark proof I really think that your combustion air piping is too small. Working on a budget, in your shoes, I would just get a cheap type K thermocouple and readout only pyrometer. I would construct a basic forced air burner with only one air path and one gas path. I would then learn to adjust my propane regulator and air damper to the correct points to maintain the temperatures I was looking for at various forge door openings. Get a log book setup for different damper and regulator positions cross-referenced to different door openings. Then I would build a PID controlled electric heat treat oven (old enameling kilns can be easily modified and are often available cheap). Note that the Type K thermocouples aren't really all that accurate above around 1800 deg. F, and won't last that long above 2,100 deg. F, so get the thickest one you can and put it in a ceramic thermowell if possible. You could go for a Type R thermocouple, which would work better and last longer, but they are quite expensive. BTW, the only reason I was able to put together my temperature controlled system is that I got all the gas train components for free when I dumpster dived after a large glass blowing studio was being renovated. They threw out two complete assemblies, including sophisticated safety controls. Probably my best score as far as "it followed me home".

I think it is unlikely that the thermocouple will be able to read accurately better than +/- 5 deg. F, and certainly not for the full volume of the forge, so that will be your first control hurdle. Not sure why you want that kind of accuracy, but assume it is for heat treating high carbon steels. Make sure you get a PID controller that is programmable and has an Autotune function, or you will regret it later. Electric heat treatment ovens work quite well for this. From the narrative it appears that you wanted the 3" section of pipe to be the mixing chamber. You need to add the propane inlet to that location if that is the case, not where the air first branches. The 1" air piping may end up being too small for the amount of air you want to push, unless you have a blower that can develop a lot of static pressure (you are going to want a high pressure blower, not a squirrel cage blower for this). I would recommend upping that to a 2" pipe (at least) and 1 1/2" for the two branch lines. If you can get butterfly valves for the air side instead of the gate valves they will work better for balancing your system without as much static losses. You are approaching the kind of industrial configuration I designed for my temperature controlled glass furnaces. I used high/low pressure safeties, a pilot, and UV flame sensor, zero pressure regulators and an Eclipse proportional mixer to make this work with a proportional valve for the air metering (make sure the solenoid valves you get for your system are rated for gas!). The industrial assembly worked like a charm as the zero pressure regulator opens and closes the gas supply in response to the airflow upstream of the mixer. The mixer could be used to set the proportion of air/gas over the range of heat output. I recommend looking at industrial solutions rather than this home fabrication. Expensive, but lots safer. I wouldn't turn my back on this system.

That should be enough of a challenge for a beginning bladesmith. Keeping a thin, largish, knife warp free during heat treatment, or not loosing the temper during grinding (depending on how much grinding you do before and after the heat treat) should push your limits if you haven't made any knives before, and have little or no instruction. I strongly suggest you make a paring knife out of the material first so you can get your process worked out before you invest the time into fabricating a kitchen knife, even if you aren't going to be doing any forging. That way when you are done you will have a set... You may even want to consider sending the blank out for professional heat treatment. Here is some good info on the heat treatment process for blades made of 52100: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1263160-52100-heat-treat-summary

Exhaust is tricky, remember that you need to have a source for makeup air for any anticipated exhaust. Current NYS code is for 1.5 CFM/SF for repair garages, though a formal engine exhaust system should be installed if this is a regular operation. For limited spraying of paint the requirement is for a total of 6 air changes per hour (ACH) with a system that meets the NYS Fire code for handling flammable vapors. Welding fume extraction rates are dependent on the type of hood used (stationary for a work bench, or a mobile arm). Typical capture velocity is around 100 feet per minute of hood inlet crossection. Coal and gas forges depend on the size of the hood for the former and the combustion product outlet (based on burner characteristics) for the latter. Typical selection for a forge exhaust fan would be a high airflow, low static fan. A sidewall propeller type with a gravity (barometric) outlet damper to seal the opening when not in use is often a good choice.

Think you need to do some more research on the molecular structure of steel in its varied forms. This is a complicated subject, and I'm not the right person to explain it, but the various alloys of steel (typically comprised of an alloy of iron and carbon atoms with the addition of various other trace alloys depending on the particular steel material makeup) form a crystalline matrix that exhibits different properties depending on how those iron and carbon atoms are arraigned. The general layout of the carbon and iron atoms in the overall matrix can vary depending on the percentage of carbon in the mix (i.e. low carbon steel, containing carbon up to around 0.25%, and high carbon steel, with carbon percentages between around 0.55 and 0.95%) and the heat treatment process that the material is exposed to. This layout has a large effect on the properties of the steel, including working and melting temperatures, hardness, strength, flexibility, etc. The tempering you reference is only one small part of the heat treatment process. Suggest you do some reading up on metallurgy at your local library. While anything you read online should be carefully vetted before being taken as gospel (including this post), the accepted print references in the library are typically more reliable. A local engineering school will have years of reading matter on this fascinating topic. BTW, if you are identifying these "little balls" as atoms, then yes, steel is made up of little balls... as is arguably everything else we experience in the physical world.

I'm not a fantastic forge welder, but for what it is worth, one of the things that hasn't been discussed is the cleanliness of your fire and the amount of scaling you are getting on your metal. When I was taught about forge welding in a coal fire, it was emphasized that it is important to have a "fully developed, clean" fire to heat your metal in. As much coal burned to coke as possible, and limited clinker. The idea is to maximize the heat output of your fire while minimizing the excess air. There are typically three zones to your solid fuel fire, oxidizing (at the bottom where the tuyer discharges the air), neutral (in the middle) and reducing (at the top). If you are in the oxidizing section your metal will scale up more rapidly and make it more difficult to weld. I'm guessing this will be similar with a charcoal fire. The direction I got from accomplished forge welders was to heat the metal in the neutral zone of the fire till it is yellow/orange with a melted butter like surface (possibly hotter for low carbon, mild steel), but preferably not sparking much. Then turn down the air and let it soak up the radiant heat for a count of ten before whipping the metal out of the fire and lightly tacking the weld together.

Thought that H-13 is air hardening and extremely difficult to properly anneal. Doubt that cooling in ash is going to get you anywhere close to annealed, if that is where you are headed.

Handle has an Indonesian feel to me (ref: http://oriental-arms.co.il/item.php?id=5934 parang, golok...?), but I don't recall ever seeing one with that type of guard. Might have been a one-of attempt to copy a European style guard on an eastern blade. Interesting if nothing else.

Looks to me like the original is done with some kind of cutter (end mill?). If you can do something similar with your Damascus billet it should show off the pattern better than forging in IMHO.

How about your forge floor? Is it also hard brick without any insulation between it and the outside? With that and the large rear door not being insulated (hard brick is an awful insulator on the scale of things) you could be losing a lot of heat. The insulation layers can either be inside the hard brick, as Frosty suggested above, which keeps the brick cooler, or outside the brick, where the brick will need to warm up as a large thermal mass. The latter will take a lot more time. Sorry, read in the above that you have a layer of 1" on the floor. Not sure why you aren't getting up to temp, try insulating doors.

Nice job with the cable forging. Looking forward to seeing the completed blade. Just have to ask, what the heck is that stuff wrapping around the outside of your forge? It looks like old fiberglass insulation. Please do be careful with that if it is. Once the fibers get overheated something happens to the material and it becomes more friable. The fibers can easily break into shorter lengths and become airborne. I currently have significant scarring on my lungs due to years of glassworking with equipment without encapsulated high temperature refractory fiber and fiberglass insulation. Learn from my mistake.

OK, everyone is being very accommodating in answering your posts, but you still don't seem to get it so I'll try to simplify: No, knife making is not easy for a first time smith. In addition to material selection (which you don't seem to have a clue about; no it is very unlikely you can find high carbon spring steel in a typical hardware store, Thomas gave you a good tip on where to locate some and did TacticallySharp), there is forging tapers, distal thinning, fullering for a hidden tang, forging bevels, normalizing and annealing. Then you have scale removal, profiling and grinding or filing bevels. Finally heat treating, including quenching and tempering then more finish work on the knife surface. Then making the handle, fitting the tang and attaching it securely. Without a lot more research, some luck, or direct supervision from a blade smith things can go wrong at every step of the process (some wrong steps can even get you hurt). Yes you can make something pointy and sharp out of almost any metal and some kind of abrasive for stock removal (like the shank JMC is referring to), but it won't work for long or be safe to use if it isn't made well. Making a sheath out of metal is certainly possible, but might be more difficult than the knife making itself. The "craft" you are searching for that will help you in making your Persian Fighting knife is the ability to do adequate research. I suggest you get a book and do some reading on blacksmithing as well as knife making. You do seem to have the start of a grounding in terminology, which will certainly help.

BSP&PS? Please clarify

Sweet, nice score.

I'm hardly an expert, so take this for what it is worth: You can work "divots" into both sides of the stock by using the anvil horn under the stock while you are hammering with the peen side of the hammer. This greatly increases the effectiveness of each blow. Flatten thereafter, as you have been doing, using the flat portion of the anvil, but keep your steel hotter (at least orange, yellow if possible) so it moves faster. Also make sure the steel is heated "all the way through". With thicker stock you can end up with only surface heating, and your blows won't penetrate deeply. Working tool steel is a compromise between decarb and being able to move the metal. Long heats at high temperatures will cause decarb (bad), but if it takes too long at the red-orange heat you run into similar issues. It does take an awful long time to hand hammer down that size tool steel stock (I turned a similar size spring into a long, socketed, spear head and it was a bunch of work, though on reflection it may have only been 3/8" thick). Still think of all the exercise you are getting... This is why the big boys have those power hammers or hydraulic presses. Check out Brian Brazeals videos on tapering to see other techniques for reducing metal using other sides of the hammer and the edges of the anvil. Some of those techniques may also be helpful.

Sheesh, hope you have a power hammer or a striker with some serious stamina.

Took a class concurrently with Steve Ash at Touchstone. He is an excellent smith and a good instinctive teacher. Saw some forge welded axes he made and they looked quite good. Don't think you can go wrong there.

Welcome to the site. Please do more research on bladesmithing on this site. You will find that while spikes are great for some things, including testing out blade shape and learning forging technique, they aren't really good steel for making knives. Not enough carbon to harden effectively with conventional treatments. Not to mention the potentially questionable aspect of their sourcing, though if you are getting them from flea markets you are probably OK. If you are really interested in bladesmithing I strongly recommend that you take a class in same from an accomplished smith, or at least get Jim Hrisoulas (http://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/The-Complete-Bladesmith-Forging-Your-Way-to-Perfection-P150.aspx?gclid=COrI747d_skCFQovaQodEywBNw ) and Steve Sells books and study them. There is a lot on the internet that will send you in the wrong direction. The forging side of making knives is only the tip of the iceberg. Filing, grinding, heat treatment, steel selection, handles and sheaths are also in your future. But to answer your question, if you have 6" of steel left after making the handle section of the knife you should easily be able to forge it out to an 8" blade (depending on the crossection of the material before and after). Forging is all about moving a volume of steel from one configuration to another. Basic geometry calculations can tell you what is possible, though you will lose some material to scaling.

Another outside the box option might be a vertical 4 x 106 belt sander typically used for glassworking (check Covington), depending on what your plan of use is. They can sometimes be sourced used from glass shops that are closing for very attractive prices. They don't have the massive motors that the metalworking ones do, but I have one and have gotten some good use out of it. They can also be used wet, so that is a big advantage.

Very impressive for one week of forging, even with an experienced instructor helping one-on-one. You must have been working morning, noon and night.

I'd jump on the Soderfors immediately if it was a good price. Looks to be all the anvil that anyone would need starting out, and maybe forever if you don't do large architectural work. Love that German double horn style, and it is in great shape, at least visually. Try a rebound check if you can for the face. That one looks almost too nice to use. Do yourself a favor, if you get it, and work on your hammer accuracy for a while on the rail anvil. It would be a shame for an errant blow to chip an edge there.

Just think what you will be able to do when you start making your tools out of recognizable high carbon tool steel.