emtor

25 pound hammer and a 250-500 pound anvil sounds great. Those numbers aren't too scary. I think such a powerhammer would suffice for what I'm planning to forge. So what am I going to use the hammer for? -Making pattern welded billets from 1095 and 15N20 steel. The width of the billets will be a little wider than the width of the blades. The height will not be very much since I'll be drawing out to twice the length and then fold and forge weld etc. until I get the desired number of layers and a length that is a bit longer than the knifeblades. I'd rather spend the money and time trying to buy a length of solid round or square stock. After all that welding the electric wiring in my house would have melted and so would I.

A large hydraulic cylinder would be perfect, as would counterweights. The weights used for tensioning railroad powerlines are perhaps not so bad, but they need to be stacked and welded. My location . . . well,-there's my problem. Northernmost region of Norway . . . think Alaska far as xxxx from Anchorage, same climate, equally sparsely populated. The only thing abundant here are reindeer herds and fish. Not one single scrapyard or large machinery site and next to no industry and we're talking about an area larger than many European countries. But there are options. The nearest decent town that have such sites is 6 hours away by car. Then there's Finland's northernmost decent town also 6 hours away. Lastly Sweden, 6 hours before you enter areas resembling somewhere where people are likely to live. Regarding Sweden,-the northernmost area is full or iron-ore and they have a huge iron-ore mine there and lots of steel plants everywhere. Goes without saying that every town and city there have stores that sell steel products. Sweden is my best bet since I'll be going there for the summer holidays anyways.

I've been thinking the exact same. A piece of steel that big I would never attempt to try to make the ends square or cut it off from the parent stock. I'm sure I could find a discarded axle in many of the shipyards here but asking these guys to cut off a 3 feet piece from it and face the ends on a lathe for me would probably make them laugh and kick my xxx The easiest way would be the sawmill roller tubing I have lying behind the house and fill it with scrap iron and concrete. I would need to weld a good piece of toolsteel on top of it also. The only thing I do not know is if this solution would actually work half well. The only reference I've got is youtube videos of highly doubtful wooden powerhammers. Some of them, surprisingly enough move steel under the hammer. Well,-they probably demonstrated these hammers using mild steel. Tool steel and carbon steel are different beasts. I am however sure of one thing though: -Anvils matter! I started out making knives from leaf-spring using a chunk of an I-beam as an anvil. I couldn't for the life of me understand why the steel wouldn't move. Then I got the chance to use a proper 150 pound anvil and the same steel moved almost like butter . . . so,-anvils do matter.

I'm drooling over the idea of making a powerhammer Little Giant-style. I've come across a site where the author of that site offers plans. Now, there has been 400+ being made from these plans according to him. so I assume he knows what he's talking about. I have a question regarding the anvil post. The author warns about taking shortcuts regarding the anvil. A tube filled with something won't do according to him, as it must be a solid block of steel. Where do you find a three feet long 10 to 12 inch diameter piece of steel? The closest I can get in finding something like that would be in a ship yard. A piece of a large discarded propeller-axle would do nicely,-if the yard would even let you inside the gate that is. What I do have access to are 10 inch diameter steel tubing (rollers from an old sawmill). What about filling one up with scrap iron and concrete? It would get heavy but would it do half well as an anvil when you're in a pinch? I'd like to add that I'm not planning to draw out very large billets on an industrial scale, but I must be able to make a powerhammer able to draw out tool steel non the less.

I tend to agree with Mr. Stevens. In order to heat treat blades they need to be placed horizontally in the forge in order to get an even heat.

I have a 20 ton lever operated bottle jack mounted inside a frame that I plan to use for forging small knives. The frame is only experimental to get a feel on how much pressure is required to squeeze leafspring-steel. As long as the lever isn't putting up much resistance, that is, in the beginning of the squeeze, I'm not too worried. But as the spring-steel starts to flatten, the piston movement is being restricted and the lever is getting hard to operate pretty fast. I'm not comfortable with using all the strength I've got on the lever as long as the frame is just an experimental frame. I have several feet of large H-beam outside the house and I plan on making a frame as soon as the snow is gone. Let's say I manage to make a reasonably safe frame,-how much force can I apply to the lever? This bottle jack has a safety valve built in, but I know little about how this stuff works. Is there a chance I'll ruin the bottlejack, or can I just operate the lever with as much strength as I want provided the frame holds up?

Good point about tending the fire as it is supposed to be coal fired. I guess that would call for an opening so large that I could just as well do away with the flowerpot #1?

The drawing below shows a forge made from two flowerpots. Does this seem like a good idea? The reason I wish to make a flowerpot forge is that flowerpots are readily available in many different sizes. Also, is it a good idea to insulate the forge with LECA and fireclay? I've got this idea about not wasting too much heat into the surroundings. Would insulation lower the fuel consumption and also make it easier to obtain welding temperatures?

Making a knife handle from green wood is never a good idea. When it dries it'll crack and split unless you're very lucky. Wood for knife handles needs to be very dry, but what do you do with that piece of wood still containing moisture and you just need to get going right now? Buy raw linseed oil,-the virgin cold pressed variety is the best. Fill a jar with linseed oil and submerge the wood in it. Within a week the oil has replaced all traces of water which acts as a guarantee against cracking. The wood benefits from being saturated with oil in other ways too, as it gets easier to work with a knife. Some woods are difficult to cut in the sense that big chunks tend to come loose when you cut in it. This nasty tendency is minimized when treating the wood with oil. Raw linseed oil also makes the wood develop that particular "linseed oil sheen". The wood looks almost transparent giving the surface a very deep sheen. The only downside is making the tang of the blade stick to the handle as nothing will stick to raw linseed oil. This is particularly difficult with a hidden tang handle. The solution is to make a cavity inside the handle much the same way as dentists do when they fill a cavity in a tooth. Use epoxy resin and make sure it fills any space between the handle and the tang. Now the tang will be fixed permanently in place inside the handle.

Ivory nuts (tagua nuts) are the perfect substitute for ivory or antlers if you want to spice up your knifehandles. The inside of ivory nuts have an ivory-white color and takes well to polishing. The ivory nut is easily cut with a hacksaw blade and this is how it looks on the inside:

Files and scrapers sounds like a good idea. Up till now I've been using a sanding disc with 40 grit paper. When the handle is nearly finished I fit the blade, then I attach the blade in a vice and continue shaping the handle with long strips of sanding paper. I hold the strip at both ends and let the middle of the paper form a tight curve around the top/bottom of the handle. A wider curve is used for the sides. This ensures an even and symmetrical shape and the control is great. The finishing touch is done by sanding in a more regular fashion using pieces of sanding paper.

Knifemaking has a long and old tradition here as almost all small farms of old had a blacksmithing forge. People had to do this out of pure necessity as farms were often isolated in remote mountain valleys and had to fend for themselves as best they could. The knife in the picture is a Lappish knife from the far north and is a true piece of art. These knives come in different sizes and the largest ones can be as long as 30 inches. The edge of the large ones are ground sharp on the tip and more like an ax further towards the handle so that it acts as a multifunctional tool. In this way it can be used for skinning a reindeer, gutting fish or for cutting down smaller birch trees when setting up a tee-pee. This kind of knife has also become standard equipment in the Norwegian army. The Lappish knife is often forged from a single piece of spring-steel from cars or trucks while knives in the south are often laminated with a core of carbon-steel inside a jacket of mild steel. The knife was regarded as being of such an importance in the viking ages that even the slaves were entitled by law to own a knife.

Thanks Steve. It's nice to see that the art of knifemaking is a popular activity across the pond too.

I'm a newbie on this forum. I just wanted to show you all an example on how knives are made here in Norway. Although I've made a few knives myself, they're nowhere close to this one. Copyrighted image removed and a link placed into the text.