Dave Budd

forgot to mentions, the cromwells hammers will aslo need dressing as they have a nasty 45 degree chamfer on the edges. as for ball peens being proper smithing hammers in the uk, that depends on your definition of traditional. True enough ballpeens are only seen in the uk forges, but they only appeared in the last few hundred years. before that we all used cross peen, square faced hammers like everyone else Personally I have no neeed for the ball peen unless I'm riveting, so generally a square faced cross peen is my friend.

Charcoal is great for forging with, especially with bellows. I use a 'primitive' set up for teaching and public demos, the forge and bellows are based on examples from the first millenium BC in Europe. My forge bed is larger than yours (about 20x15" for the teaching hearthes) and a single bellow with approx 1 cubic foot of air blown through a 1 1/4" diam tube will raise a 1" bar to welding heat. For higher heats you just need to up the rate of pumping and keep a good head of charcoal above the metal for insulation. One great thing charcoal has over other forge fuels is that it doesn't lose heat too fast without applied air, so its not too strenuous keeping good heats in your work. When the air is 'switched off' then you are left with a nice little BBQ for your tea Obviously the hot coals spread outwards as the day progresses, but if you keep raking them in and feed fresh fuel in from the sides then the spread of radiant heat isn't too bad. best thing, as with all tools, is to play with your set up once you have got a feel for forging with charcoal. tweak the size of the fuel, the air inlet size, type and capacity of bellows, method of uniting the bellows and tuyere, method of pumping the bellows for different types of work, etc..

Most of my hammers are those form Cromwells. They are pretty soft so they don't hurt my anvil as much as the few 'good' hammers that I have. The others are either carboot jobs or modified by myself from either of the above sources.

the coke that I have access to is horrible dusty stuff that forms loads of clinker I have to keep on top of clearing the grate or I don't get any heat in the fire. The following morning my whole grate has a thick layer (often more than 10mm) of encrusted clinker all over it! Sadly where I live we have two suppliers of smithing coke, both seem to be dusty and one is certaily more dusty (they also happen to be the cheaper of the two).

Get it hot and straighten it. then make sure you get the whole to a nice even heat and re normalize, better still anneal it. I had the same problem with leaf springs on my first few bigger blades. Some steel and some designs can be tweaked by applying local heat to the spine with a torch and then holding the blade in the correct posisiotn with a wrench, but to be honest it is much safer to heat it up and re do the heat treating ;)

if you are going to forge the blade then you don't need to chisel the shape out, cutting a crude point is more than sufficient as others say, watch the temperature and the amount of air and the scaling will be reduced. get the metal to the right temperature and hit it hard and you should get more work done with less wastage. as a side note on hot chiselling, I was teaching a couple of guys last week and amongst other things we made a trivet. Nice simple thing (as simple as I could think of!),which involved splitting a 2x1/4" bar of mild for 15" along the centre. OK, it was mild and not spring steel, but I was able to hot cut it much faster than the others did with angle grinders! it surprised me anyway.

I've got one that I made a few years ago and I don't think it would be fast enough for pattern welding. I built mine to make mokume and for that it works great :)

I know of a few people who heat treat D2 blades regularly (those with fancy kit), so I may have to get them to do that part of it for me, as much as that would pain me! I was given a few bits of D2 (and offered much more if I like it!), so I though I may as well give it a go Thomas, Interesting that you say to forge lower than normal, all of the other info i have says to forge hotter (1850-2000F according to jph's book, for example). It's also an air hardening steel, so if I forge below critical it's bound to crack on me? may hyave to play a bit longer :D

As Mr Powers says, you are making charcoal as the wood burns. So although you can forge in a wood-fired forge, you need REALLY long tongs! tried it once for the experience and then grabbed the bag of charcoal ;)

sounds like fun. How do you weld a box of paperclips though? is it in a can?

I've just been given a few bits of D2 and had a quick whack at a piece this afternoon. I was expecting some realy hard immovable metal, but it was ok. The only trouble is that at normal (or slightly hotter) temperatures it is crackingup Has anybody here forged D2 before? if so, any pointers? As for pre or post heat treat grinding, I know it's hard going. I intend to forge not grind the stuff I did notice it ate a cutting disc when I sliced a piece off though:rolleyes: any info much appreciated. Thanks :)

I wonder if DM started the thread confused? Cabale damascus is sometimes dipped in brass or bronze after forging, partly for strength but mostly for looks. Either way, you need to make the billet before the dipping and as with any molten metal (apart from mercury) it is a dangerous process! DM, I've welded a little cable and regularly forgeweld normal billets of flat steel. For me at least the cable is tricker as you have to tighten the rope up before very gently and carefully tapping it together into a solid billet without burning the fine strands on the outside or not getting the centre up to temp. Maybe practice making simple layered billets up from simple steels like 10XX or W2 and L6 (or in scrappy terms, any old steel/files and saw blades). Once you get your head around the forgewelding process then start playing with different materials. I've had trouble with springs because some cotain chromium,which stops it sticking easily (especially with no flux). As for the forge, I've firewelded things together at shows with my Iron Age setup before. It's a hole in the ground, clay pipe tuyere and a single pot bellows, burning charcoal. This summer I plan to do some pattern welded blades in it for a giggle.

thanks guys. It's justa thught at present, but having only forged with coal the once I quite fancy trying for the heck of it I'll ask about the bitumous coal when I order some more coke later today. It can't hurt to give a couple of bags a go, at least with coal if I decide I don't like it I can still burn it at home in the winter.

I was just wondering if anybody here in the UK forges with coal? I know generally blacksmiths here gave up on coal and developed a serious coke habit years ago. Farriers have long gone for gas and knifemakers go for all sorts including charcoal. Smiths in the States and Europe still use coal a lot it seems, so why not here I wonder? I'm thinking about giving up on my elctric driven forge blower, which means I have to use somethng that will sustain heat without power. So it's either gas, charcoal or coal. I have a gas forge and aside from heat treating and mascus making, I really don't like using it. Charcoal I use a lot with the Iron Age forges, so I know it would be uneconomical in the main forge as well. If anybody here does use coal, what do you ask for from your supplier and how does the price compare to coke? any suggestions appreiated :)

I don't think that it really matters whether the Urak Hai sword is heat treated to be honest. It's a Film sword for a 9 year old Lets face it the ones in the film are cold forged from plasma cut blanks, so anything a kid can do is an improvement! generally I agree with the idea that you should make a sword when you want to. Practice and experience will only increase the skill and so provide a better sword at the end of it. So one's first sword (irrespective of skill level and equipment) will never be as good as the second, or third, etc.

the way that I make thimble shaped ferrules is by starting off with steel tube. Using a pair of 1/2" round fullers (spring fuller in hardy) I neck the tube in gradually turning it as I go. Once finished I cut through the narrow neck and then an inch or so along the tube in either direction and I have two nice thimble shaped ferrules that have a round hole in the centre :)

I do it all the time. If I'm trying ot work out how to make a shape that I've never made before, or I really don't know if I can do something from the stock I have. I use the same hammers and tools that I will use with the tools so that I can be more sure that the steel will move as the clay does. If I used my light hammers then the face is a different shape and I could ends up coming apart when I move onto the steel.

I mostly use soft cheap hammers when working near the edge of my anvil (I forge my blades to finished, so I work really close). That way I ding the hammer and not the good anvil. I did find that my brand new anvil is softer than my 100+year old stump It was a student who showed me that one

just in case they are brass, watch out for the fumes. Brass contains zinc and that can really ruin your day, well, kill you!

Getting nice defined plunges is something that illudes a lot of folk that like to forge close to finish (that's what I like to tell'em when they fail to forge a blade completely ), as JPH says: hammer control! and he should know, he wrote the book! a couple of things that hekped me with that area when I started were: brace the bar of steel against your leg when forging, this stops the blade moving around on the anvil. once you have forged most of the length of the blade in, go back over your plunge area with localised hammer blows (so only one hammer width at teh plunge on either side of the blade) make sure that the hammer face lines up directly over the corner of the anvil and your plunge will form there and if your blow are even, in the middle of the bar. sweep your hammer away from the anvil with each blow (I do this through out the forging as it is more efficient and you get a wider blade than a direct hit). with the plunge, try sweeping diagonally so that you move in the direction of the outmost corner of the blade edge. get yourself right above the metal and use single well placed blows. just a few thought that helped me practice is the only way

Haven't posted any of my work for a while, so I though I may as well since I was putting a pic elsewehere the top two haven't been finihsed yet, hence no edges Small boline/sickle for a witchy lady. Silver birch (slightly spalted) handle, silver steel blade. 4 1/2" blade Ruddy great chopper, EN45 spring steel and ash. I made this blade alongside a student a couple of weeks ago, otherwise I try and stear clear of big blades. 12" blade. And a Nessmuck style of knife. 6" blade. thanks for looking

I'm new to flypresses too and though my tooling is rather limited at present (I have a top fuller and I can fit my touchmark in it), I'm amazed at what I can do with it already. I've thought about making a few bending dyes from oak as it would be quicker for me to make (I have lots of oak but precious little random bits of steel suitable), and for certain things I'm sure it will work. I've used oak logs for forging steel bowls and spoons before, though doing that hot was interesting!

I tend to only wear gloves when welding (forge and arc welding), everything else I assume is hot and don't touch! I had the same trouble with holey gloves a couple of weeks ago though. Mice/rats had eaten a few small (1/2" diam) holes randomly on my gloves. Unfortunately one was in exactly the place where my left hand supports the welding rod when I get started. I burnt my finger three times in quick succession and then thought sod it (sort of), threw the gloves across the workshop and kicked the lumps I was welding. I now have new gloves.

you lot just have lots of phalic tools. My anvil has a beak whilst yours gets it's own horn! I don't have much in the way of grinding gear, so I just do my rough shaping with 60grit belts and then move to hand papers. I normally get the CA on once I've hand rubbed to 120 grit as that is the final shape with all corners nicely rounded before I refine the finish. If I just sand and don't glue I get a textured effect where the unsaturated fibres are rubbed away from the resin filled masses. Gives it a different look and feel. Or you could just rub to a coarse finish and leave it as a really tactile grippy handle ;)

if it's indoors I doubt you will have any problem with your oak log rotting or otherwise degrading until you are a very old man! I've never bothered treating any of my oak stumps that are used for various things around my workshop and they are more solid 5 years on than when freshly cut (no I don't ever find nice seasoned wood!). Unless you have bugs where you are that like ot eat oak in a hurry?