Oberu

I'm wondering if the shape of the blades might have been something simpler. If you hammer in a bevel on a piece of metal it thins on the cutting edge and the spine begins to curl. You straighten the blade and continue. When you are done straightening you'll end up with something resembles a seax. Could it be that simple? I don't know but I love them as well!

Very nice work!

Thanks fellows. I quenched vertically. After thinking on it a while I don't think it had a choice. The geometry in cross section was so aggressive that the edge must have contracted much faster. I'm a bit surprised there aren't any cracks seeing the warp. Much appreciation again!

Hey fellows, So I cycled three times and then quenched this 1084 blade in canola oil today and it bent.. not in the typical direction.. at least not for me. The blade is triangular in cross section and 20 1/4" overall. I expect some warping down the spine on occasion but I've never had one bend toward the cutting edge before. Can anyone give me some advice on what I did wrong.. or a way to avoid this?

One of the handles carved up. Slow but going!

Further along.. now to finish carving handles.

Plugging away

Vince Evans and Jake Powning.

Nice! I recently made one similar following information Wayne. Mine is a single burner and I used one of Frosty's 3/4" "T's" and so far it's working great! Lots of great minds here and years of experience to learn from. Can't wait to see it fired up!

I play a lot at renaissance festivals with half a dozen old friends and it's good stuff. Years ago I realized that none of us would ever be able to afford things to add to our outfits so I started making them. I've made boots and belts, bags and kilts. Wasn't long before the knife bug hit me. This is the blade I started today. Followed by one I started a few weeks back that's further along. Big one is 1080 and the cleaner is 5160.

If you're worried about them coming apart, perhaps try drilling a series of holes through your "bread and welding them back up?

I like draw filing personally. It flattens and it's a good exercise.

I bought a hammer and it was pretty expensive to me. I spent a good deal of time shaping and polishing the faces to fit my needs. I worked with this hammer for a few weeks and needed a smaller hammer so I dug through my tool box and found an old hammer head that was my grandfather's. I roughed out the simplest handle you can imagine.. basically an oak stick and called it good enough. If I had to choose a hammer I'd take that old stick handled hand me down hammer all day long! The fancy hammer is just too hard. It all depends on YOUR tastes. Find what you like and what you need to get results.

Very nice grind lines! I use a file to get lines like that.. Nicely done!

I got it up to the colors i could find reference to normalized it three times, (( 1500 ish )) and quenched it in veg oil that i'd warmed by quenching an orange railroad spike into. I tempered it in the oven ( after cleaning it and scrubbing a bit.. the Mrs would kill me ) at 400 degrees for an hour.