Will W.

Do you make your knives through stock removal or forging? If the latter, then you already have 80% of what you need to make Damascus(the other 20% is basically just an etchant.) Give it a try. It is much more gratifying to make a beautiful Damascus blade that was completely wrought by your own hands, IMO. I agree with your third paragraph completely, that rosewood came out very nice! If you make a sheath, please post pics. I, for one, would like to see it.

Buy a Fisher, and one needs not worry about the ring at all .

Bevels look pretty good. Pattern is interesting, and that rosewood... God I'm in love with that rosewood. Nice work. Did you make the Damascus? Overall dimensions? Sheath?

1200 lbs??? I... Want... It...

I was going to comment on the blade, but templehound did it for me. Nice work, Nate.

Ha! Btw, 58er, meant to put it in my earlier post: That thing looks MEAN!!! I would not want to be on the receiving end of it. Nice work.

They were originally intended for threshing grain, actually. Over the years, they were adapted to battle, as many tools were.

Superb work JM. Masterful work, indeed. I agree with the fellow members who say leave it be, it looks great as is.

There are most definitely threads around the forum that answer most if not all of these questions. Take some time and research, read old threads (especially the pinned ones.). You may learn things that you didn't know you needed to know. That is a whole mess of questions you have there. I'll try to help where I can. That depends on what type of furnace youre talking about. Most likely, there probably is. But if you want to get into smelting I recommend doing it with somebody (or a group even) who has experience and a proper set up. Mild steel will work, yes. Many (including myself) also have cast iron firepots. I personally would recommend no thinner than 3/8" (~9mm) but 1/2" (~12mm) would be better, IMO. The design of your firepot, however, will differ based on what fuel you are using. Depends on what kind of bellows you want to make. Check the Bellows section and the Blueprint section and you may find your answer. Wood and leather have, historically, been the go to materials. I have no advice concerning the brick. I would advise heading over to the Solid Fuel Forges section and reading through the threads there. Oh, and don't be surprised if this thread gets moved to that same section. Don't bother with the search function on the site BTW, it's... Strange. Just put"iforgeiron" along with your question into your preferred search engine.

Lol that's a pretty funny story, thanks for sharing. Thomas I do not know very much about wrought iron, so thanks for the knowledge. I'll have to see if I can get my hands on the books you mention as well.

True. I figured after a certain point, all of the carbon would have scaled away, leaving behind only the iron. Didn't figure on them going down together (so to speak.) I guess I may be better off trying to locate some wrought iron. There are plenty of old farms in my area. I'll see if I can offer my "clean up services" to them. Don't get me wrong, I still want to try this. There's almost no way to tell if I have a burnt piece of mild or pure iron left over, but still, good chance to learn something, I guess. I knew a little bit about the Bessemer process before, but your post made me research it, and I learned quite a bit. That alone deserves a thank you. There's no way I want to melt steel though. That's way too dangerous, considering my set up.

And depending on your skill. I hand forge my Damascus out of necessity (don't have a power hammer or press) and while it is more time consuming than if done with those tools, it doesn't take exceptionally longer. From stacked billet to knife ready to meet the grinder, it usually only takes a few hours (depending on # of folds and desired layer count.) A more skilled bladesmith could probably do it faster by hand, but the point is, it doesn't take days to do.

Hello everyone. I've had this question rattling around in my head for a few days now. My research has pulled up no answers however. Basically all available information talks about turning iron into steel, not reversing the process. Is it possible to take a low carbon steel (basic mild steel is what I had in mind) and decarburize it to the point where it is pure iron again? The process, in my mind, would consist of getting the piece up to ~welding heat in an oxiding fire to intentionally decarburize it. I'm not sure if the result would be *pure* iron, however, as the fuel would likely add very small amounts of carbon, even after burning through the majority of it. I realize it would be much more simple to just get iron from somewhere (either buying pure iron or using wrought,) but I'm just curious if it's possible. I use charcoal as my fuel, by the way. Thanks in advance!

Whoa! The little slice of that billet is awesome! Keep going, Theo, I for one am very excited to see how this turns out.

Seeing as how they've been doing it for *thousands* of years, I would say it's fairly viable, yes. Nice blades, JM.

Precisely. Thanks, JHCC!

I do exactly what Glenn and Thomas said, and it works just fine. Every week, roughly, I wipe them down with a light coating of vegetable oil and they stay in great shape. You could also use canola oil, or olive oil, or peanut oil, etc. Any type of oil that you don't mind touching your food (read as DONT USE MOTOR OIL!)

Technically, that's incorrect. Inhaling coal smoke is terrible, yes. But coal does not produce sulphuric acid. Coal can create sulphur gas (depending on each specific batch of coal and it's sulphur content), which, when coming into contact with water (like the sweat on your skin) can create sulphuric acid. It's called forge rash.

A *symbiotic* working relationship, at that!

I like version 2.0 even better. If I worked with coil spring often enough, I would definitely make one.

Interesting ideas. I'm with Hammerfall, keep at it!

That would be a *LOT* of grinding to V it enough to get a full penetration weld. The spacer idea sounds like a better way to go, IMO. Also, be mindful of the temper on the anvil face during welding. I would put the anvil upside down (face down) onto a heat sink. Any chunk of steel large enough to hold the anvil, and thick enough to soak up a lot of heat should work fairly well. Take your time when welding it as well. Let the anvil cool off a bit between welds.

Well done. I like the overall shape.

If you end up using pressure treated 6x6s, make sure you put a decent size chunk of steel between them and your hot steel you're hammering. Burning pressure treated, or even heating it enough to smoke is VERY bad! Avoid that at all costs.

Congrats on the success. Keep us updated as it progresses.