Johnnyreb338

Good afternoon my forge is made out of 1/4 plate with 2 layers of 1"blanket on the sides and top, 1 layer on the front and back with hard fire brick in the bottom, no insulation under the brick. I can forge on average 4 to 5 knives on a single 5gal bottle of gas with no tank freezing issues. the burner is nothing fancy just a piece of 1" s/s schedule 40 tubing I drilled a hole about 6" down and inserted a piece of 1/8 copper tubing, connected to my bottle and started heating and beating. hope this was helpfull, I attached a video not sure it went through. 20161125_154415.mp4 There's a pick of my homemade anvil as well, it's made of 1x6 t-1 steel, the edoes were cut to 1/2" bevel and welded. I frequently forge with a 8 lb sledge hammer and have beat out a bearing race with a 16lb sledge on it. no problems except I could lift my arm for a couple hours after. mabey this helps.

Thanks pete46. I will wait till after the holiday, I would like to meet you and if you have some spare knowledge you don't need anymore mabey help me out with a few things. Thanks to you to twisted customs I will certainly keep that info in mind. I'm just starting out and have limited mechanical capabilities, I have a long background in metal working ie.. machinist,accomplished welder, been working metal all my life just not in this capacity. don't think I will be doing any large stuff like swords or large bowies just skinners and such. I've been looking for some place to make sheaths for me but I guess leather work is a dying hobby too. wife's gone camping so I finished this thing today. waiting on the tung oil to dry so I can play with it. it's 01 tool steel with hickory handles I cut off my sledge hammer. I left the tool marks in it and put a hot blue finish.

I'm a diesel mechanic and bearing races are easy to come by, if you have a fastenal store close by they sell drill rod in short sticks, it's 01 tool steel.

Good morning thanks for the replies, I searched last night and found 1 from South ms, I pm him but he has not responded yet. I have some more pics on my phone but can't get them transfered to my tablet so I can post them, I really enjoy forging out blades although there is no method to my madness yet, just heat and beat till I can get it close to a knife shaped object,then I use a torch to shape it and then put it back in the forge and anneal it so I can work it. I don't have a belt sander so all the work is done by hand with files and sandpaper, lots of sand paper. that's where my patience wears thin I get tired of sanding and sandinget at some point I just say that's close enough and stick the handles on. my stuff don't look real bad just not something I would want to take to a show and sell. here's another 1 I done. I beat out and old bearing race, it's double oil quenched, and tempered at 400 degree. it has copper bolster, African blackwood scales. this is probably the best one I've made so far. The 2 unfinished blades up top, the middle blade is 01 steel I beat out from a piece of 3/4 round stock, and the bottom is a bearing race I straightened out then took my welder with some 400 series stainless welding rods and played around, then beat it out to a blade, looks kinda stupid but but it's hard as hammered cat crap.it was double quenched then etched in boiling vinegar. I have issues when trying to hammer the edge on the blade the blade starts curving back and I don't know how to correct this, you can see from the pics both blades are curved back. I usually just cut it straight with a torch but would like to do a blade without the torch step. thanks and happy thanksgiving day

Hello my name is David I'm from South ms, I just recently started pursuing the hobby of knife making, still learning the basics and enjoying every minute of it. I use a homemade gas forge I made and a homemade anvil made of t1 steel. I have found the greatest obstacle to be my lack of patience. here are some pics of a few I've done. is there anyone else from South Mississippi here is would like to find someone local that might be willing to share knowledge and experience with. Again hello and glad to be here.