Lenaghan

Hi everyone, never seem to post around here but am always coming back to get info so I thought I'd show what I'm up too.

This is my secound try at this style, my first one devolped a big weld flaw right between the core bars and I decided to scrap it... This ones still has it's "issues" and didnt turn out exactly how I wanted it to but thats ok cause it's only for me not a customer!

Outside Bars are 60 ish layers of 1075-1095, and on the last fold I decided to throw in 3 layers of saw blade(which I'm kicking myself for now, cause it throws off the pattern and just doesnt seem right)
inner bars are 1075,1084 and sawblade

all the different steel types was a way of cleaning out my cut offs, now I'm only going to use 1084 and real 15n20

here's the 4 bars all welded and drawn out and tacked together
this is the welding of the bars making them all one
This is a pic of welding the first sword, but it's the same thing...
Now everthings welded and drawn out into a 30" byt 1/4" bar ready for rough forging

For some reason I never took pic's of forging/beveling the blade but it no different then any other sword...

here's some picks of the finished blade, all polished and sharpened just waiting for me to make the hilt





Hope everyone enjoy's

I gotta say I love that knife, I just think for a chopper its alittle too shinny... all that time polishing I'd be too worried about scatching it!

Just joking around, great knife!

I used to work at a metal fab shop with a very large bandsaw, I have no idea what kind tho but I've been using using the old blades with alot of luck. there very thin but about a 1inch to 1 1/4 inch wide. I've tested them and have no idea what kind of metal but there do get hard...

Also since I've found it hard in Canada to get L6 or 15n20 I've been using those blades, and they do etch alot lighter and shine up nicely when welded with other 10XX metals

here's a couple pics of what I've ended up with (keep in mind yours could be something completely different)

this is 9 layers of bandsaw and 1084
this is around 75 layers of bandsaw, mild, 1075 and 1095 with a W1 edge

hope this helps!

Tom Maringer had a custom built vertical electric heat treat furnace with computerized ramping controls and inert atmosphere.

Of course he liked the high alloy steels that require a fussy heat treat.

Hi everyone, I havent posted here in a long time, or much at all but when I was starting out and gathering Info this site helped me alot so I was one of those I wanna make a sword first try type, and where I can say I did manage to make something of a short sword it's nothing I'm proud of and only keep it around to remeber how far I've came. One of many things I did learn from that attempt was that controling the heat, and being able to properly HT a large blade has huge problems that come along with it,

3 Years since I started and I've made a couple swords, several shorter swords, some little knives and have a huge pile of failed blades... and with every new blade I see huge improvements, but one thing I was still keeping me away from the longer blades was all the issues with the HeatTreating. So I built this thing...



I just finnished the heat treatment of a 26 blade Jian and the thing worked great, and I could go as large as 40 inch

Not sure what else anyone else here is using but I'd like to see what some of the more experianced people are doing

Even if you dont think your skilled enough yet to forge a sword.. are you skilled enough to draw the bar out? I'm not sure what type of blade your thinking of making but you got alot of work befor you befor you can even think of forging in bevels and making a blade out of it. Some of the best pratice I think I've had is trying to keep a 30 inch piece of steel even and straight. If you want a taste of what it's gonna take to forge a sword, forge your bar down to 3/8 or 1/4 by 1 to 1 1/4 (depending on sword type) and from there when the times right you have a good starting point! best of luck

-Michael Lenaghan

Kaowool, fire brick, or?

If you check around with refractory dealers, I don't recommend ceramics supplies, they're usually WAY more expensive than a furnace or heating supply. Anyway, shop around for a high phosphate refractory, borax will have zero effect on it.

I prefer a rammable or plastic refractory so I can make a really dense face for the fire chamber, then I back it with a insulating castable refractory or Kaowool. The inner liner only needs to be in the 3/4"-1" range to do the job.

Frosty the Lucky.

I learned that Borax really does ruin the inside of my forge lol :rolleyes:

wow those are nice, whish my first set looked like that...

My first forge was a fire brick one, and It took me a couple months befor I found a design I liked and finnally mortor'd it together. But thats the nice thing about the bricks is you can play around with it... try putting the burners on the side, then the top and change the whole size of it. this is also going to depend on the type of work your doing. I dont know if you where going to do something about the base, but you should get a metal plate and have it raised above your work bench. once the bricks heat up they stay hot for hours

Hey a another winnipegger!

I just finished building a new forge, so should be able to help you out i hope...

for almost all the stuff you want except the steel and ITC 100 you can get from The sounding stone pottery place. http://www.soundingstone.com/store.do?dispatch=catalog&categoryId=143
half way down the page is the blacket and bricks you'll want. For ITC 100 I had to get it shipped from the states, after shipping and taxes it ended up costing alot but made a big difference.
The shell of my forge is a old propane tank off a truck and works fine. If you need a propane regulator and hose I went to welder's supply.
Good luck

-Mike

Looks sweet! I see crushed beer cans... :lol:

Hi everyone, haven't posted in a while and just finnished a new forge so i thought I'd share.

My old forge was made outta fire brick with 2 burners and it didn't seem to work that well, took a while to heat up and never
seemed to get really hot so i figured why not make a new one, I got the idea of don Fogg's site.

it's made outta a old trucks propane tank, 12 in wide and 13 high, with 3 in of Fiberfrax Insulating Blanket 2300 on the sides
and 2 in on the top and bottom. ITC 100 covering the insides. 2x3 in opening on each side. I have a 3/4 burner in there now
but could switch up to a one inch if I needed to.

When I first fired it up I couldn't believe how fast it got to heat, and seems run hotter at 5 psi then my old one did running at
15 psi with both burners!!! plus I was seeing how hot I could get it and managed to make my first forge weld, It wasn't pretty but it
was solid and i didn't have flux! so right now i couldn't be happier, and if everything goes good i could be getting my first real
anvil in a week. anyways here's the pics...

what size is your forge, or at least the opening for it?
I just switched my set up from a one to a two burner(running a little rich). With the extra burner, one would seem to go out for a sec then relight it self... once I made a bigger opening for exhaust gasses it works great!

good luck!

wow this is what i like about this site, everyones friendly here. And yes CurlyGeorge your right i do have the bug! I'm wanna make another set right away maybe outta better steel this time, to bad i ran outta propane and could BBQ supper lol

hi everyone, I'm still new at this but had realized how badly I needed a good long pair of tongs rather then the vise grips I'd been using:rolleyes:
So i found some rebar, and started hammering and this is what i ended up with... there not pretty but they work. I also used a bolt just cause I didn't know how to make a rivet. Also this is my first real project I've done start to finish

Hi there,
I just like to say I love all the info on this site, and wanna thank you guys for posting it up! I'm a welder by trade, but wanna start making stuff the old school way too :D