junker

i made this blade for my senior project. i am having to place the blade on ebay tonight and 100% of the proceeds will be donateed to my highschool's senior project scholorship fund. with that in mind i am not overly happy with it. seeing as it's my first fully finished knife i am happy with it considering that. the blade is wire damascus with a very subtle etch the crossgaurd is brass, and the handle is deer bone. The whole knife was made to look like a primitive knife i once saw. the sheath is 1cm saddle leather sown with artificial sinew and my touchmark is tooled into it (seeing as i do not have my touchmark made) i tried to keep the sheath looking more primitive too, i used the standard stitch instead of a fancier one in order to keep it more primitive.

so i finally ot to looking at my anvil instead of just using it and realized it's a 150 haybudden, so not only has it been an absolutely great anvil to me, my mentor, and his mentor, but it's also a from agreat manufacturuer so i know that as long as i take care of it i can pass it on to my apprentice when i reach curmudgeon statis lol.

would it be possible to make a tactical tomahawk (1 piece head/handle) by making a normal hawk with a narrow eye and inserting a bar of steel and forge welding the eye shut to/around the bar? the reason i would liike to know is because i would like to make 1 and donate it to a soldier in iraq, also i am seriously debating joining up myself and would like to have one.

should i use straight muratic acid or dilute it 1:1 or maybe 2:1 water to acid?

how long should i leave it in the muratic acid?

i don't think the hot vineger was a strong enough etchant, it just barely etched the knife at all, i can wipe it away with a rough cloth

i know this is probably a stupid question but wen making a normal (not cable) damascus blade, do you use the top of the billet as the side of the knife or the side of the billet?

does it give a better etch or is it just safer? also could someone post pics of damascus etched with differint etching compounds? if we get enough pics in combonation with the conmpund that cause the etch maybe we can get this pinned as a sticky so the information will be right there in easy acces for every1 who wants to view it.

would battery acid work?

how do you carve symbols and shapes into brass for things such as pommels and crossgaurds?

i have forged out a cable-dagger with the help of my mentor, i still need to make the gaurd and pommel and im going to make the handle out of polished dear antler, what i am asking is what is the best acid to put on the knife to make the damascus pattern of the cable show?

thanks alot veluvia, i was just worried about the nordic wrath lol, so since there's nothing bad i think ill keep it.

im 17 and have been forging for about a year and a half. my mentor's almost 60 now so i think combined we make an average aged smith :P

thank you... those are different definitions than what i was able to find. and no the valnott is not one of those specific runes but a more violent one (soposedly) of odin's own making... here's the site i used:http://www.sunnyway.com/runes/

could someone critique my work? tell me what i have done rightand what i have done wrong? and also sorry for the large pic size

he's having me use a mixture of boric acid, rust powder, and a third thing that i don't know yet

yes please ask your former teacher. i wanna make sure they're ok runes. i don;t practice the religion but i am a bit superstitious. but i just picked those three because kenaz, which also stands for k,(the c looking thing) is the first letter in my first name and the first and last letter in my last name, so i figured it had some importance, teh other 2 i chose for protection (algiz) and physical strength and speed and untamed potential (uruz) the large triangle based rune is valnott, odin's personal rune or something, it means honorable or violent death. since i am predomanintly going to be a bladesmith (what i am training in) i figured they were the perfect combonation. but please ask your former teacher 4 me, don't wanna incure some anciant norse wrath or something lol

i welded this forge myself from scrap steel i had laying around, the ash dump is a little big so you have to really crank on the blower, but it get's plenty hot and really burns coal efficiantly.

i bought this anvil from my mentor, this was his first anvil and now it's mine.

im sorry the pic file didn't attach, let me try again

my mentor told me to pick a touch mark. as i am into norse mythology i thought i'd pick from that, runes that have a meaning towards the work. so here is what i mcame up with. if there are any critacisms please speak up, and if there are any runic experts please tell me if i am incurring bad luck or something lol. ;p

my mentor told me i need rust-powder mixed in with my flux to make sure there are no leech lines (those white lines along alot of forgewelds). so i went to my auto shop teacher and asked if i could clean out metal powder buildup from the brake rotor/drum cutting machine. can i just use this as is, or do i need to let it turn into rust powder?

how do you think a copper or brass wire wraped grip would look on 1 of those?

test the temp with a piece of paper... if the metal is hot enough it will char the paper almost immidiately

i just like to make sure... only time i make stuff is for friends and family and i wanna make darn sure im not gonna poisen them. the colore is cool too, almost like an iredescent black/ purple