Rob Thomas

This is awesome, thank you so much for your time!!!

I've been making some knives out of high carbon steel and hardening them once and they keep a very nice edge for a long time and take a lot of abuse,
my question is why i've heard to always harden three to five times? When i did my blade tip cracked on the top! I have let my blade cool completely, in the oil. cool enough to handle bare-handed. This blade was also annealed over night in ashes, before i started the hardening process.:confused:

Very nice, but can you shave with it? Ha Ha!!! just kiddin!!!

I hope to do that well some day!!!

Great idea,thanks! Using a salt shaker for the flux.

I went and bought some 20 mule team borax, now I am removing any excess moisture from it. Am going to store it in a air tight container and have it when needed. Hopfully I will be ready to use it in a few months, as I need to work on skills and all. want to learn drawing out metal, so am practicing on old railroad spikes. Wish me luck!!! lol

Took your advise and put in more info, thanks!

Very infomative, thank you all for your knowledge on the matter!!!

I'm from Cashmere,Wa.

I figure that I will try to forge my wife a hunting knife for my first project,
and then try to make some good tools. Any suggestions on what tool I should start with as a starting point?

As a person who hasn't done any work in blacksmithing just as yet, I was lucky enough to finally aquire some railroad iron anvils, tongs and a Royal Western Cheif H blower. When speaking to the man who was retired from blacksmithing as a hobby, he told me that I should look into asking about using Borax as a forge welding flux. He said it protected the metal? I don't understand how to use it when forge welding, when I heard borax, is a soap?:confused: