dlpierson

Pirate cleavers! Good style there.

That's outstanding! Even better with your explanation of your reasoning behind the piece.

You might contact Kevin Cashen. I think that he has one of these.

Here's a good discussion: Kevin Cashen on Salt Pots.

Thanks a lot Dave. Very educational with lots of little details.

Buffing is not a good way to remove scratches. Hand sand (or use stones) until no more scratches, then go to the next finer grit in a different direction until you're happy with the scratches. Since you're etching for a pattern you probably don't need to go finer than 400 grit. The most common etchant is fairly dilute ferric chloride (a.k.a. Radio Shack PC board etchant). Vinegar, especially hot vinegar is also used by a lot of makers. It's slower than ferric, but that's actually an advantage. One problem you're having with the muratic is that it's too fast so it etches all of steel too evenly.

It's GREAT to have you back and able to communicate.

If you're going that route you are a good deal of the way to just setting up your forge to be controlled by a thermocouple/PID setup. Stacy Appelt over on Bladeforums has posted quite a bit of instructions on how to do it. Properly done that should easily keep you within 5 degrees F at 1500F. Caveat: I haven't done this myself. Got most of the pieces but my Evenheat oven doesn't leave me with much motivation to wire the forge up for precise heat control.

More wonderful news! I'm very glad Frosty is recovering so well. Thanks a lot for the continuing updates.

You won't get the most out of O1 that way. It really needs to soak at 1475-1500 for at least 10 minutes before quenching. Quench oil isn't too critical with this steel, medium speed is preferable though. I've used Heatbath AAA at 140F. Given the above, I've started a series of two hour tempers at 425F and wound up at 440F with good results for me, mostly making kitchen knives.

Knife makers would certainly be interested. It's currently quite popular for guards, pommels, etc. and some folks use it in pattern welded blades -- generally san mai or wrought back, steel edge constructions.

Great news! I too check and pray for Frosty every day. May his recovery continue and two of you have many more happy years together.

Thanks for keeping us up to date on this! It's very good to hear the progress that Frosty is making.

There's a bit more to enameling than grinding up old bottles. Here are a few pics of Donna's (my wife) shop.

If you're heat treating by eye in a forge then neither SS wrap nor air hardening steels are very useful.

My wife's an enamel artist. She mostly uses copper for a base but steel can certainly work. Lots of large pieces are done on steel. Enamel powders are indeed colored ground glass. You'll need to look into counter-enameling. That is when you need to enamel both sides of the piece to keep the enamel from coming off over time. She says that you always have to do this but I don't think that's completely true because there are techniques which violate this rule. It may be related to material thickness and/or heat conductivity.

Great, they got their first choice. Hope that helps a lot.

Go Deb! And please get some rest now that he's beginning to recover.

Agreed. Great lines, clean, getting that slanted guard fit must have been a bit of work.

Sweet little thing! I'd bid on it if I was at the auction. Second the blueprint request. Maybe some day I'll be good enough to try one.

Great news Deb. I hope he continues to mend.

HT foil is heavy gauge stainless steel, not aluminum. I use it for heat treating air hardening steels (currently A2 and 13C26 if I ever finish another one). Since I have it handy, I also use it for spheroidal annealing and recently used it for normalizing three blades. Works great if you're careful with the folds and expressing excess air. Loves to take blood sacrifices -- gloves are your friend.

Another good job! The detail is impressive. The design is good too.

New as I am, Frosty is a important part of this community to me. Prayers out for him to pull through and for Deb.

Beautiful rendition of a classic design.