Introduction

[devins]

Hello everyone,
I am also posting here so it will stop telling me that I have not. I am anxious to get to know you all but am not anxious to demonstrate my ignorance. But you will find out soon enough if I talk to any of you. I have enjoyed this community very much so far and am very impressed with the work and artistry I have seen. I think I am in good company here with a group of dedicated artisans who love what they do and hold many of the same values I do. Which brings me to a project I would like to do and would like a little input on the best way to go about it. So far I have only been a knife maker. I enjoy that very much, but I have worked with metal and am an artisan in other materials(porcelain and I know precious metals and I grew up farming and raising hogs and cattle and if something was broken I fixed it and if I needed something I built it, and have built a lot of stuff including my belt grinder, and I do my own reloading and stock work on my rifles etc...) But I am going to make a charcoal fired forge and start making some blades from files. Pretty straight forward stuff but what I would like to do at some point and here is where I need some info, I would like to take some old tool steel (rusted up old wrenches and files and hammers the stuff we can still find out around old homestead sites here in Western Oklahoma that are not artifacts of museum quality but are still recognizable) and forge it into knives. I would like to take pieces of the original tool or disc or whatever it was and polish a small piece to hang on the thong from the thong tube as a reminder of what it was and where it came from. When I worked with gold and we were going to cast priviously cast gold we would purify it on charcoal and flux it and the impurities would roll off. How do I get the rust off the tools can I aneal and get pieces up to nonmagnetic and flux the daylights out of it and start to weld pieces in (example use a file in the blade section of a knife made of a wrench) It may be easier to just get clean tools or springs but where is the fun in that(I will do plenty of that to hone my skills and I can do lots of trial and error on what I am wanting to do just wandering if anyone else had tried this). I like the idea that it will honor some of the pioneers before us.

[Steve Sells]

Welcome to I Forge Iron. Most hammers will make good blades, plow disks are normally good carbon steel, many wrenches are fine, but some stink :)

[devins]

Thanks Steve, That is what I was hoping to hear. I can come up with a lot of good stuff besides the wrenches so I will stay away from them then. I really like your work and appreciate the help.

Devin
PS. I hope you don't mind more questions later.

[Rob Browne]

Welcome to IFI Devin. Don't worry about your "ignorance" its only a problem when you thinki you know it all. Keep asking the questions its the only way to improve.

Cheers

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Devin, glad to have ya.

Don't worry, ignorance is curable if you know you got it, we all do, just some don't realize it. Poor schmucks.

I have a buddy who salvaged a couple wagon wheels and is planning to making some knives from it. He's using the wrought from the tires for the furniture, hub race or spindle (I'm not sure which nor of the correct term) for the blade and wood from the spokes for the handle. The hub steel isn't homogeneous, first blade looks like speckled damascus, the rest of the knife is beautiful but the blade is very striking.

Anyway, there are lots of very desirable steels just waiting for someone to come salvage them and put them back into human use.

Have you heard we love pics?

Frosty

[devins]

Thanks you all, I look forward top many enjoyable projects together here on the site.
Devin