New starter

[Old Boiler]

Just setting up for making some knives and have a few enquiries.

Making a forge is no drama. I will use a 9 kg gas bottle and run air from a 12 volt compressor or a vacuum cleaner into it.
Will fire bricks for slow combustion heaters will suffice for the fire pit?

I will use coal for fuel as I've been unable to locate a coke merchant in the Hunter Valley, despite it being made here in the past. Funnily enough I was unable to buy coal either and had to beg some from a mine worker! The Hunter is a bloody big pit!

I don't have an anvil and am considering trimming the edges off two pieces of train line and welding them together.

What details may be important for this?

Is there a specific grade of welding rod or wire that will provide similar hardness to rail line?

I will probably use a 48 ounce ball pein hammer. Would this be suitable?. I am unable to locate a blacksmiths hammer. I would prefer a Swedish pattern if I could get one.

The other questions may be more appropriate for the knifemaking section but I'll ask them here to keep the info together.

I would like to make a kukri of about 9"-10" blade length for light camping
purposes, and am considering doing this from leaf spring.

Should I form the bend in the blade before thinning to the edge?

Will I need a flatter to keep the surface regular and not leave my name and address in it, or do I simply grind irregularities out?

My efforts at tempering blades when I was an apprentice boilermaker resulted in cracks in the cutting edge, although the steel sung beautifully. How do I avoid this? I have heard of using clay to protect the edge but have not seen it done.
Will potters clay do?
Is it an option to heat the blades in an appropriately temped oven and allow it to slowly cool?

Any other information will be very much appreciated.

Regards
OB.

[pkrankow]

I currently do not use solid fuel so I'm not much help on the forge.

Standing the rail on end if it provides a face larger than the hammer is all you *need* and having more mass under the hammer helps too. Welding rail together is a lot of work. Having a smaller piece (about a foot long or so) you can flip over and around to use the various shapes can be very helpful though.

Ball peen hammers are smithing hammers. The shape is very helpful for some tasks, and the shape of other hammers are very helpful for other tasks.

I'm not a knife maker either, but grinding can cure many ills as long as you left enough stock to do so.

Welcome aboard, and I'm sure the other questions will be answered in short order by others.

Phil

[ThomasPowers]

Knifemaking is NOT a starting project in smithing. If you learn to work the fire correctly and hit accurately and evenly then when you go to make knives it's a whole lot easier.

When I see these kind of questions I always feel it's like someone asking the details on how to win formula 1 races and then asking how you start the car and if it needs all 4 tires, etc.

For a coal/coke forge hard firebricks will work, soft ones get too chewed up too fast. Also a brake drum from a car or light truck will work.

Compressors put out low amounts of high pressure air. You want moderate amounts of fairly low pressure air. Vacuum cleaners will work but put out way too much air---have a way to waste the excess!

If there is a mine locally they should have some large hunks of steel that will work far better than a piece of rail for an anvil. *Mass* is important. I have friends who made a dandy anvil from a large fork lift tine or a section of large round solid shafting.

Ball peen hammers are the standard smithing hammer in many countries. If you like the Swedish hammer may I suggest you forge one as an early project? (starting with a hammer head and modifying it in the forge is a lot easier for a new smith than starting with a hunk of steel...)


Yes bend it first and keep bending it as you go along.

Will you need a flatter? Yes if you don't have good hammer control, no if you do. I don't use one but I do use a nicely dressed hammer with a large gentle face on it for final forging on a blade.
(it's one of the 1500gm swedish ones)

Get a book on bladesmithing! "The Complete Bladesmith" is one such. Did you harden those earlier blades in water or in oil? Sounds like you used water for a steel alloy that requires oil---remember that knifeblades being so thin will often use a quenchant one step down from what the steel is officially rated for---

The clay is used to keep the BACK of the blade from hardening and is an advanced technique; I suggest you learn a bunch first before worrying about blades with hamon. If you heat a blade up past critical and allow to cool slowly this is annealing and makes it dead soft. Once you have hardened a blade you should immediately draw temper on it by placing in a fairly low temp oven and letting it come up to temperature and then let cool and repeat 2 more times.

Really a book with several hundred pages in it will do a lot better job than a paragraph or two on the net...

[Old Boiler]

Knifemaking is NOT a starting project in smithing. If you learn to work the fire correctly and hit accurately and evenly then when you go to make knives it's a whole lot easier.

When I see these kind of questions I always feel it's like someone asking the details on how to win formula 1 races and then asking how you start the car and if it needs all 4 tires, etc.

For a coal/coke forge hard firebricks will work, soft ones get too chewed up too fast. Also a brake drum from a car or light truck will work.

Compressors put out low amounts of high pressure air. You want moderate amounts of fairly low pressure air. Vacuum cleaners will work but put out way too much air---have a way to waste the excess!

If there is a mine locally they should have some large hunks of steel that will work far better than a piece of rail for an anvil. *Mass* is important. I have friends who made a dandy anvil from a large fork lift tine or a section of large round solid shafting.

Ball peen hammers are the standard smithing hammer in many countries. If you like the Swedish hammer may I suggest you forge one as an early project? (starting with a hammer head and modifying it in the forge is a lot easier for a new smith than starting with a hunk of steel...)


Yes bend it first and keep bending it as you go along.

Will you need a flatter? Yes if you don't have good hammer control, no if you do. I don't use one but I do use a nicely dressed hammer with a large gentle face on it for final forging on a blade.
(it's one of the 1500gm swedish ones)

Get a book on bladesmithing! "The Complete Bladesmith" is one such. Did you harden those earlier blades in water or in oil? Sounds like you used water for a steel alloy that requires oil---remember that knifeblades being so thin will often use a quenchant one step down from what the steel is officially rated for---

The clay is used to keep the BACK of the blade from hardening and is an advanced technique; I suggest you learn a bunch first before worrying about blades with hamon. If you heat a blade up past critical and allow to cool slowly this is annealing and makes it dead soft. Once you have hardened a blade you should immediately draw temper on it by placing in a fairly low temp oven and letting it come up to temperature and then let cool and repeat 2 more times.

Really a book with several hundred pages in it will do a lot better job than a paragraph or two on the net...

As my name suggests I am older, and as the message stated I am a boilermaker by trade. I was fortunate enough during my younger trade years to work with an older blacksmith who kindly passed on some skills and knowledge. Boilermaking evolved from blacksmithing and many of the skills are inherently the same.
Despite my 30 odd years out of the trade I have excellent recall, am able to still learn new skills. I also have occasion to use my skills from time to time. Knife making is not rocket science. People used to make them from stone. I merely wished to clarify some points and felt that a multi thousand page website should help.
One of the benefits of working in a well established fabrication/engineering works is that you don't need to create most of your tools. The back yard unfortunately does not have this benefit.

As for reforming a hammer, this falls outside of my knowledge in regard to buggering the temper and hardness. I have a reformed hammer which has an axe blade formed from the ball pein, but I must say that I don't trust it for reliability and keep it as a curiosity. I recall my blacksmithing mentor commenting on the necessity on correct hardness and temper for reasons of safety, preferring no shrapnel on the job.

"Getting" items from mines is not the supermarket it used to be, however, I have access to some large pieces of steel. They will need some dressing though. I was trying to avoid that.

The earlier blades were hardened in oil after drawing the colour down to straw. This very important question I unfortunately did not have opportunity to ask the Blackie. He retired before I made the knives. I tempered and hardened them with the assistance of a toolmaker, but unfortunately neither of us had the knowledge specific to this.
We moved to simply making further blades from saw blades which worked quite well. Now I wish to improve on this with forging my own again.
Interestingly, my father had a kitchen knife made from a saw blade at BHP in the early 60's which still holds a keen edge far longer than any other knife I have used. It has a moulded "white metal" handle that appears to be aluminium. These knives were subculturally famous throughout the Hunter and many will not part with them.
I have dibs on my parents item. I just need to beat my brother to it.

The purpose for manufacturing carbon steel blades is obvious when one uses todays poor excuses for knives which are inevitably made from some form of stainless. Despite the supposed high carbon stainless for improved edge holding I am yet to see one which even remotely compares to a carbon steel blade for sharpness and edge holding.

I wish to make some field dressing knives and given enough skill will attempt some kitchen knives.

Thanks for your assistance.

Regards
O.B.

[Ben Hartley]

Check out Don Fogg’s bladesmith forum I found a thread on there discussing when you should put the bend into the kukri. Kukri - Bladesmith's Forum Board

I haven’t made many blades, but I find that the forging is the easiest part, it’s the grinding and polishing that tests my patience. Of course, the better you are at forging the less grinding you have to do. A word of warning though: don’t thin the edge too much before you harden the blade or else it will warp and/or crack when you quench it.

[Old Boiler]

Check out Don Fogg

[AKFrosty57]

Boiler:

Thomas wasn't trying to put you off, he was being straight up honest with you. Bladesmithing is a poor way to learn the art of blacksmithing, it's too failure prone for the beginner. Learning to bladesmith after gaining proficiency as a blacksmith is far more success prone. Then again all we can do is suggest what we think are the most effective ways to learn the craft, actually learning it is in your court.

Sure boiler making started with blacksmiths but it evolved into much more modern iron working techniques for a bunch of good reasons. Modern boilermaking and blacksmithing hold few real world parallels. Having iron working experience will shorten the learning curve regardless which direction you go.

Use hard fire brick for your forge and find a softer blower, compressed air makes for a poor forge blast. a hair drier or heat gun or heater blower out of a car will work.

You made a major, near guaranteed failure mistake if you "tempered" the blade THEN hardened it. No wonder the edge cracked. Here's the correct sequence #1 grind to within about 1/4" maybe 1/8" of the finished thickness on the edge. Do all the rough grinding and contouring. Harden the blade. Before the smoke clears from the air temper the blade. I'm NOT a bladesmith though I've made many edged tools including probably a dozen knives. My preference is a progressive temper which means you draw the spine of the blade farther than the edge, I like the spine to have a spring temper for 5160 leaf spring steel this is as much as purple. I like my edge to be between a light and dark straw. For narrow thin bLADES SIMILAR TO A STRAIGHT RAZOR IN PROPORTION i LIKE A PALE STRAW. fOR WIDER AND THICKER BLADES, SAY A HUNTING OR SKINNING KNIFE i LIKE A GENTLER GRADIENT BETWEEN THE PURPLE SPINE AND DARK STRAW EDGE TO GIVE IT A MORE FLEX FORGIVING NATURE.

tHEN AGAIN, AS i SAID i'M not A BLADESMITH SO IF YOU READ DIFFERENT ADVICE HERE FEEL FREE TO DISREGARD THIS BIT.

DARN! I just noticed I hit caplock sometime back, sorry about the apparent shouting I'm not shouting at all.

Welcome aboard, glad to have ya mate.

fROSTY

[Old Boiler]

G'day Frosty.

Thanks for the feedback.

Although my initial need is for a couple of knives I'm sure that my interest will expand. I've been looking at various blacksmithing activities on the web and it has certainly whetted my desire to get involved somewhat.

I forgot to include that I have not worked as a boilermaker for over 30 years, having been nursing since a downturn in the industries in the 70's. Having read a bit and viewed a few videos etc. I feel the need to be creative again. Not that I haven't been, with endless renovations, furniture building, surfboard manufacture etc. as pastimes, but my key skill area is with steel and despite the long hiatus I still feel a connection with it. It may be that I am merely satisfying my need to add to the tool box. but I've given up making excuses for that.

When all is said and done I'll give it a go and see where it leads me.

Best regards and Merry Christmas.

OB.

[Rob Browne]

OB, welcome to IFI and the buggerin steel family in general.

The others have beaten me to all the advice about knife makin as a starter but give it a go and see where it ends up. We want pictures.

As for gettin coal, I live near Lithgow, reckon I can get coal easily? Not on your nelly, had to talk my way into Clarence but when I did it was a supermarket.

As for the anvil, just stick a length of rail into the ground so its end on and its a great starter. I know lots of people who never "progress" past that and are far better than me at workin steel. Another bit to toss arund is good as well. Don't get too hung up on the anvil bit.

As a starter project how about whippin up a couple of sets of tongs? They take most of the skills you will use in knives and make makin/holdin the knives much safer.

BTW How about goin into the Ozz Roll call thread in the Everything Else forum and addin your name. We like to feel special with all these blokes form the north lands

Keep us posted and keep askin questions.

Edited December 15, 2009 by rmcpb

[ThomasPowers]

Heat treating a knife is a lot more of a PITA than doing a hammer. One good suggestion, especially if you are scrounged materials is to make up 10 or so identical blades of the same stuff and experiment in heat treating them and testing them to destruction. Then when you find the processes that end up with what you like---write it down! So try both oil and water quenchants and then try drawing to different tempers and check to see how they react to your using them.

One of my students, (been teaching smithing nearly 30 years), just got the bottom die from an old stamp mill to use as an anvil. It even has several nice dishing forms worn into the top of it. He'll flip it over and forge on the bottom or on the side. This was obtained from a retired fellow who just happened to have one in his garden...Might be worth a tinnie or two prospecting for the like?

[Frosty]

Hey OB, I'll gladly share any and all the knowledge I have with ya. I too come from a metal working background, Father was a metal spinner and machinist so I learned a LOT about working exotics under very potentially dangerous conditions. It REALLY taught me to pay attention to what's going on when I apply an opinion to metal or other materials. I wasn't paying close enough attention to the Great White . . . Birch I tangled with in Sept so I'm far from perfect.

Anyway, advice on where to start or how to begin is just that, advice, no guarantees, everybody is different. I'm largely self taught as a smith and have almost no class time. An animal head carving session a year ago is it. I don't hold self taught up as a particularly good method of learning a craft but it that's what you want what the hey. Typically I recomend a class or two, lighting a fire and taking a hammer to some steel is just fine too.

Making a knife? Find some wood mill bandsaw blade and do a little stock removal knife making. This will help you learn the frankly critical skill of grinding or file work if you wish, then you can learn heat treatment. Heck, if you have a couple old bandsaw blades cut some cupons and learn to heat treat it BEFORE risking a ground knife blank.

Once you have the critical skills of grinding or filing and heat treatment down pat is a good time to start forging blades. Don't think you can't do any forging till your toolbox (I have mine and LOVE picking up new skills for it) is filled with the critical knife making skills, not a problem. There are a myriad of very useful, beautiful and darned challenging things you can forge besides blades. Heck, there are LOTS of blades as a matter of fact that are a LOT more forgiving in the critical blade making skills.

Keep at it mate, we're here for ya.

[Dragons lair]

Hey Frosty, See what happens when ya switch from iron to wood.
Ken

[Old Boiler]

Good idea Tom.
Repetition of a process is the accepted scientific method for provenance.
I'm more likely to do a multitude of blades in one go than to make time and motivation for another day.

Not sure about using water ,as in my limited experience of long ago, it tended to be a bit quick to quench. I did watch a video of someone quenching samurai swords in water though.

Re the tools, it's interesting how many old blackies tools I'm starting to see around. Picked and old cold set chisel from my fathers shed at the weekend.
Used to make various tools and dies/templates etc when I was a boily, and the research has rekindled this drive. Used to get a lot of satisfaction from this.

The prior post mentioned making tongs and I am certainly interested in this, having watched a video of this in the last few days. the key to many of these jobs is simplicity rather than complex, and it's too easy to try to make complex interpretations in this day and age. Haven't seen anything too hard yet. Just need to get out and do it. Hopefully I'll annoy the crap out of my psychopathic neighbour.

Been watching many videos lately due having an arthroscopy last week. Busting a gut to get ou there. I don't do cabin fever very well.

Re gettin stuck on tools. I certainly am obsessive enough to like having the tools, but I take your point re using what's availble, and a vertical rail should have plenty of mass. Shouldn't be too hard to attach a larger plate or simialr to the top.

After spending some effort and (a little) money setting up for a small coal fired forge, It occurred to me that a couple of barbeque burners in an enclosed and fire bricked box would probably do the job. I happen to have several unused ones as well. Any thoughts on this?

Was talking to a similar bloke to me, ie old boily who has nursed for over 30 years. He relayed watching a blackie who had made a forge from a plow disc and lined it with reconstituted termites nest. Simply crumbled it and wet it before forming the fire pit. The old bushies used to make fireplaces and bush ovens out of termites nests. I'd forgotten that. I forget a lot these days:rolleyes:

One thing that I am not clear on is forge welding. I've never seen it done and my research has not yet explained how it works. I did see one gentleman us borax as a flux, but that's as much as I know. Is it simply heated and hammered adhesion of two parts or layers, or is there it more to it?

C U later.

BO.

[ThomasPowers]

Japanese swords are traditionally around a shallow hardening 1050 steel; trying their same heat treat with other alloys can be a cracking good time so to speak...

[Rob Browne]

A plow disc is what my forge is based on although I took the easy way out and lined it with simple mortar. Easy to find and use. Made the tyuere out of a couple of bits of reobar.

[Old Boiler]

Appreciate the support gentlemen. I'll have to get my finger out and do some work soon.

It's like everything else. Having the confidence to get started, and the perseverance to do it again when it's not quite right.

Regards, OB.

[TimB]

Enjoyed reading this thread. Learned a few things too. Made my first blade the other day--not a usable one, just mild steel I had laying around, but I wanted to practice a bit and try the shape, and width a particular diameter bar would make. I got a lot to learn, but I'm having fun doing it. I am beginning smithing for much the same reasons you seem to be Old Boiler, I want a decent steel blade, and so far it seems, smithing fascinates me. I don't have a lot of money so I started simple. I'm an HVAC service tech, with an emphasis on boilers, so I have collected a lot of burner type junk laying around the house--just not enough time to assemble it yet. I made a coal forge to start with, out of the top 2" of a propane tank, unscrewed the valve and put a piece of 3/4" pipe in its place. I run compressed air from my air compressor, to a regulator at the forge which allows me to regulate the air flow / heat as needed. For now it seems to work well, but it was a quick way to get a fire going with the junk I had laying around, so I could start learning some of the basics, like, how to not pick up the metal by the hot end, how to not pick up the metal by the cold end when it's been in the fire long enough to get hot on that end too, and how to not do a hot cut with a chisel so complete that the cut end flies across the room and lands on my air hose and burns it in half before I can yell, "OH ----!!!". :o

Edited December 19, 2009 by TimB

[Old Boiler]

Enjoyed reading this thread. Learned a few things too. Made my first blade the other day--not a usable one, just mild steel I had laying around, but I wanted to practice a bit and try the shape, and width a particular diameter bar would make. I got a lot to learn, but I'm having fun doing it. I am beginning smithing for much the same reasons you seem to be Old Boiler, I want a decent steel blade, and so far it seems, smithing fascinates me. I don't have a lot of money so I started simple. I'm an HVAC service tech, with an emphasis on boilers, so I have collected a lot of burner type junk laying around the house--just not enough time to assemble it yet. I made a coal forge to start with, out of the top 2" of a propane tank, unscrewed the valve and put a piece of 3/4" pipe in its place. I run compressed air from my air compressor, to a regulator at the forge which allows me to regulate the air flow / heat as needed. For now it seems to work well, but it was a quick way to get a fire going with the junk I had laying around, so I could start learning some of the basics, like, how to not pick up the metal by the hot end, how to not pick up the metal by the cold end when it's been in the fire long enough to get hot on that end too, and how to not do a hot cut with a chisel so complete that the cut end flies across the room and lands on my air hose and burns it in half before I can yell, "OH ----!!!".

Yep!

I'm sure I'll do similar things once I start.

[TimB]

Yep!

I'm sure I'll do similar things once I start.

can't wait to hear about them. :D