Kicking myself in the butt!

[Brasilikilt]

Hey all

I did an oil hardening on some blades yesterday, and as I expected, they warped a little bit.

I knew that the blades would be brittle before tempering, but silly me I tried to correct a little bit of the warp-age on a Scottish dirk....the first little tweek in my vise got a lot of the warping out, but the second......*SNAP*

Broke the tip right off! Yes I know.....I have already given myself the appropriate amount of scolding and the 'You knew better, but did it anyway' speech.

I've already kinda-sorta made up my mind to forge another blade....but I would like to salvage this one if at all possible since I have so much work invested into it already.

I'm wondering if forge welding it back together is feasible, using a scarf weld and then draw it back out?

I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any.





thanks for taking a look

Iain

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

You can try it, but I would probably just reshape what is left.

[Fe-Wood]

I HATE IT when that happens :angry:

[thecelticforge]

I would re weld it and just draw it back out. Years ago I made a recreation of the Wallace sword as it stands in Sterling. It had been broken and repaired 3 times. So. I broke the one I made and re did it three times and it came out well :)

[rustyshackleford]

ahhhh :/ did the same thing with a 'rifleman's' knife... same consquence too I was able to draw my tip back out, but I'm not sure if you'll be able to do it with your dirk (can't tell how thick it is

[dablacksmith]

my vote is grind it to a new profile you didnt loose a lot of leingth it will still look ok...

[ThomasPowers]

I don't think I would sell a repaired blade the same as an un-repaired blade; but you might find a buyer going for an authentic style repair for greater accuracy.

Make sure you normalize well as the welding heat will promote grain growth!

I'd go ahead and make a new on for that project and then do the repair for a using knife for yourself and *see* how it works after the repair!

I own none of my good blades but every one of my mistakes!

[Brasilikilt]

Hey all, thanks for taking a look.

I'm not looking to sell this blade, it's one of my first, and (especially now!) there's a few too many mistakes with the blade and handle for me to try to sell it for what time I have into it.





I would prefer to simply weld the tip back on, instead of reshaping/re grinding. The blade is a shade under 1/4" on the spine so it does have a decent amount of thickness.
It's also an older dirk blade pattern which is a steep triangle. With a more modern 'bayonet' style military dirk blade I could probably make it work, but with this style, grinding the tip down would look odd to me...I'm guessing you more experienced guys would do a good job of it, but I would likely just make it look worse.

Obviously I have a lot more to learn about making blades, because I have yet to know exactly what normalizing is.
Maybe I've been doing it all along and just don't know it. :-)

So, what's a good way of correcting warpage at or after this stage of the process? I was told that a rawhide mallet on a block of wood was a good safe way.


Thanks again

Iain