Two short cutlass in the works

[Robakyo]

I'm afraid that I still haven't figured out the handle yet. I won't be ginding it down any further because it started to crack while working.

Ahoy Greg! Thanks for the peek into your work process. Cool looking sword. Nice set up. Store bought or home made charcoal? Unfortunate to have the guard split like that. Forgive the beginner question, and I'm sure that the answer is self evident to anyone with experience, but could you flux the crack and kinda weld it back together? Would it just make it worse to do so?

What do you use the track plate for? Straightening a blade? Hardy hole? Pritchel hole? I see that were also working on some other blades as well. Nice.

Robert

[GregDP]

Thanks for taking a look. When I could invest I bought the lump stuff. When I first started to make a go of it and quit working at walmart.. a rather soul sucking job but it was stable and had a 10 percent discount. I wiped out 3 stores buying charcoal with my discount. It was great for a while. I have a wood pile and have done odd jobs and tree work, and some fabrication work when given the opportunity to support my work addiction (ain't that a definition of blacksmith?) but it's been nice to get away from wallyworld! It's helped in making my own charcoal to get this far but I've been posting so much because forging is no longer a man the fort constantly situation for me any more. I'd often start off a day getting a barrel burning for charcoal and occasionally annealing large stock in the process. (I chopped tons of wood before getting coal. (before I introduced a blower to my charcoal making process, much quicker than just relying on a chimney effect to get all the small hunks to a roar.)

The Plate the way it was set up at the time time of this photo I had a spike wedge placed through a hole wedge up. Neither hardy or pritchel just a 5/8 hole that is sometimes useful. Necessity has been the mother of most of my invention.

Lastly yes I'm sure it'd be an easy task, but I was afraid of it and still am. I was using charcoal only when these were taken. It would have been more difficult then. -- Point is I could get it hot enough now easily to make it look solid but I wouldn't have a lot more faith in it. It's not bad enough to break, might be a target spot for rust sadly if care isn't taken. I do plan to work it out a bit more but a lot of times I start out with only the basically of ideas in what I'm doing. The more I do, the more I see my ideas getting closer to possible and that's been a lot of help. If it looks doable I may try it yet but until then it'll be waiting. For now I've not done a successful forge weld yet but but haven't tried it with coal. I feel I know whats been wrong with my former attempts. So soon I'm sure. It's only been a few days of me playing on my new anvil and most of that has been straightening stock a much easier endeavor now.

If you'd like to see some more photos of my process check out my facebook. Facebook.com/gregdp.

(PS - I'm honored to see the move to the sword section, I was weary of calling these swords after my first lame sword I made more out of eagerness and audacity than anything else I still think it looks neat though so here it is.. whats the point of all these pictures with no one to see 'em!)

[GregDP]

Selling my sword: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280674349033

I planned to use this for our wedding, but it'll help pay some wedding bills if It sales before the wedding. It's too rich for my blood, but maybe someone would like it on their mantle.

[GregDP]

Just some updates.



I got my first small sword/large knife commission yesterday. A 12 inch machete wish me luck!