April 30, 201115 yr Greetings This is my first cleaver. It was build out of a piece of broken plough disk I dig out of the soil. Sure it was buried in the soil for several years as you can see by the corrosion pitting on the blade. This was my most simple smith job: cut to shape the cleaver out of the original stock; flatten the steel; correct a bit of the existing bevel in the forge; anneal; drill the holes for the rivets and for storage; harden; temper; polish; fix the handle; voilà! The annealing process took almost two days. First kept the cleaver inside wood stove red hot for several hours, while we were heating the house and then took almost one day to cool down buried inside the stove ashes. I hardened and tempered the cleaver as an axe. Hardened the all blade, including handle in oil and then tempered it in the kitchen oven for 1.5 hours at 200ºC. The handle wood is olive. Cuts like a dream, now I just need one of these to thoroughly test my new blade!
April 30, 201115 yr Hey Caotropheus, Nice Cleaver! I like the pitted look giving it that aged well seasoned look. And the olive wood, that stuff stinks to work but is very beautiful when your done. Great job! Chad J
April 30, 201115 yr Very nice , I really like the look . what kind of steel is the blade ? plough steel varies quite a bit . Maybe some 1060 or 1045 ?
April 30, 201115 yr Author Very nice , I really like the look . what kind of steel is the blade ? plough steel varies quite a bit . Maybe some 1060 or 1045 ? Bubba, I would like to answer you, but as I described before, it is just a bit of steel I found buried in the soil! Since I am in the first steps of my smith hobby, it was a very nice exercise.
April 30, 201115 yr Nice cleaver, I too like the texture or pitting of the steel. Gives it character. Keith.
April 30, 201115 yr Nice work, I like the pitting also I made a cleaver in this same method about 15 years ago. I used a cleaver that I got from Yan Can Cook (Martin Yan) for the pattern. I used redwood for the handle and shoo goo to attach the handle to blade- 15 years and its still holding! I use the cleaver to chop up frozen chubs of raw dog food (we get it in a 5 lb log) I use the belt sander to resharpen it is fairly soft steel, I would say 1045 is probably what I have
April 30, 201115 yr Cool cleaver! Really nice job. Thanks for posting the pic and your steps. Mark<><
May 1, 201115 yr You may need a might bigger blade to tackle the critter pictured below you cleaver but if you find one give it a try Nice looking work though.
May 2, 201115 yr Very nice work. I just sketched your cleaver in my "to do" book. Very clean design. Could you maybe post a few more pics from different angles. I'm wondering how you handled the bevel in particular. The corrosion seems to be a visual asset. I think that the pitting also prevents veggies from sticking to the blade. Robert
May 2, 201115 yr Love the way the blade looks! I feel you will want to contour the handle a bit more if you plan to mince some Dino with it; but I'm sure you already plan to modify the handle to fit your hand just right through trial and adjust!
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