My first forged blade ready for heat treat

[IRO-bot]

I posted seeking help on my bevels a while ago. I took every piece of advice, and have spent way too much time and money at the forge since. I have so much scrap steel laying around in odd shapes. This is the product of advice and practice using cheep pawnshop 3lb cross peen and a 20oz ball peen. I'm not too proud of the dings, and the bevel wasn't perfect, so i gave it a convex profile with a bench grinder, and I'm taking a break form smoothing it out by hand with sandpaper. The advice i received was amazing, and I hope to do better with the chunk of 1084 i have ready to get hot tomorrow. By all means, tell me what I could do better!! I already have a couple good hammers inbound.

[Stormcrow]

I've certainly seen worse! A bench grinder would not be my choice for doing the stock removal. An angle grinder would be a better choice in my opinion. Of course a belt grinder would be preferable to that. Some knifemakers depend a great deal on disk sanders for their stock removal.

The pawn shop cross pein would likely be just fine, but you may need to dress the face to take out sharp edges and give the face a nice, gentle dome. I can tell where you forged with the flat face of the ball pein. :D So if you plan to use it for forging more, dress the face.

What's your plan for the handle? I've seen a lot of students that change their mind about how they want the handle after doing most of the work, and it makes life a lot harder if they try to follow that. If you don't already, always have a plan for how you're going to make the handle of your knife.

Was this some of the leaf spring?

[IRO-bot]

That is indeed a chunk of leaf spring. I planed on using a file, and convexed one side with the file, then I had a bad idea and learned a lesson.
The pawn shop hammer is down for the count! My anvil has a little chunk out of the far side, and a misplaced hammer blow landed right on it. I gouged the grap out of the face of the hammer. I wonder why it was so soft?
As far as the handle, I was planning to just cord wrap it. Now, I'm thinking about making some scales out I some maple I have laying around just to do it. I'm looking forward to the heat treat, then abusing it to failure to test said heat treat. I have a big hunk o 1084 that has been cut to a rough blank that I'm hoping will turn out well. The stock is 2inches wide, so I hot cut the tip to a 45 degree angle, and tapered the stock from 2 in at the belly of the blade, to 1in at the end of the tang to give it plenty of belly and tip weight for choppin'.

[switchjv]

I know i havent been doing this a long time. however, I think if you landed your hammer blows flatter on the steel rather than on the edge of the hammer, it would have a cleaner finish. Use a 4" angle grinder with a 36 grit flapper disc to rough out the shape then finish with an 80 grit flapper disc instead of the bench grinder. I hope this helps you.

[Guiltyspark]

make sure your anvil is perfectly level with your waist , that when you lay your hammer on the anvil on its face , your forarm is level.

[Don A]

IMO, in the picture, you have it in pretty good shape to start draw-filing.

You will be amazed how clean you can finish a blade with a good file or two.

[Rhettbarnhart]

take Dons advice about a file in a cpl hours u can have a good grind

[IRO-bot]

My anvil is a little high. I am searching for the perfect stump. I was using sandpaper, but now that I think about it, switching back to the files makes more sense. Thanks for the advice!!