Knife Making Log Class 102 Forging Bevels

[Steve Sells]

Rich Hale
Quick review: last week I went over how we came to select the steel we are making a blade from,,and why we started at the tang end and forge about half way down the blade, If we do things in a manner you do not wish to use go with wot works for you. This tip has to be covered once again. The ricasso should be forged flat and to a bit thicker than it will be in finished blade. If you protect that area with the tongs like in this pic you will not make hammer marks in it. ya all see those nasty hammer marks? They will not stay there, the blade is still thick at this point you are actually using a top and bottom die for these surfaces Hammer is top anvil is bottom

You should flip blade over often and hammer from the other side, the anvil does not leave hammer marks If yours look like this work on it more...and that does not have to be on a blade
One other thing is that when you move steel it changes shapes in several ways Keep that in check. I try and not let steel lose color before reheating. Take a couple of seconds and straighten blade out before you go back in fire

Loneforge Blades
Will you straighten if it has reached black heat?

Rich Hale
I like to make sure i lay the blade in for heat so that when i pick it up It will be like i want it, the side i wish to hit will be up on the anvil, Yes, it has to have some color and keep color in mind as you work in different ambient light. Some of these pics were shot at dusk, so when it looks really bright, the same heat may not be the same in day light Or under shop lights

Learn how the metal feels when you hit to judge forging temps Now i have the blade near the length i wanted so i go to a hot cut and whack off some of the extra stock, I cut at quite a bit of a diagonal

If you look at this blade you can see how much i angled the cut The cut side,,,the one nearest the handle hammer will be the spine of the blade in the next pic note i am going to begin the bevels, and the side i said would be the spine will not be a part of that
As i forge bevels metal will move AS it moves it will lengthen wot will be the cutting edge of the blade and make the spine curve up This ppic shows how the spin is up more where we wish it to be

As we thinned this blade more near the tip it widened. Now we have it like i want and will move heat to tang end and bring that to the same width as middle of blade And again like i mentioned earlier,,i will use tongs as a protection to keep from hitting ricasso Also not that the tongs ht side of anvil. When i flip balde to work other side. put tongs back in same place and the start of wha we can call the plunge cut will be almost perfectly in line side to side Not another big deal here

Think again about hammer and anvil being top and bottom dies. If we lay blade flat on anvil and top strike to make a bevel The bevel will be one sides. If we flip and repeat the edge of the bevel will move over and lay glat on other side to match anvil face

So to make a bevel we have to lift the spine a little bit and change the angel we strike to hit more towards the edge, the flip blade and repeat on other side So if we do all of these things, pick a steel we know will harden and make sure it has good grain size when broke, forge it to a pattern, watch out for hammer marks/ Make that forging of the steel move the metal where we wish it to be, We should have something like our pattern

i had that pattern next to anvil most of the time and it just did not looke like i wanted,too wide and short,,so i kept thta in mind as i worked..When i cut end off i laid pattern on and made the cut longer,,i like this shape now, any questions?

Stewartthesmith
rather than cut the point with a chisel, with a bit of practice tapering, isn't it easier to forge the point by tapering it, rather than cutting it?

Rich Hale
Yes we can Stu and that may work for some with skills,,others may have to cheat a wee bit with side grinder or hot cut ,just make sure your point you forge bends down so it moves back up when you forge bevels

Garey
when forging the bevels in do you work the cutting edge to you or away from you? working across the blade with hammer on the far side ?

Rich Hale
Upsetting is to make it thicker,if you do the point like that you would forge the sides to keep the thickness

Stewartthesmith
second question: I see you constantly straightening the spine as you forge the blade, any thoughs on pre-bending the spine in the wrong direction(reverse curving) before you forge the bevels, so that the blade ends up being straight when finished?

Steve Sells
That only works when you know ahead of time how much it will bend. I just adjust back to straight as I go, never letting it get to curved in the first place. as one forges the bevels, because the metal is stretching, it hooks or bends so I correct that as I go along.

Rich Hale
I do like to keep spine towards me as it is easier to hammer with handle up I wish i was ambidextrous so that would be easier Stew, that would work fine, I just have this way and like Steve said it takes a tap on the edge now and then to keep it in line, either way is good

Metal99
I usually try to keep the edge away from me too it just feels better that way. The last blade I forge I pre bent the blade the wrong way and it worked out pretty good.

Rich Hale
This tonights knife on the budget for this evening

Steve Sells
That is it for tonight Folks, next week I will take the High-tech approach to this.

[Rich Hale]

I want to point out something on Stus knife he just posted. If you look where the tang meets the ricasso it is nice and flat. Exactly wot we want when we start to finish this blade. When you forge the tang down it gets thicker on the edges,,and when you do both edges of the tang it leaves the sides with a valley down the middle,,like if you cut a cross section you would see "fish lips" he has flattened that out nicely. When you forge tangs watch close for that...and flatten like this.......

[Rhettbarnhart]

forged this dagger today

[Rich Hale]

Seems to be well done but really cannot see it well.