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I Forge Iron

Teacher's knife


TheoRockNazz

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Okay, maybe not a knife....

Several years ago I forged a machete for a 3d computer artist teacher of mine - he is a collector of dangerous things. His daughter nicknamed it "The Indiana Jones' Knife". Whilst chopping heavy branches the pommel broke off. I thought that was inexcusable, and for the past two years have been trying to get the blade back to repair it because he deserves a working machete. 

Well, recently the stars aligned and got a second swing at the blade. Even though I only made two years ago, I was disgusted with my own work; the pommel had snapped off at the very tip of the tang because I had forged it much too thin. Thankfully I had gotten the heat treating right because the blade itself was still straight and sharp. It was an recycled, old, large file.

I threw away the old handle, normalized and re-straightened, forged it a tad bit more aggressively curved, and tried my darndest to fix my old shape via filing and grinding after annealing. Typical heat treatment for large chopping blades. Forged a new guard, and fitted it with purpleheart, aluminum (salvaged from the original handle), brass and mosaic pin, then gave it several coatings of linseed oil. 19" oal, 14" blade, 3/16" thick, 5" handle.

Swinging it around, it is comfortable, although I could have curved the handle a couple more degrees.

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I have not showed him pictures yet, I am just going to deliver it to him. I hope he likes it.

As always, comments and critique are encouraged.

Theo

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