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I Forge Iron

Four knives


Frank Turley

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A friend wanted a paring knife; then a slightly larger one. A month later, he wanted a "French chef's knife" and finally a Bowie. I haven't made too many knives, but with the aid of my journeyman helper, Taylor Vallot, we got them done. The sheaths are of rawhide shaped wet and then dried. We covered the rawhide with thin, tanned buckskin, using Barge cement. Then we laced them with round leather or synthetic sinew. The Bowie blade is 10" long.

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Edited by Frank Turley
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The little knives are made of W1 drill rod. The chef's knife is a portion of an old crosscut saw. The Bowie is from a horse rasp with teeth and rasp cuts ground away first. I was told that the handle wood is from Brazil. That's about all I know. The chef's knife has tiny oxides in the blade center which I left on both sides. We finished them on a Grizzly belt sander, fairly fine grit, no mirror finish. Assembled with JB slow curing and brazing rod "fake rivets" also JB'd. The Bowie guard is A36 with drilled and filed slot, slipped on and silver soldered with  15% industrial solder. We stabbed the blade all the way to the guard with a raw potato, using it for a heat stop.

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Nice blades. I like things made to use more so than things made to be pretty. The simple utilitarian appeals to me. I'm not saying pretty blades aren't lesser tools, I just have a closer connection to tools that look like what they are.

Frosty The Lucky.

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.... We stabbed the blade all the way to the guard with a raw potato, using it for a heat stop.

​That potato trick for a heat stop/heat sink is a great idea.  Gotta remember that for lots of things, not just knives.

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