July 30, 20169 yr Let me start by saying this blade is not what I had in mind when I set out on this project. I was aiming for a 3 bar "langseax" style blade of 14" or so with a chevron pattern at the spine and a mono-steel cutting edge. However, this wasn't to be, I had a failed weld at the tang end of the blade and had to loose a couple of inches there, then halfway through the project I had to re-line my propane forge as it was in a terrible state, after the re-lining I managed to burn the tip of the blade, something my forge was never capable of even when brand new, it never got hot enough to burn steel! I set out on this project without any great expectations other than to learn, I've made my mistakes and hopefully I've learned from them so I'll stop short of calling it a failure. I intend to have another attempt at the originally planned 14" langseax blade in the future. The blade is hand forged as I have no power hammer, it's 8.5" to the tang and 12" overall length. The blade is constructed from three bars, two of 7 layers of 15n20 and Uddeholm 20C, one twisted clockwise and the other twisted anti-clockwise, the cutting edge is O1. As you can see, the top twisted bar was over-compressed in the forge weld, I should probably have welded it with the mono-steel bar on top rather than the twisted one. I also ground too deeply into the twisted bars, through the "chevron" layer in the twists and into the crosses closer to the center of each bar. I also didn't put enough curve into the tip when I forged the profile and almost ended up grinding through the O1 layer. I am happy with the finish I achieved on the blade though, hand sanded to 1000grit and then applied ferric chloride with wire wool which has given a satin finish that I'm very pleased with. I consider this project another step along my path as a bladesmith, Simon.
July 30, 20169 yr Well I'd sure be thrilled if I had made that one. May not have been exactly what you intended, but for a first multibar it looks great to me.
August 3, 20169 yr Author Cheers Owen, it's not what I was going for, but it turned out quite nicely none the less! It just means that I'll have to make another one in the future with the dimensions and pattern I originally wanted.
September 4, 20169 yr Author So I finished up the handle for this knife yesterday, made from bog oak with two brass spacers, this is the first handle of this type I've made before and it fairly challenging to file out the slot in the brass (bolster?) to fit the tang but I got there in the end. Overall length is dead on 13 inches and it balances about an inch forwards of the handle making it quite comfortable in the hand. Hope you guys like it, Simon.
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