Latticino Posted January 30, 2018 Share Posted January 30, 2018 17 minutes ago, (M) said: So what is the benefit to forging blades vs stock removal? It's lots more fun. It conserves metal. Pattern welds and San Mai can be more aesthetic forged (and the original billets need to be forged in any case). Also, some shapes are more difficult to achieve by pure stock removal (inside curves for example) than a combination of forging and grinding (to the best of my knowledge virtually all blades have at least a bit of stock removal in their manufacture). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 30, 2018 Share Posted January 30, 2018 I found that if you read knifemakers' websites; their method is always superior! As to benefits: have you tried to do a stock removal knife from a large ball bearing? I have always found that forging was a lot more fun for me than grinding. Also for large historical blades---like swords---stock removal tends to result in much heavier than the originals as doing accurate tapers is a pain in stock removal but tapering every which way is just standard forging practice. (Medieval swords were quite light as heavy is slow and slow is dead on the battlefield. Hollywood and Fantasy books and Video games generally have it totally wrong!) Every alloy has suggested forging temps: most good handbooks will have forging start and forging end temps given. If you don't have the skills to judge and maintain temperatures you may very well ruin a lot of expensive stock before you gain them. Have you read "Introduction to Knifemaking" Sells or "The Complete Bladesmith" Hrisoulas or do you expect that hundreds of pages written by established knife smiths can be exchanged for a couple of website pages or videos on the internet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted January 30, 2018 Share Posted January 30, 2018 43 minutes ago, Latticino said: 1 hour ago, (M) said: So what is the benefit to forging blades vs stock removal? It's lots more fun. It conserves metal. Pattern welds and San Mai can be more aesthetic forged (and the original billets need to be forged in any case). Also, some shapes are more difficult to achieve by pure stock removal (inside curves for example) than a combination of forging and grinding (to the best of my knowledge virtually all blades have at least a bit of stock removal in their manufacture). Also, forging means less grit and dust floating around the shop and getting in your lungs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted January 30, 2018 Share Posted January 30, 2018 Well to get some patterns in pattern welded stuff you pretty much have to grind away large amounts of the billet. Forging it to shape changes the pattern. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPH Posted February 19, 2018 Share Posted February 19, 2018 Brother Thomas: A STRAIGHT!! (geeze that dates me..) Some patterns you "loose" to grinding between 60 to 75% to get the desired patterns...Yet that is what makes all of this "fun"... JPH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(M) Posted March 12, 2018 Author Share Posted March 12, 2018 thanks for the info guys. i've been learning tons lol i must be weird. I actually like strapping on the respirator and firing up the grinder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted March 12, 2018 Share Posted March 12, 2018 also this is a blacksmithing site, not a knife maker site, so there really is no reason to post pure stock removal here lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(M) Posted March 12, 2018 Author Share Posted March 12, 2018 True Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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