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Hello Forgers!  Never forged a thing in my life.  Heated a knife blade in a fire to sterilize it.  That's as close as I've come.  I want to forge metal and make my own knife blades for throwing and to make finished knives with handles and sheaths.  Just one problem.  I have no idea what I'm doing or how to start?  I love knives, I have been fascinated by them since I was a kid.  I'm not a collector though I have a couple that I use when I need to.  A Kukri, that I special ordered from Nepal, a Damascas steel bowie I assembled using Elk horn for the handle, and a small lock blade pocket knife.  I've assembled four bowie knives with horn handles and made leather sheaths for them all.   Assembling knives is fun, but I want to forge my own quality blades.  I know I need a forge but I am clueless and need to learn as much as I can about them.  Next I want to acquire a quality forge that will be the most practical for me, considering I live on a fixed income.  I've been watching youtube videos on forging and it looks like a simply designed forge can be made, but I know there is more to it than that.  I need to learn about tempering, hardening, maintaining flexibility meaning not making brittle metal that is easily broken but can keep a sharp edge.  So I'm really a blank page waiting to be filled on this topic.  Any and I mean any information will be greatly appreciated.

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I'm leaning towards solid fuel but I don't know how easily it is to get.  It seems propane is convenient but I'm concerned about cost effectiveness.

I live in Florida with a swamp in my back yard.  I haven't seen any gators though, but I keep looking and hoping.

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Solid fuel is quite easy or impossible to get/use depending on LOCATION!

Here in far southern NM, USA, running my typical forge (8.75" ID by  14" long,  I budget less than US$2 an hour for gas and usually make a trinket each session that pays for at least 4 hours of forging---as well as working on my primary project.  I also always refill my tanks and never exchange!

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Wow and I say Wow again. On a limited budget I assume you have your public library card and can ask at the desk about ILL (Inter Library Loan) and get "The Complete Bladesmith, the Master Bladesmith and the Pattern -Welded Blade all by James Hrisoulas---who just recently moved to Florida.  Introduction to Knifemaking by IFI's own Steve Sells may be a bit harder to find ILL and "The $50 knife shop" Wayne Goddard" comes to mind too.

FIRST THING look up the ABANA Affilite(s) and if there is one you can get to go and ask about folks closer to yourself.

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Holder, there are a TON  of resources her at IFI.  Pull a chair up to your computer and start jumping into reading the threads.  When you've read everything that interests you as a beginner, then start asking questions.  Folks here are really good about answering questions that reflect the fact you've already read much of the content.  As you can imagine, we get a lot of questions posed here by people that sound a great deal like yours.

With that said, Youtube is a great resource but you have to remember that they edit out the time spent waiting for a heat on the metal so if you watch a 20 minute video I would count on the real time be a couple of hours.  I watched a video on making a lantern hanger.  The video was 10 minutes long.  I made two and it took me a couple of hours to get it right and then another day to go back and straighten things I didn't like.

Don't start with knives, and that comes from someone whose first time hammering was on a piece of spring steel.......<sigh> in an effort to make a knife.  Knives are hard to make because you need to apply skills learned in making much simpler things like hooks and other simple projects.  The simple projects teach you how to draw out metal, and how to use a hammer efficiently.  

My second piece of advice is that to assemble the tools you need CAN be expensive.  I stressed can because you easily can buy a cheap hammer at Harbor Frieght or even at a flea market, find a suitable piece of steel to use as an anvil (think square or round piece of thick metal to use as a striking surface), and build a cheap coffee can forge.  Grab yourself a pair of pliers and you can start forging.  Or, you can assemble a basic tool kit with a couple of decent hammers, some tongs, an anvil, and a real forge.  This costs money and it's a lot to invest in something you may not be sure you want to commit to.  How much you say?  Well some have done it for much less, but after buying my forge, anvil & tools I spent over $1,000.00.  Yes, you can make your own forge for less, but unless you are really handy and know something about propane it might not be as successful as you'd like.  

My last piece of advice is that I see guys (myself included) that get bitten by the blacksmith bug and want everything now.  They want to get going tomorrow on making knives and swords.  Slow it down some, think it through some.  Take time to learn and get together with a blacksmith in your area.  Take time and assemble the right tools.  The tools don't make you a better smith, but they help you have the proper foundation to learn the right skills.  Take time and slowly ease into things.  I get a lot of satisfaction making the things at my skill level.  I've not made a knife yet.  Could I?  Yeah, I think I could make a knife by now, but I"m having too much fun learning the other stuff.  Don't rob yourself of the initial learning phases.  There are guys out there making knives today that can't do a decent scroll because they never took the time to really learn.

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Thanks for all the info.  I'm the kind to jump in with both feet.  But I've learned to learn all I can about a topic before jumping in.  I have lots to learn.  I know skill will be something that only experience will bring.  I will have to pace myself getting everything required to start banging on glowing iron because of funding.  I'm currently doing simple wood working stuff as a hobby one of which is making knives from blanks ordered off the internet.  I spend 40-50 dollars on good Damascas steel blanks.  So far I've only used Elk horn for handles.  In my profile you will read I spent almost 10 years building computer based training for Naval Aviation and Engineering fields.  Much of it I'd never even laid my hands on just photos.  I had to read a lot and ask a lot of questions.  But I figured the systems out and made some great animated training programs.  Not bragging,  I guess I'm trying to say, I have good research skills and I depend on subject matter experts like for their knowledge.  Thanks a lot for your time.

Thomas, I plan to search the net a lot, and try to hit some of the ABANA meetings.  I started looking over the only FL group's website a few minutes ago.  The knife workshop sounds interesting but I will have to get permission from the boss.  She may have plans that day.

I hope that networking will put me in touch with the right people as well.  I have a friend who intends to weld up a brake drum forge.   I might be able to hook up with him and double-team this effort.

Thanks for your time.

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Welcome aboard, glad to have you. 

You say you've dressed knives. Have you been buying finished blades and dressing them or blanks and grinding them first? 

No matter how you make a bade you have to do stock removal work be it with grinders or scrapers and files, they need to be ground to finish. I'd like to suggest you buy blanks and get started developing your skills sets removing stock. These are good skills to jump into while learning blacksmithing. There are a couple issues trying to learn to forge blades without adequate basic blacksmithing skills.

While they appear the same blacksmithing and bladesmithing are only closely related. Bladesmithing is a specialized branch of the blacksmith craft requiring much finer temperature control, fire management, hammering technique and an understanding of how stresses develop and how to cope. Knowing basic blacksmithing to a competent degree is necessary.

There are areas that overlap and can steepen the learning curve if you do both at the same time.

Lots of guys do but I'm big on making things easy if possible.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Frosty, thus far I have only dressed finished blades with no handles.  I shudder to think of using grinders, scrapers, and files to remove stock because of my inexperience.  

This probably a silly question, but...what type of grinder would one use:  a bench grinder would be my first guess.  I have very cheap files whose efficiency would be questionable.  Plus what type of scraper would be used.   I've been a mechanic/technician since I was a teenager.  I worked on gas, diesel, and gas turbine engines.  Used plenty of scrapers to clean parts but scrapers for  bladesmithing may be different. If it is not too much trouble could you give a little clarification on types and quality of these tools that would suffice.  I would be grateful.

Thank you for responding to my post and providing such good info.  Below is my latest knife and sheath.  

Damascus steel blade, Elk antler, and sheath (dyed not painted)  The antler still has some of the fur on it.

 

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Big Gun,  Tampa is a five hour drive from me.  Dark Angel is closer and they have a class scheduled this month.  I may sign up for their class.

Thanks for the info and responding to my post.

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He just got back with me. It is called the Institute of Creative Arts.

My best advice is to start reading everything in the knife making section of this forum. There is a TON of information that you need to start absorbing, and it will take awhile to do so.

 

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Check out the JABOD threads in the solid fuel forge section. JABOD stands for Just A Box Of Dirt and it is an extremely simple, cheap, and effective way to make a forge. 

You can make your own charcoal. Honestly, its insanely easy. Its labor intensive, but if you own wooded property, its free. Theres a few threads about charcoal retorts in the solid fuel section. 

Then you just need an anvil. Hit a scrap yard, any large piece of steel will do. There are threads in the anvil section about improvised anvils. 

Hopefully that gets you pointed in the right direction. Welcome to the addiction! Um, i mean, hobby.... :P.

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Thanks Will, I know a JABOD is effective from reading the threads.  But they scare me for some reason.  I'm afraid it'll burn up.  If anyone can screw something up it's me.  It sounds like a good experiment but then it seems like a lot of what forgers do is experimental.  Making my own charcoal sounds like a lot of work, I've not read enough about it to try it.  When I said I was clueless in my introduction I meant it.  I feel like I have a lot more to learn before I say "FLAME ON."

Thanks for your time.

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So chose a steel or other heat resistant “box” wall mart sells those cheep fax wash tubs for icing your beer for what $12? Bet if you look around you have somthing that will work, and with adobe/cob you can go compleatly free form or “boxless”. 

As to charcoal, one can always start a camp fire and harvest coals to get started with charcoal. I like construction scraps myself

 

On the memory issue, become your own instructor “ we will have an explanation, demonstration and practical application of the M16A1 rifle.... and for those of you who can read we have a manual”  practical application is just an experiment to see if one you understood what you read, two the steel agrees with what you read and three were your need to read more, lol. So build a forge already, a tundra daisy (55 gallon drum) makes a good box and generaly can be had for less than $15 from resyclers.  It’s steel it won’t burn if you add a bit of mud for insulation. 

Find somthing to hit on (old sledge hammer head?)

somthing to hit with (2# ball pein)

somthing to hold it with (chanel locks work ok, as do the extra long bent end needle knife pliers sold at the discount parts store)

there you go from there you learn and upgrade. You can build better tools 

 

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Thanks, I have one of those tubs but it is for the boss' alovera plant.  Getting another tube is easy.  Sounds like I need to make a trip to harbor freight to get a hammer and glove and maybe some tongs.  

Thanks for your time.

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You won't find a pair of tongs at Harbor Freight, but their hammers are not too bad if you get the little 2 lb ones.  Though I have many other hammers now, the two I bought at HF when starting out still work great.  I just had to make the handles waaaaaay thinner.  You'll get tired really fast gripping those fat handles.  You'll also want to radius the business end of them buy grinding off the sharp edge and making it more round and bulbous.  I still use my HF hammers every time I forge and see no difference in their performance when compared to my traditional blacksmithing hammers.  My favorite hammer is a very nice cross peen that is not a HF.

Look on ebay or craigslist for your tongs if you are in a hurry, or check out antique stores and flea markets if you want to take a little more time.  You'll pay out the nose on ebay.  Those of us here try to pick up tongs for $10 or less a pair (some say $5 or less).  Do yourself a favor and get a good set of wolf jaw tongs that can handle square and round stock.  Having poorly fitting tongs makes it hard to hold your hot metal.  If the metal moved around when you hit it, you will not be concentrating the full energy of your hammer correctly into the piece which results in more hammer strikes and more time.  But, the most important thing about tongs that fit is that they are much safer.  There's nothing quite so frightening as a piece of hot metal coming loose and flipping thru the air.............oh and while at HF, get safety glasses unless you wear eye classes.  A hot piece of metal scale can ruin your eye fast.  Just get used to wearing eye protection.

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I've done a box of dirt (clay) rotor forge and lined the top of the wooden frame with metal cut from an old 55 drum. (In fact you can see it in my photo. Man I need to update that...) Works fine without burning up as long as you keep the firepot away from any wooden bracing.

Charcoal is stupid easy to make. Retorts work, but I've had inconsistent results. This way works well for me. Get a 55 drum w lid. Knock some holes in the bottom. A pickaxe works nicely. Either dig a hole under it, or elevate it on rocks or something to allow air to get in to said holes. Build a fire in drum w seasoned hardwood, preferably smaller chunks. Fill er up, let settle a bit, add more wood til full.

Put the lid on and prop it up about an inch or so with a "rock, or something." Wait for the smoke to change colors and become flammable. Usually about an hour or so. Shut the lid, and cut off air by filling in the hole beneath it, or taking it off the supports. Be extremely careful as the metal will be glowing hot. When you put the lid on, it will shoot flaming wood gas out of the holes in the bottom.

Wait at least 24 hours before opening. If it flares up on opening, either drop the lid on it again to put out the flames, or hit it with the garden hose. Water won't hurt it. Break into usable chunks and safe uncharred bits for the next time.

Only major disadvantage is it makes a lot of smoke initially. I like to do it in multiple drums, preferably at night.

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MC Hammer, break it down.  Sorry had to say it. And you did.  Regarding HF, if I understand you correctly I need to shape the striking face of the hammer similar to a rounded Ball Peen Hammer.  I need to get a couple more things as well.  I'm starting from scratch.  No bench grinder, no welder, heck I don't even have a proper hammer.  I've learned a lot the last couple of days which is good.

Thanks for your time.

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There is a thread in tools about "dressing" the hammer.

https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/29218-store-bought-hammer-mods/

A bench grinder is probably the worst for removing stock on knives or dressing tools. A belt grinder (sander) is the best. I used a HF 1 inch for years, before getting a 2 inch belt grinder. A better choice than a bench grinder is a 4 1/2 inch angle grinder with flap discs and grinding disks.

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1 hour ago, Irondragon Forge & Clay said:

A bench grinder is probably the worst for removing stock on knives

I agree, for dressing tools, but for knives, bench grinders work very well for really rough profiling, i usually only use mine for stock removal knives, forged knives are close enough in profile to start on the belt grinder. 

Angle grinders also work great, more delicate and precise than a bench grinder, but you cant hog as much material off as you can with a bench grinder, in my experience. Angle grinders are also blood thirsty fiends sent from the pits of Hades, you gotta watch those little demons. First chance you give them, they'll bite.

If knives are your thing, honestly, good files are your friends (i had over 30 last time i counted, no two are the same.) They take longer, yes, but they teach you a lot more about profiles, grinds, bevel angles, etc. And its a lot harder to mess up with files, to the point that it cant be corrected. One slip on a BM2 and, woop, another one in the scrap pile lol. Plus with files, when they wear out, you can turn THEM into knives. Brilliant, really. 

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