Chopper SWIP

[John Martin]

Well not sure what it is called, but it's gonna be for hacking through small limbs of trees and what not. It's a serious work in progress. Overall 24" Handle 8" Blade 16".

Any helpful tips, suggestions, what not do etc... greatly appreciated.

This is my first blade over 12" long, and will be the last for a long time. :)

[Sam Salvati]

Keep us posted. Steel?

[John Martin]

Leaf spring. Estimating about 30-40 more hours of work on it. wow, every inch adds so many more problems to it. lol. 5 more hours of forging. 20 of finishing, and then 5 for HT process. BTW, how do you straigten a blade like this after forging the bevels in??? I couldn't without wrecking the bevels and having to re-do them, then re-straighten, over n over.

[Sam Salvati]

Are the bevels getting all wavy, so when you look down the edge it looks like a windy road? Go back at a low heat and hit even amounts of times on each side, alternating sides you start on. Left side 4 hits then right side 4 hits, take another heat, right side 4 hits then left side 4 hits, understand, then move to the next section? That is what does it for me atleast.

That and you can clamp the blade while hot in the vise on one side of the wave and twist it on the other side to adjust, understand? It is an element that happens when you move more metal on one side than the other.

[Graham Fredeen]

As Sam mentioned, working both sides of the blade is key as is working the sections of the length of the blade, overworking one side will cause more material to become displaced and will result in offsets that cause bends and warps.

Something I do is to try to keep things as straight as possible through out all the forging steps, to do this, durring each heat, once the blade cools to the point where you can no longer move significant material, I always go and true up the edges and any off bits on the profile, etc with light blows before going into the next heat. This intermediate correction process helps keep the corrections small and keeps them from getting out of hand. Do not use heavy blows at these low temps however, working high carbons and alloys at too low of a temp will not make them happy and bad things like cracks will happen.

For straightening a blade that is warped and wavy along its ege, I usually sight down the edge, find a high spot, lay the high spot on the anvil and hit it lightly at its peak a few times (either at a black/dull red heat, or fully annealed), then flip and move onto the next. Once the major waves are corrected, I lay the blade flat on the anvil, or angled on the bevel, then starting at one end use light rapid blows while drawing the blade back across the anvil (thus moving the blows along the edge), then flip to the other side and repeat a few times until everything looks good, usually getting lighter and lighter on each pass. If there are any stubborn waves, individually knock them down.

For twisting along the blade length, I go to the vice.