Photos Forging in the Backyard

Final forging, it's a lot straighter and better in general. I had a lot less problems, working in the daytime is nice but impossible to have any idea how hot the steel is. I mounted my 'anvil' horizontally on the stump and it's pretty nice to have a flat piece of somewhat hard steel to work on now! I also found some old blacksmith tongs in the barn! hoooray! I have to modify them to have a thinner gap for bladesmithing though. I'm going to forge tomorrow with my buddy who has a real shop so I'll see what I can do there and also maybe have him help me fix the tongs so I don't screw them up too badly. My next project is drilling a hole in a steel garbage can and making a charcoal roaster and filling up a 55gal plastic drum with charcoal. Then I'm going to consider buying black pipe fittings to make a 'proper' charcoal forge.

Next up, final grind, heat treat!

Bonus extra: preform for another knife! The dang stock is pretty small though so I'm really not sure if I will continue or not with this one.

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joeraz said:
Looks like that could become a dandy kerambit
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you know, I do 'need' a kerambit.. looks like I'll chop it down shorter, keep the ring, and go from there.
I could've made two from this piece...whoops... It had an eye on both sides, I hot cut the first one off to make a knife out of it. Maybe it'll be a little pen knife.
I could've made a frightening pointy prison shank..hmm.
 
Gelbu special chopped the wood and my 1 year old filled the can! We made charcoal!
Worked out great, opening the can this morning was like Christmas morning! Now I'll have plenty of charcoal for life! I sort of want a 55gal metal drum though, to really get this going.
 
Where's all the dimensional hardwood coming from? Cabinet shop or something?
 
How long will the charcoal last? Will it generate enough heat before it cooks out?
 
Bookie said:
How long will the charcoal last? Will it generate enough heat before it cooks out?
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That much coal will probably last me 2 or 3 1 hour forging sessions. One or two knives maybe three small ones?
I've got to make it in bigger batches, but this a lot cheaper than hardware store bbq coal!
 
Got the first little file blade under the grinder tonight, decided to take down the tang and taper it so I could make a hidden tang knife like everyone's favorite knives!
What did I learn? It's REALLY REALLY REALLY hard. Making the straight hole through a block of wood is impossible, they all drill out elliptical. The fit and finish is rediculous. In the end I question whether I improved my knife at all but we will see. Right now it is sitting in some walnut 1x1, with the epoxy setting up. I drilled about three handle blanks before I gave up trying to get one to fit properly. This is going to look like a goober. but hey...it's a first try, right?
I am really looking forward to drilling out the tang of the next knife and making a pinned handle with slabs. It (hopefully) will be a lot more workable. This was a horror-show.
 
Special kind of delam/cold shut hell.....

Time to do a redesign the front portion of this knife is all layered peeling garbage. Pics incoming.
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