Forging: Can I Play With Madness!

Nice! Now make at least a dozen more to cover all the "wants" and "dibs" that one is going to get :D.

Have you decided on the handle material yet or is that one staying nekid?
 
Rupestris said:
Nice! Now make at least a dozen more to cover all the "wants" and "dibs" that one is going to get :D.

Have you decided on the handle material yet or is that one staying nekid?
Click to expand...

I think these will stay nekkid while I learn hammer technique. It's surprisingly comfortable without scales. We'll see how things grind out.

mitch4ging said:
Nice touch! I've been wanting to add those to mine as well, then some nice dark spalted scales...
Click to expand...

What's really interesting about forging is that you can see why knives have been shaped the way they have for centuries as you forge. It's like there arw certain things that hammer and steel want to do together. There's some boom shakalaka going on.

What a good smith can probably do in 20 minutes just took me three hours. I'm gonna make some more and see if I can get things smoother and faster.

By the way, here's my chicken scratch board. The first four pictures on the top right we're what I started with and I scribbled the rest as I forged just to help remind myself what I was doing. It's easy for me to get going in the wrong direction and be off on a tangent, this helped.

"Don't refine too early" came from my dumbass trying to perfect a small area when there was still a lot of blunt force trauma that needed to happen. Cart before the horse kind of thing.

"Full Heat Dummy" was from being impatient and wasting energy on steel that wasn't at full heat.

IMG_20180903_133339159-1024x576.jpg
 
lessismore said:
I think these will stay nekkid while I learn hammer technique. It's surprisingly comfortable without scales. We'll see how things grind out.



What's really interesting about forging is that you can see why knives have been shaped the way they have for centuries as you forge. It's like there arw certain things that hammer and steel want to do together. There's some boom shakalaka going on.

What a good smith can probably do in 20 minutes just took me three hours. I'm gonna make some more and see if I can get things smoother and faster.

By the way, here's my chicken scratch board. The first four pictures on the top right we're what I started with and I scribbled the rest as I forged just to help remind myself what I was doing. It's easy for me to get going in the wrong direction and be off on a tangent, this helped.

"Don't refine too early" came from my dumbass trying to perfect a small area when there was still a lot of blunt force trauma that needed to happen. Cart before the horse kind of thing.

"Full Heat Dummy" was from being impatient and wasting energy on steel that wasn't at full heat.

View attachment 978546
Click to expand...
That's a good idea.
Looks like you did everything right!
Sure moves a bit harder than mild steel. I have to remember to pay attention to the thin areas so I don't burn them.
....
We need to do a hammer in! It would be a blast with this group!
 
Funny you mention mild steel and thin sections....

Mild steel wont harden so a quick dunk in water to cool things off has no effect, barring a couple of scribes, I've only worked mild steel as of yet....

However when you forget your playing for keeps and using actual high carbon steel like 52100 those dunks can get you to 52RC according to my tester.....

Which is hard and brittle enough untempered that a couple of cold taps with a hammer to straighgen things out gets you....

Epic Fail
IMG_20180903_144811-1024x1367.jpg
The good news is that I know exactly what happened and why, and I can use this piece to practice post forging grain refinement.

Insert star trek face palm meme here:
 
Humungous grain, you could park a car in that after forging, holy schnikes. I'll run this through the next time I do thermal cycles and test refinement.
IMG_20180903_150551-1024x1366.jpg
 
Gonna shake that off and try another, remembering that I'm NOT using mild steel! I get used to throwing something in the slack bucket and switching gears to something else.

Gonna do a little yardwork first.
 
lessismore said:
Gonna shake that off and try another, remembering that I'm NOT using mild steel! I get used to throwing something in the slack bucket and switching gears to something else.

Gonna do a little yardwork first.
Click to expand...

That’s enough yard work.

Pitter patter. Let’s get at’r.

:p
 
lessismore said:
Funny you mention mild steel and thin sections....

Mild steel wont harden so a quick dunk in water to cool things off has no effect, barring a couple of scribes, I've only worked mild steel as of yet....

However when you forget your playing for keeps and using actual high carbon steel like 52100 those dunks can get you to 52RC according to my tester.....

Which is hard and brittle enough untempered that a couple of cold taps with a hammer to straighgen things out gets you....

Epic Fail
View attachment 978564
The good news is that I know exactly what happened and why, and I can use this piece to practice post forging grain refinement.

Insert star trek face palm meme here:
Click to expand...
Nice custom mod to that pocket chopper! ;) That could be an up-charge for that kind of engineering!
That hurts....but at least you didn't have it closer to finish.

What quenching oil do you use?
 
mmmm-butter.jpg
 
Nitzan Lilie does it again , this time with a custom request. The little one on the left is the result, a miniature dogs head hammer with a flat face and a rounded back, less than half pound, to be used for peening. I sent a sketch and I couldn't be more pleased.

The face is flat and chamfered very nicely, and the back is just round enough. I won't have to dress either. Yes I'm nerding out over hammers, but hand tools really float my boat.
IMG_20180904_113040-1024x1366.jpg
 
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