forging round bar wide

[jdm61]

I have a couple of big bundles of 3/4 inch Don Hanson W2 bars. In the past, I have had trouble with round bar in that I tend to forge it long, but not very wide. In theory, if you could only make the steel move width wise, a 3/4 bar should forge out to a 1/8 thick flat bar about 3 inches wide before accounting for scale loss.. What is a more reasonable expectation using press drawing dies sideways and the cross peen on a hand hammer? I am wanting to make some kitchen knives out of it, so I need 50 mm or 2 inches for a gyuto or nakuru.

 

[JTknives]

Your desired width is not an issue with your bar stock it just comes down to your forged finish. If you leave a rough finish that requires a lot of grinding then width will suffer. If you still have a hard time getting the needed width then just upset the bar and get it to the Diamater you need.

 

[Salem Straub]

As JT says, you should be able, with careful use of drawing dies and forging in your bevels pretty close, to get to 2" width as long as you are not doing a lot of grinding. A little practice and you'll get a feel for how thin you have forged to, and how much you'll have to grind off...

 

[JTknives]

Your lucky to have the 3/4" stuff. I have some of dons big stuff 2"+ Diamater from many many moons ago.

 

[Kevin Powers]

I have only tried forging a couple knives so far. Both were from 3/4" round. I have issues with spreading the profile out at the heel of the blade. It looks like I'm trying to forge a butter knife.

 

[jdm61]

The biggest that I have is the 1 3/4. I have only made one big 13 inch Musso type blade from that and I rough forged that one out on Cliff Parker's Say Mak 50kg. My problem is that I used up a lot of the 1 and 1 1/4 stuff because it was big enough for bowies and kitchen knives, so I have 2 unopened bundles of the smaller stuff. One bundle may actually be 7/8.

Your lucky to have the 3/4" stuff. I have some of dons big stuff 2"+ Diamater from many many moons ago.

 

[jdm61]

Salem, I need to forge down to a thick 1/8 or so flat with no bevel for kitchen knives so it cleans up to like .09-.1. If my internet assisted calculations are correct, a 3/4 round bar has about the same amount of steel per inch as a 1.5 x 1/4 flat bar. I have seen video of a guy forging a full tang chefs knife from 1 x 1/4 1084 flat bar by hand, getting a bit more heel width by upsetting like you would with a brute de forge knife , so I know it can be done.....in theory. I am thinking about "upsetting" by doing initial squish on the press at like a 25-30 degree angle to get the steel that will make up the heel heading in the right direction, so to speak

As JT says, you should be able, with careful use of drawing dies and forging in your bevels pretty close, to get to 2" width as long as you are not doing a lot of grinding. A little practice and you'll get a feel for how thin you have forged to, and how much you'll have to grind off...

 

[Salem Straub]

No bevel? You should be able to cross peen it out to like a .060" edge or so at the heel, which would allow you to get some more width... but yeah, cleaned up to .09-.1" is about where I clean stuff up to at the spine, as well.
BTW let me know if you ever need to get rid of some of that pesky 1-3/4" round W2...

 

[jdm61]

LOL. Sorry. I only have like 4 or so bars. Remember that Don shipped that stuff in sizes that maxed out the Priority Mail max weight of 70 pounds, so you might get 20 plus bars of 3/4 or 7/8 in one batch, but very few of the big ones. Now if you want something to play with, I have at least 100 pounds, like half of a post office letter bin, of the older square stock that Don sold first. If you would like a piece to play with. clear out your mailbox.

No bevel? You should be able to cross peen it out to like a .060" edge or so at the heel, which would allow you to get some more width... but yeah, cleaned up to .09-.1" is about where I clean stuff up to at the spine, as well.
BTW let me know if you ever need to get rid of some of that pesky 1-3/4" round W2...

 

[JTknives]

I love big stock. Here is some 52100 stock I just got in the mail a little while ago. Over 3.5" diamater and 12.5" long, that's 70lbs sitting in thoes 2 bars.

 

[Salem Straub]

Now if you want something to play with, I have at least 100 pounds, like half of a post office letter bin, of the older square stock that Don sold first. If you would like a piece to play with. clear out your mailbox.

And.... done! That was pretty motivational!

 

[coldsteelburns]

Not sure it this will be helpful to you guys, but it might help out somebody without access to a press or powerhammer .

I don't have a press or a power hammer, so I had trouble getting any width back when I was trying to forge little integral bolster knives out of some 7/16" round 52100 that I was sent to play around with and practice on in a trade. I saw Ray Kirk (he was the original source of the steel I had) forging this same size on his power in a video he shared, which enabled him to spread it to a decent width for some of his smaller integrals. I believe he even stated how a power hammer really makes a difference it how much width he was able to achieve with this size.

Anyway, I ended up upsetting the (about) 7-1/2" length round stock down to about half its length which caused to grow to a little over 5/8" in diameter. I then forged it into square stock so I could forge it down on its corner (or diamond), which really helps 'squish' the steel out in its width without losing much to length.

I had remembered reading about this technique somewhere online a number of years ago written by Tai Goo, and how he used it to get a good amount of width when he forges RR spike knives.

Here are a few pics from a couple years back when I tried this technique.

Here is the upset and then squared bar next to a piece showing it's original length and size:

Same thing, but different angle:

Rough forged. Here you can see how I forged it down on its corner (diamond):

And finished forging:

~Paul

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