It's really not all
that difficult to forge an integral, sure it takes practice just like anything else, but I say just try it and don't be intimidated by it,
Here's one I forged last summer out of some 7/16" (pretty small stuff, especially for an integral) round 52100 which I upset to around 5/8" diameter as you'll see in the pics below. I then forged it into a square (or diamond) cross section (with rounded corners) in order to forge it on the bias (diagonal/diamond) to get the steel to spread out more, and easier, for the blade width I wanted. This is something I pretty sure that I I learned from reading Tai Goo's blog some years ago, which has really helped me out with getting good width when forging without the help of a power hammer etc. This is the technique he uses to get so much width on the RR spike knives he's made.
After I forged it all out on the bias, I just rounded and smoothed things up to get rid of the edges left by the square. I don't have very good forging skills (or grinding skills for that matter ), but I was pretty happy with the way I was able to transform that long skinny stick of 52100 into a decent sized integral knife, considering the small diameter it started out as.. Gotta love forging! :thumbup:
OK, here are some pictures... (Don't pay any attention to the numbers in some of the pictures)
(A comparison of the exact size bar in length and diameter of what I started with on top, to what an identical bar became after upsetting it)
(Another comparison view showing the thickness gained)
(Here it was after forging the blade and tang. You can tell by the pyramid shape of the bolster that it was forged on it's bias/diamond)
(And here it is after cleaning things up during finish forging)
(This one shows is next to the original sketch of the knife I was trying to forge.. I was happy with it 
)
The hardest part of forging an integral (at least for me ) is keeping the blade and tang centered and in line with each other , spine side and edge side. It can become quite tricky at times!
Here are two pics showing the alignment of the blade and tang on the integral above.
First is with the edge up looking from the tip.
And second is spine up looking from the tang end. (There is a small shadow on the right side of the blade spine which makes it look off center, but it's just an illusion
)
That was actually my third attempt at forging an integral, and the two prior to it were forged using the same small diameter stock, before I thought to try and upset the bar before forging the knife
.
Here is another integral that I forged last summer as well, not that long after the one shown above, except this time I had some "real" steel to begin forging with... Don Hanson's W2 in 7/8" diameter. :thumbup: ... I actually had it the whole time I was messing around with the 52100, but I didn't want to experiment/practice a new technique using such a precious metal..
--------------------------------------
All of this was done with using only a cheap 2-1/2 lb sledge for forging, a crappy mild steel "post anvil" that doesn't have very good edges on it, or a hardy hole for helpful tooling (I don't forge on that RR track anvil in the pics, it's WAY too loud for my neighborhood), and my single venturi burner propane forge I made from a mail box.
Also, I don't have a small wheel attachment for my grinder or any sanding drums for my dremel to clean up the blade/bolster transition with, and the round & half round file I have didn't do much to the W2 because some are dull and he others are very cheap. So all I did at the time was I just made a makeshift mandrel using some 1/4" round stock with some small rubber hose around it with some sandpaper spray glued around that, which I then chucked into my big old Dewalt hand drill. It definitely was NOT ideal for the job and it made any attempt at being accurate very difficult, but it ended up doing and OK job on that W2 integral.
One tip I do have to offer you if you do decide to make an integral would be to try and leave at least a small flat surface on each of the bolster faces, this way you can use a file guide to keep the bolster/blade and bolster/tang transitions even and symmetrical. Like if you're using a small wheel on your grinder (or dremel or round file) to clean up the radiused blade to bolster transition, you can just grind up to the carbide faces on the file guide... and of course you want to be able to have a square, flat and even surface on the tang shoulders to get a nice handle fit up. You can clean up and round over the bolster faces after cleaning up the transitions post heat treat. Just one option to keep in mind.
Also, I used a spring fuller made from some round stock (a crappy one) to forge in the radius for blade to bolster transition. I would suggest you make one (or a few different sizes) using the same diameter in round stock that you plan on using for your small wheel attachment (or file or dremel wheel size) to grind in your radii (blade/bolster transition).
Oh yes! It can be pretty helpful to use a vise and an adjustable crescent wrench (or something like it) while forging to help you adjust the blade, edge and tang centering while it's hot.
That's all I can think of right now, but if anything else comes to mind I'll make sure to sure and share it here. I would definitely suggest reading through some integral knife WIPs, such as this one from Salem Straub..
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/978336-10-quot-integral-chef-WIP
Guys like him know a lot more about this stuff than I do that's for sure!
:thumbup:
Here are links to more great integral WIPs!
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1106294-Intergral-chef-knife-forging-WIP
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...ed-Integral-Not-Actually-Really-a-Chopper-WIP
https://picasaweb.google.com/primitivepoint/IntegralTutorial
http://web.archive.org/web/20080112222924/http://www.brazilianbladesmiths.com.br/integral.htm
Hope this is of some help to you.
~Paul
My YT Channel
Lsubslimed
...
(It's been a few years since my last upload)
