Forging

[John A.]

Sometimes I see something, and I just want to share it because I think it's just that awesome.

This is one of those times.

I've seen guys forge knives from rail road spikes and other things, but this one just impressed the heck out of me.

I have a really large wrench from my late father in law in the basement. I may earmark one of them for just such a project sometime.

I don't like the curved pike on the one below and I would've left the point near what the original point is like, and I would have also made the handle tapered so the head would slide up from the bottom and fat on the top so it couldn't loosen and throw off over time, but I do like how he did it otherwise.

 

[dieselmudder]

That top one be heavy ... balance would be all out of whack for chopping. Still neat though. Quite the novelty piece

 

[SHOOTER13]

Me likey...!!

 

[carbinemike]

John A great topic for a thread. I was going to start one when we got a little further along and could post some finished pics. My son and I started forging last summer. We learned a lot, sometimes from mistakes. Early on we got to talking when he was making his first attempt at a knife and it melted. He alternated between being mad at losing 3 hours of effort to being excited that we could melt spring steel (2400+ degrees). We are slowly building up both tools, equipment and experience. We started with a ground forge and then I welded up the one in the pictures. Lack of air was overcome with a cheapo WalMart leaf blower. We ended the year by forge welding a billet of "Damascus" steel. The biggest goal for 2017 is getting a real anvil (instead of a piece of railroad track).

We have not used any hand tools as John A noted but we have collected some old files to work with. We have also used the old leaf spring from a '68 Chevy truck and I have some coil spring from a Jeep.

If anyone is wondering we are burning good ol' American coal from Mohanoy, PA. In your face liberals!

Crude but effective! The air is pumped in via the ducting and enters the forge from under the coal via 100+ 1/8" holes drilled into two 2x2 square tubes that are welded together. It's long enough to handle a long machete but we mostly only use 1/2 of the capacity.

Railroad spike dagger ready for grinding

Bowie knife ready for grinding

 

[carbinemike]

Billet ready for forge welding:

Billet after forge welding. It needs drawn out a lot more.

My partner in forging. He is thickening/shortening a railroad spike to give it more steel for the handle hole and cutting face

 

[John A.]

Coal is an obvious choice for forging.

It burns hotter longer.

No further explanation should be required.

 

[SHOOTER13]

This IS an awesome thread...

I watch all the shows on TV on this very subject ( Forged In Fire {History Channel} ) and ( Another where a Master taught backwoods gentlemen and his small family makes and repair vintage guns... he also makes RR Spike knives...sorry, forget the name...maybe only had one season ) then sit there mesmerized watching scrap being turned into amazing pieces of working art...form & function.

Yankee Ingenuity at it's Best... !!

 

[meanstreak]

Forger in Fire has become one of my favorite shows. It is amazing the pieces of scrap that are tuned into blades.

 

[CaddmannQ]

Somehow I missed this thread and I cannot see any of the photos from Mike's posts

My wife is afraid that I will start a forge in the backyard and burn the house down.

She was watching some stupid video on TV where a guy was trying to use a 55 gallon drum as of forge & nearly burnt down the whole town.

What I have to work with right now is an acetylene torch, small homemade anvil and collection of large hammers. I've been anxious to get on with the making my halberd, but so many things have been getting in the way.

And some I put in the way on purpose. Priorities, you know.

Anyhow I am anxious to see some pictures of the forge Mike.

 

[ripjack13]

John A great topic for a thread. I was going to start one when we got a little further along and could post some finished pics. My son and I started forging last summer. We learned a lot, sometimes from mistakes. Early on we got to talking when he was making his first attempt at a knife and it melted. He alternated between being mad at losing 3 hours of effort to being excited that we could melt spring steel (2400+ degrees). We are slowly building up both tools, equipment and experience. We started with a ground forge and then I welded up the one in the pictures. Lack of air was overcome with a cheapo WalMart leaf blower. We ended the year by forge welding a billet of "Damascus" steel. The biggest goal for 2017 is getting a real anvil (instead of a piece of railroad track).

We have not used any hand tools as John A noted but we have collected some old files to work with. We have also used the old leaf spring from a '68 Chevy truck and I have some coil spring from a Jeep.

If anyone is wondering we are burning good ol' American coal from Mohanoy, PA. In your face liberals!

Crude but effective! The air is pumped in via the ducting and enters the forge from under the coal via 100+ 1/8" holes drilled into two 2x2 square tubes that are welded together. It's long enough to handle a long machete but we mostly only use 1/2 of the capacity.

Railroad spike dagger ready for grinding

Bowie knife ready for grinding

I don't see any pics....

Have you checked out this place?
https://bladeforums.com/

They have great info there.

 

[carbinemike]

I don't see any pics....

Have you checked out this place?
https://bladeforums.com/

They have great info there.

I don't know what happened to the pics. That isn't the first time. I'll repost them.

This year was good year for our forge efforts. We added a real anvil. It's an 1884 Fisher weighing in at 135 pounds. It made a big difference over the piece of railroad track we were using. I got my son some chisels/punches for Christmas along with 5 pounds of high carbon steel powder and a drift to shape tomahawk/hatchet holes.

 

[carbinemike]

Anyhow I am anxious to see some pictures of the forge Mike.

Nothing fancy CaddmannQ. I have two forges now. This was the first. It's long and narrow for heat treating up to a machete or saber. The silver chimney pipe has a leaf blower supplying air. The pipe is welded to two 2x2 steel tubes with 1/8 diameter holes drilled on a 1/2 inch X pattern. We were using PA anthracite coal which is very dense and hard to burn hence all of the air. We have melted 1/4 thick leaf spring so it does make heat.

Below is a smaller forge I built this summer from an old truck brake drum. It's for when we are working with something smaller like a knife or I made a dutch oven tri pod and only needed to heat the end of the rods. This one can run on compressed air. I located a local source for Kentucky bituminous coal that burns a lot better with less air and it doesn't go out right away. Since the picture was taken I have added side around the top to better hold the coal as it cokes. You can see the Damascus billet made from alternating layers of reshaped Jeep coil spring and 15N20.

 

[carbinemike]

I found some high carbon braided steel cable on ebay to mess around with. The last pic is a knife after initial grinding that my son made from it. I'm pretty proud of him. He did every bit of it and wouldn't let me help. For the initial forge welding he did use a 20 ton hydraulic press but the knife you see was entirely shaped by hammer, anvil and muscle. You can see he made good use of the anvil's horn. He is calling it a Kukri-Bowie. Oh yeah...in the first picture you can make out the DTOM on the back of his shirt.

 

[ripjack13]

@carbinemike ,
Is he going to make his handles/scales?

 

[CaddmannQ]

Mike I'd be proud as punch.

 

[carbinemike]

@carbinemike ,
Is he going to make his handles/scales?

Yes. Although so far we both seem to like forging and grinding better than making the scales. We plan to use the winter time to finish out several knives. I have some cherry and walnut for wood handles. He has some micarta and some antler too. We have the pins ect. so we just have to put that last time into them.

 

[ripjack13]

Right on. If you need material or anything else, lemme know. I have tons!
And look into truoil. Its great for handles....

 

[meanstreak]

That is so cool. When others his age are watching video and complaining about nothing to do, your son is creating artistic tools and developing a skill that he can use his whole life.

 

[John A.]

Please tell him that I think his work turned out awesome and I'm envious of his talent.

 

[carbinemike]

Please tell him that I think his work turned out awesome and I'm envious of his talent.

Thanks John and I will certainly pass that along to him.