Beginner looking to make a forge

R

Ram4x4

Joined
Jan 1, 2017
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Hello,

I've recently gotten the urge to try my hand at making some knives. I've been a woodworker for ever 30 years and have always wanted to get into metal working. Unfortunately, metal working tools, like lathes and mills are really expensive, so I've decided to go the other direction and go simple.

My goal is to make a Damascus paring knife to start. So far, after watching tons of videos and doing some reading, my initial goal is to make/build as much of my tooling myself as I possibly can. To that end, I imagine to get started I need a forge, an anvil, some tongs, hammers. I have a welder and lots of other grinding/hand tools that will work.

My main question concerns the forge. For someone starting out, would you recommend a coal or gas forge? If gas, I've seen use of a wool and vermiculite for the liner. Which of those would you recommend? Based on what I've seen, if I go gas, I will make the forge from an old 12 gallon air tank I have. I'm trying to gauge operating cost and gas seems like it would be pricey to run compared to coal. I don't mind a learning curve to learn how to use coal, or the mess.
 
Welcome to Shop Talk. Fill out your profile so we know a bit about you and where you are.

To get started you need a piece of steel or damascus, a set of files, a stack of sandpaper, a drill press, a hack saw, and a few basic tools.

With these you can make a good kinfe.

The next tool you will need/want is a bench grinder. It is similar to a wood belt sander, but heavier duty. There are plans available for free, and kits to build your own. There are many threads on this, so use the search engine in the stickys to see what people have done.

A forge, hammers, and anvil may come in time, but many great makers only do stock removal.
 
Thanks for the info. To be clear, I'd like to make my own damascus as well.

As for a knife grinder, I'll make one. I've got quite a few old motors and step pulleys looking for new life on a machine. I can turn aluminum wheels on my wood lathe. I really like to make as much as I can instead of buying. I realize though that not everything can be made reasonably, but I really like to make things when I can.

My goal is not to become a professional maker, just want the enjoyment of the process and be able to make something nice with my own hands that is better than most of the cheap junk found at the stores. I'm not into collecting knives, but I really, really despise using a cheap knife that won't hold an edge. My wife and I like to cook and our collection of kitchen knives are junk that don't hold an edge worth a hoot (and I refuse to pay the $$$ some of the nicer knives cost). I usually have to sharpen them almost every use. I'd like to make some nice ones.

I know, it'll cost me more to gather up the parts and material and time to make the tools to make the knives than it would to just go buy knives, but I'll learn a new skill in the process, which to me is invaluable.

I figure I'll need to practice making some damascus before I start trying to make a knife of it, hence my question on the forge.

I've considered the stock removal process, and I may do that if my desire to make a knife before I can make damascus gets the better of me, but right now I really want to learn to make damascus.
 
Starting knifemaking by making damascus is sort of like starting woodworking by carving the Four Horsemen of the Appocalypse.
 
I started a few months ago and made my own propane forge with a blown burner. I don't have a detailed receipt but I have $100-$125 in my forge, using an old 20lb propane tank, scrap iron, a squirrel cage blower and hose that I had around. I have found running a propane forge to be clean and relatively easy, I can forge and heat treat 3 blades on a 20lb bottle. I have a woodworking belt grinder 4x36 and an 8" bench grinder that gets me by at this stage.
If you want to forge all you need is something to heat with-hold with- hit with and hit on. Now Damascus and heat treating, there in lies the learning curve, but it will come if you put in the effort. I'm hoping to get it right one day!


Sent via telegraph with the same fingers I use to sip whiskey.
 
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Stacy, I see your point. Perhaps I'll err on the side of common sense and go the stock removal route to start with. I will give making Damascus a try at some point, but the desire to make a knife first is over riding that.

On that note, what do you guys think of damasteel? For a paring knife, the prices for it are reasonable. I really like their Hymer and Rose pattern.

I think for a practice try, I'll just take some scrap steel I have and make a knife from it to practice my grinding and making and attaching scales.
 
Damasteel is excellent. The HT needs to be sent out.

I don't really care for rose pattern that much. I like Munin, Hugin, Hymer, and Odin Heim.
 
Ah, so damasteel isn't a heat it and quench it at home affair then?

Been looking around quite a bit and found Alabama Damascus. They are a fair bit cheaper than damasteel. Cheap enough that I'm willing to try it with a lot less worry on messing it up.
 
The Alabama damascus can be done at home with a HT roughly that of 1084.

Damasteel is a stainless product ( mostly RWL-34), and requires high temps and a very specific HT, with cryo.
 
I agree its better starting out via stockremoval.
Once you desire to graduate playing with fire, coalforge will be the most simple, cheap to assemble & will achieve welding heat with no fiddle or fuss. A gasser is alot work to build & getting to burn right to weld.
 
Great, then for now I'm going to practice grinding blades on cheap steel scrap I have. Once I feel I can pull one off, I'll give a go with some Alabama Damascus.

They don't have the exact blade profile I want (looking to do a 3" to 3.5" blade paring knife, something small for starters), and their billets are around $120+ each. I'll get one of their knife blanks that's a little larger than I need and then reshape/grind it to the profile I want. Planning to do just a basic flat grind anyway, since I like my paring knives thin. At least that way, if I do botch it up, $30-$40 for a blank ain't so bad. I'll probably also get one of their smallest, cheapest blanks to try the heat treat process too, which kind of leads to another question:

How many times can I realistically expect to be able to harden, temper, anneal, reheat, re-harden a blank before it's shot? Heating it to hardening temps is burning carbon out of the steel each time, right? Thinking I'd like to have a practice blank to harden/temper and run through some "torture" testing to make sure I can get a good hardness and temper before I attempt my final, real knife.

Lieblad, I'm still doing a lot of reading on each. It does seem gas is a bit fiddly to get what you want, but is cleaner and quicker with some control over a reducing, neutral, or oxidizing atmosphere. I need to check out local coal prices and compare it to gas costs too. 3fifty7 says he can forge and HT 3 blades on 20lbs of gas. Around my neck of the woods, I'd have to drive a fair ways to get a fill (if I wanted a "true" 20lbs of gas). The only convenient location is one of those cylinder exchanges and you only get around 15lbs, and it's expensive...$23. Of course, if I'm doing stock removal, then I should be able to HT more than 3 blades since I'm not forging. Dunno yet, still reading and looking at forges.

Have seen a fellow who hardens his blades with a pair of map gas torches. He runs one underneath the blade and the other over top to get even heating and then quenches. I might do that with a test blank for now to see how well it works.
 
I get my 100lb tank filled for about $65 fwiw. The first place I filled it tried to charge me $180 (didn't subtract my tank weight and pricy to begin with) but I found out the local hardware store does it by the lb/gallon. I couldn't tell you how many blades I can forge or heat treat with it because I heat my shop this time of year with it too. But 100 lb tanks are definitely the way to go if you can move it around yourself.
 
I have natural gas, and my barn does have the piping, meter, etc, but it's turned off. The problem is the gas company won't let me run gas to the barn or garage off the house meter. I have to pay for basic monthly gas service to the barn separate from the house, plus whatever gas I use on it. If I could run the barn off the house meter, I'd go that route in a heart beat.

A 100 pounder wouldn't be an issue to move, but I'm not sure I need one that big to start with. Like I said, just going to give this a go for my own use mainly, not looking to become a pro and make it a business. Then again, I said the same thing about my wood working and the next thing I was doing commission pieces and it turned into a business before I knew it. Fortunately, the market for custom furniture wasn't huge in the area of Texas I was in at the time or I might have ended up doing it for a living. It's a sort of love/hate thing. Doing the work for money was great to some extent, getting paid to do something I really liked to do, but when it becomes a business, then you learn to hate it pretty quick too. As the saying goes, never make a hobby a business if you intend to keep loving it.

I'm afraid I know how this will turn out though. I'll make some knives for myself, and if they turn out half way decent, a friend will see one and want one, and I'll make him/her one, and their friends will want one and so on. The next thing you know I'll be buying expensive equipment and all my free time and money will go out the window.
 
A basic propane forge should run 10-15 hours on 20# of propane. That will do quite a few blades.
 
Ok, you guys have given me a lot to consider. I really do appreciate your time and input. I know full well how newbies can cause experienced folks to hash out old news over and over and I've already babbled enough.

Going to order a couple of Alabama Damascus blanks tonight. In the mean time, I'm going to pick up some modeling clay to use for making my knife design, then use my scrap steel to see if I can actually duplicate the model in actual steel.

I'll also use the cheap blank with a pair of map gas torches to see if I can harden and temper it to satisfactory results.

Once those two processes are done, I will then have a go at actually making my real knife from the other blank.

The end result from all that will play into my decision as to what I'm going to do moving forward.

I will post pictures of the final product, no matter how good or bad it turns out.

Thanks again.
 
Take a piece of your scrap and cheap stock about 1/8"-1/4" thickness try to heat it to non magnetic with your torch and quench it, try warm oil. Put it in a vise with 1/2"-1" sticking out and see if it will break off or bend. If it breaks clean you know it's hardened. If it bends you could try a water quench. If not it may not be hardenable.


Sent via telegraph with the same fingers I use to sip whiskey.
 
I'm pretty sure all my scrap metal is low carbon, so even water isn't going to harden that. That's what the cheap blank is going to be for. The scrap is for practicing grinding to shape and finish.
 
[emoji1417][emoji1417]


Sent via telegraph with the same fingers I use to sip whiskey.
 
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