Big blade.. small forge

[Knifemaker87]

hey everybody,
I'm trying to heat treat a wakizashi in a small verticle forge by pulling it in and out.. what is this called and how can i perfect this method?
thanks
~Chris

 

[Raymond Richard]

Believe thats called the "in and out" method. I'd first heat the back half of the blade and once you have that up to temp turn it around and go point first. It should come up to heat pretty fast after you have the back half of the blade hot. Try not to over heat the tip.

 

[B . Buxton]

What Ray said.:thumbup: You should have a back door on that forge so you can go all the way through it, use long handle tongs or tack weld a handle on the end of the tang and shove the blade all the way through to where the tang ricasso area is the only part heating then keep it moving as the ricasso area starts showing color, using a pipe in the forge will help a bunch to from getting hot spots, long blades can be tricky, weight can cause unwanted curves also, so once the blade starts getting hot keep it edge up. Throttle your forge flame down also. Good luck.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

What you need is a tunnel in front of and behind the forge to create a longer chamber. It won't be quite the same as a 30" forge, but it will hold the heat somewhat. You can make a "forge extension" from K-wool and satanite that will sit over the front and back doors. Use two #10 cans and line them with 2" wool. move the blade in and out slowly.It should take care of your problem. Give them plenty of time to heat up before you do the HT.
(See, there IS a simple head slap solution to this !!)

BTW, If you permanently mount one on the end of an over-long muffle, and have the other one able to just slip on, you can get a pretty good chamber extension. Be creative.
Stacy