Clay coat along spine question

Man that sucks!

I havent' tried the clay treatment yet, but I plan to in the near future.

What steel are you using?

Also, when you try to straighten do you use the unpaded vise jaws or do you use something to ease the sharp corners? I always use three 1 1/2" round wood dowls, two on the oposite end of the warp and one centered on the bend that I want to bend the other way. all three in the vise with the blade and very carfully crank down with the vise.

Also one way to temper in your forge is to use a pipe in the forge as an oven. Run your forge as low as it will get, and let it heat the pipe and run the sword in and out of the pipe till you get a light straw color on the clean steel of the blade. Not as acurate as the oven, but a way to get an imeadiate "snap" temper instead of running into the house and back and forth.

Good luck and don't give up, most of us have a small, or in my case large, pile of ruined blades. ;)
 
DaQo'tah,
Yes it was a Katana blade. One week was much too short a time to complete the blade by hand. I still haven't fitted it with a handle. Shame on me!
Lynn
 
Lynn....If only you lived a bit closer, I could have you teach me what you learned....

EVERYONE>>>.I have done my very last water quench with this last blade...It was a battle, and I took a few hits that really got me down at times...But I have learned many new things about how steel acts.

I have used up my supply of 1050 steel so Im not going to make another Katana for a while. This was a schooling, but I have some other things to move on to and start learning them too.

I wish to thank everyone for all their advice...

I think what I need to do, is search for someone who has taken a class in water quenching a Katana ,that lives within a few hours drive of where I live and see what they can teach me first hand.


Thanks again for all your help and support, and jokes too!
 
Will 52100

I going to spend a little time this summer, and re-think the whole("KATANA,- water quench,- with 1050 steel") , situation I am in, to see if there is a better way for a new guy to still make a good Japanese sword, still have a cool Hamon line, yet not have 2 months of work sitting under the work bench so no one can see them.

Im not giveing up the dream of learning to make Katanas,,,,But my poor heart broke a bunch of times over the last 2 months, and It's just too much,,,too much to go on and on, too much to ask my wife to go on with me in....just to painfull. When I broke a blade in the vise, it was like watching a child die in my arms, I had spent so much time getting it to that point, it was going to be my Masterpiece...

Compared to knocking out a regular knife that just never failed in the good old oil quench.

And you know Will52100, the Katana is so very different than the Knives I learned to make by the advice of you guys like Ed Fowler. The dream I had for a "Working man's knife" was that it would be strong, never break, take a beating, can bend if needed, and will not fall apart.

But the Katana design I ended up making was the complete "Anti-Fowler" design. I ended up with a weak blade, subject to cracking, subject to breaking in two with a slight over-push in the vise....The dream I had for Katana would be a weapon a guy could count on in a war....But I ended up with a blade I was carefull not to even look at in a rude manner because it seemed to want to fail and crack on me...?

I need to go back to the drawing board...and find out what others are doing that have run into my same problems...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top