Forge-weld a guard on?

M

MSCantrell

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Mar 12, 2005
Messages
1,213
Maybe I'm crazy, but I've got the itch to try forge-welding a guard onto the tang of a knife I'm working on... it'll make an impossibly big integral :eek:

Is this just insanity? Is it possible? Would anybody who's done it like to share any pointers before I go embarrass myself? (Shouldn't be anything tricky about forge welding mild steel to cable, should there?)

Thanks!
Mike
 
Wow! I have enough trouble soldering them on! You go boy!! Show pictures of your efforts when you're done.

Ickie
 
I've thought of it before, but never gotten around to trying. We want pictures of the process!

-d
 
Mike I have forge welded front and rear bolsters on. The top one of my JS knives are that way.
journeyman.jpg


You can slide a tight fitting hidden tang type guard on and forge weld it also but will need to close the gaps on the sides and the top and bottom. Its easy enough with a press but you may possibly see a gap when you are finished.

No Guts, No Glory
 
Wayne Goddard has some pics in his book of a knifemaker who welded a stainless guard to a blade with normal welding techniques and then filed and sanded the joint. It looked great! You couldn't tell that it wasn't an integral from the start, but I am sure that it was a PITA:D
 
I have welded on stainless gaurds and have forge welded on matching bolsters on a couple knives. I pinned them in place then stuck in forge fluxed and hammered came out great. They were damascus and you have to look hard to see the pattern change.
 
Here is a picture of the two with forge welded bolsters
 

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Well, three hours and resounding failure. I wsa doing it wrong from the get-go...
I'll be trying again, but differently.
 
i don't know much... but if i remeber correctly, you need a lot higher temp to weld something with lower carbon, so you might wanna use sometheing with a like carbon content to the blade material . such as some 1084 or something.

thats all i got. could be wrong though. its happened before.

good luck man
 
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