Forging Practice

[Bill Siegle]

So today I got the urge to try my hand at forging another blade. It’s been quite a while since my last foray into blade smithing. Had a bit of relearning to do but I’m happy with the blade I made I need to practice a lot more but my goal is to get good enough to step up to a larger forge so I can make some large choppers!

 

[ironwagon]

Looks lethal Bill.

 

[Bill Siegle]

Ok! Gave it another try today with much better results towards what I wanted I’ve been watching a LOT of Jason Knight’s videos for my training I started with a shorter work piece this time as previous attempts had shown me how quickly a blade can out grow my little Atlas single burner. Again I’m working with 5160 and I was able to hammer out this nice little chopper. It was tapered forward and back with the hammer and anvil with not a whole bunch of clean up. My heat treat was not the most scientific as I only have the forge for normalizing and hardening. As I get better at forging, and before/if these become commercially available, I’ll have to look into more controlled heat treat equipment.

 

[Bill Siegle]

Got the blade finished today!

 

[sickpuppy1]

That turned out nice!! Even watching forged in fire I can see a science to it. Granted I wouldn’t want to buy anything they produced, but it gives me an idea what y’all go thru.