Forging process...What's yours?

scottickes

scottickes

Joined
Oct 27, 2005
Messages
2,527
I was just curious about what order some of you forge out a blade. I'm not talking heat treatment, but in what direction or to what shapes do you move the metal from beginning to end. Let's assume that you're starting with round stock. I do it this way:
  1. I take it from round to flat bar.
  2. I then forge it to the correct width and thickness for the design that I'm after.
  3. I then preform the tip.
  4. At this point I forge in a taper from where I want the ricasso to begin out to the tip on the back spine (I think this is called distal taper).
  5. I then forge the cutting edge.
  6. The ricasso is forged next, narrowing the width down just behind the cutting edge.
  7. The tang is forged last.

I used to forge the tang and ricasso first, but found that it becomes flimsy while I'm forging the blade and edge causing me to spend a lot of time straightening it back out.

How do you do it?

Scott (Ickie) Ickes
 
1. round to flat if I am using a round bar
2. forge point and taper somewhat
3. Establish plunge and forge out the first parts of the bevels.
4. establish ricasso/edge transition and bend the blade down.
5. Finish bevels and taper the rest of the way
6. forge the tang.
7. Spend a LONG tme refing the shape and making sure the damn thing is straight:D
 
Absolutely the truth,my friend!!!!! The big bowie that I am trying to get ready before Blade may be the first knife that I haven't had to "grind straight" to some degree after forging:D
 
For partial tang knives:

1. Round to flat
2. taper the point
3. forge the dropped edge/choil
4. bend it into the banana shape
5. forge the edge bevel
6. cut off of bar and forge the tang
7. then I normalize and anneal in my Evenheat.

For full tang knives with complex shapes like this one:

1193-1.JPG


1. Forge from round to flat, usually have to widen it some
2. Forge in the distal taper and tang taper.

Then it's stock removal the rest of the way. I do all the normalizing and annealing before I saw/grind the blade to shape. This guarantees fresh steel (no decarb) on the cutting edge.
 
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