Getting better

Justin Schmidt

Justin Schmidt

Joined
Feb 18, 2016
Messages
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Well i watched a @Rick Marchand youtube video last night on forging and hammer technique. Improved my results greatly.
pbo9Imp.jpg

So thanks rick. Aside from the fishlips i have going on What are some other tips you hammer heads have? Thanks gents.
 
Grind off the fish mouth so you don't end up with any cold shuts in your work. When you start with a new bar of steel. Start by knocking the corners in. This will help you avoid the fish mouths. Next, while the bar is still all one thickness, make a pre-form. This looks like an upside down blade. The side that will be your spine is curved down. As you start forging in the bevels, that side will expand or get longer making the opposite side (the spine) curve up. The pre-form anticipates this expansion. Keep going. You're doing fine.
 
Thanks marc for the advice. Ive had a heck of a time trying to preform that tip. I dont think its getting hot enough
 
Ive read about that and thought about doing it but figured it was frowned upon and viewed as "cheating" lioks like i was wrong. Ill try it today
 
Cheating is when you do something of lower quality or honesty. Smart forging is when you do something that gives or assures better quality.

Another tip is to make the tip a bit longer and much rounder than the final desired profile. The excess will be ground away in shaping. This helps prevents burning the tip during forging and ruining your blade.
 
valknut said:
Ive read about that and thought about doing it but figured it was frowned upon and viewed as "cheating" lioks like i was wrong. Ill try it today
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You read to much , find your way to make knife .....final result is what
we see and evaluate . Nobody will ask you did you grind bevel free hand or with jig or did you use power hammer or your hands ;) Hey .............very HOT avatar you have :D
 
Excellent point gentleman. I appreciate the tips (no pun intended) im gonna try stacy method whenever I get back in the shop. Just traded a thing if 4140 (my old "anvil" ) for a 2lb rounding hammer looking forward to getting that and putting it to use
 
The only cheating is buying a kit knife, putting on a fancy handle and letting people believe it is a custom handmade knife.

Otherwise you work smarter, not harder.

Keep up the good work!
 
Great point. I cut the corner off and it helped tremendously so ill probably keep doing it that way. Im still getting used to how the metal moves so its not pretty
Thanks for the advice guys
 
looks good, you have some hammer mark depressions that you may want to smooth out
you can use a flatter or gentle taps with a flat side of the hammer
lmk if you need some flatter pics, I've got three different ones I can use.
 
HSC /// said:
looks good, you have some hammer mark depressions that you may want to smooth out
you can use a flatter or gentle taps with a flat side of the hammer
lmk if you need some flatter pics, I've got three different ones I can use.
Click to expand...
Yeah man im interested in seeing some if you dont mind. Ive considered getting one but wasnt sure where from
 
the first one the left is just square plate welded to round stock
the middle is an engineer's hammer from McMcaster Carr that I ground down
the right is a guy who takes a hammer and welds on a flat plate.

3imezTH.jpg
 
As for fish mouth, even traditionally minded smiths like Daniel Winkler have been known to round off the end of the bar a tad on the grinder or cut it off at an angle with a saw, grinder, hot cutter, etc, to avoid that.
 
HSC /// said:
the first one the left is just square plate welded to round stock
the middle is an engineer's hammer from McMcaster Carr that I ground down
the right is a guy who takes a hammer and welds on a flat plate.

3imezTH.jpg
Click to expand...
Looks like i need to get myself a welder. Thanks for the pics man really helped out
 
I knock one corner back into it's self. Then flip on the side and forge the bulge down. Then back to the corner and to the side. After a few min you have a point that is close to what you want your preform to be. But I will admit it's faster to nip the corner off with a hot cut on the anvil. Another easy way is to clamp it in the post vise and go at the corners with the hammer and knock them back into the stock. Another way that's way over the top is to notch a v in the front then heat and flux and forge weld the corners down closing the V gap. This is much more common when working with Damascus as it creates a pleasing end to the pattern instead of it just running off the end of the blade.
 
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