Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith
ilmarinen - MODERATOR
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Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2004
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- 38,468
I spent all day yesterday demonstrating knife and sword forging at the Williamsburg Scottish Festival.
It was the best weather I could have asked for. Mid 70's, light breeze from my back,sunny skies. There was a group of 10-30 people watching all day long.
About 9AM,I set up the forge and anvil, unloaded all the supplies, erected the tent, arranged the display and sale items.....Ready to go by 9:30.
I lit the forge and first forged out the stanchions for the retaining rope. I took 4' long pieces of 3/8" mild steel and forged rings in the ends. I them hammered them in the ground in a semi-circle and strung a rope through them.The sound had already attracted a few people and they seemed to like the idea of me making my own ringed "crowd retaining" stakes.
I forged out six simple drop point hunters, and a couple of damascus sgian dubh blades.
I pulled a young lady out of the crowd to teach her how to forge a drop point hunter. I had been informed by her father that she was taking up bladesmithing, and had arranged to take lessons from Dave Catoe. She had planned on spending most of the day watching me and taking photos. She did well and the spectators really enjoyed watching a novice learn.
I had brought along a large piece of 1300 layer damascus steel I plan on making a katana from. I thought I would demonstrate how drawing out steel works, and some basic sword forging. The bar was approx. 18X1.25X.5". The forge was running at 2000F and the drawing went really smooth. In an hour, I had a bar long enough to start a katana, about 36X1X.3".
The arm was feelin' good,so I decided to show how the bar would be tapered and lengthened more. Another hour and it was nearly four feet with a nice taper going both ways from a spot about 6" from where the tsuba will go (about 18 inches from the nakago-jiri, and 30" from the kissaki).
By this point I was getting into this blade. I refined the profile a bit ,making it about 1/2" narrower than the desired width.
Next I moved on to demonstrating how the forging of the bevels both directions from the shinogi would keep it from curving too much as I forged the blade wider. ( While demonstrating on the knife blades,I had already demonstrated the reverse bend necessary to keep a blade straight when beveling edges.) It ended up with a beautiful sori of about 1" and a blade width of about 1.25-1.5".
By the end of five hours of forging I had the blade done.
Some lessons to be passed on to those of you who are having lots of problems with scale and "chicken pecks":
1)By keeping the forge running at a medium forging temp and with a slight reducing atmosphere, I kept scale to a minimum. (I ran at 5 pounds,venturi). You don't want welding heat to forge !!!
2)By brushing the anvil off every time I returned the blade to the forge, I avoided hammering scale into the blade.
3)By wire brushing the red hot blade from time to time, I kept scale build up down.
4)By forging only when the blade was above 1600F, and giving it a few light straightening taps as it lost its red, then immediately returning it to the forge,I did not let scale form as much.
5)By working only about six inches at a time, I avoided unnecessary overheating of previously finished areas.(Obviously this only applies to swords and long blades.)
After I unload all the equipment and get the smithy back to order, I will do a little touch up and give it a clean-up grind.From there I will move on to the slower shaping of the bevels by hand. I'll take some photos and post them here later this evening.
Stacy
It was the best weather I could have asked for. Mid 70's, light breeze from my back,sunny skies. There was a group of 10-30 people watching all day long.
About 9AM,I set up the forge and anvil, unloaded all the supplies, erected the tent, arranged the display and sale items.....Ready to go by 9:30.
I lit the forge and first forged out the stanchions for the retaining rope. I took 4' long pieces of 3/8" mild steel and forged rings in the ends. I them hammered them in the ground in a semi-circle and strung a rope through them.The sound had already attracted a few people and they seemed to like the idea of me making my own ringed "crowd retaining" stakes.
I forged out six simple drop point hunters, and a couple of damascus sgian dubh blades.
I pulled a young lady out of the crowd to teach her how to forge a drop point hunter. I had been informed by her father that she was taking up bladesmithing, and had arranged to take lessons from Dave Catoe. She had planned on spending most of the day watching me and taking photos. She did well and the spectators really enjoyed watching a novice learn.
I had brought along a large piece of 1300 layer damascus steel I plan on making a katana from. I thought I would demonstrate how drawing out steel works, and some basic sword forging. The bar was approx. 18X1.25X.5". The forge was running at 2000F and the drawing went really smooth. In an hour, I had a bar long enough to start a katana, about 36X1X.3".
The arm was feelin' good,so I decided to show how the bar would be tapered and lengthened more. Another hour and it was nearly four feet with a nice taper going both ways from a spot about 6" from where the tsuba will go (about 18 inches from the nakago-jiri, and 30" from the kissaki).
By this point I was getting into this blade. I refined the profile a bit ,making it about 1/2" narrower than the desired width.
Next I moved on to demonstrating how the forging of the bevels both directions from the shinogi would keep it from curving too much as I forged the blade wider. ( While demonstrating on the knife blades,I had already demonstrated the reverse bend necessary to keep a blade straight when beveling edges.) It ended up with a beautiful sori of about 1" and a blade width of about 1.25-1.5".
By the end of five hours of forging I had the blade done.
Some lessons to be passed on to those of you who are having lots of problems with scale and "chicken pecks":
1)By keeping the forge running at a medium forging temp and with a slight reducing atmosphere, I kept scale to a minimum. (I ran at 5 pounds,venturi). You don't want welding heat to forge !!!
2)By brushing the anvil off every time I returned the blade to the forge, I avoided hammering scale into the blade.
3)By wire brushing the red hot blade from time to time, I kept scale build up down.
4)By forging only when the blade was above 1600F, and giving it a few light straightening taps as it lost its red, then immediately returning it to the forge,I did not let scale form as much.
5)By working only about six inches at a time, I avoided unnecessary overheating of previously finished areas.(Obviously this only applies to swords and long blades.)
After I unload all the equipment and get the smithy back to order, I will do a little touch up and give it a clean-up grind.From there I will move on to the slower shaping of the bevels by hand. I'll take some photos and post them here later this evening.
Stacy
