Hand forging question

[nebben838]

Hi all,
I'm looking at doing some hand forging of kitchen knives. I'm just wanting to know roughly how long it takes people to hand forge to shape ready to heat treat a kitchen knife? Dosent have to be exact. Also are there stainless steels that are easier to hand forge than others?

Thanks in advance,
Ben.

 

[DevinT]

It depends on lots of different factors. Size of the knife, size/shape of the starting steel, type of steel, experience, size of your hammer and anvil, temperature, etc.

It is a lot faster to cut/grind one out but a lot more fun to forge one. You’ll spend more time waiting for it to heat up than forging. ~30 minutes or less with experience.

Hoss

 

[JTknives]

Much higher chance of messing up the stainless when forging then carbon. Plus annealing the stainless after forging will take 20+ hours in a pid controlled oven.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

For kitchen knives forging is not a real advantage. There are just too many possible errors to be made in a knife that is very thin.

It takes a lot longer to file/grind out all the hammer marks on a forged blade, too. I is wiser to start with .06 to .08" stock and grind in the bevels.