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Help, my blade is bent
- Thread starter Nic.
- Start date
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2011
- Messages
- 5,048
Can you post pics? You can try to carefully bend it back to straight cold since it hasn't been heat treated yet. If that doesn't work, what I might try is this. Put the blade in the oven or forge for its first normalizing heat. When you take it out after the soak it will be very soft. Using a wood mallet or similar, gently tap it straight against an anvil or ceramic tile on a work bench. You don't need a lot of force. Easy does it. You might even be able to use your vise to carefully clamp it straight as it cools. If you don't get it perfect, continue during your second normalizing heat to get it right.
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2011
- Messages
- 16,486
Hi!
How thick is it?
I like to straighten by putting the tip on my bench, pommel in hand and press on the spot where the bend is. Be very careful and don't do it all at once or in one spot... slowly bend it back and move around the bend so a new bend is not created. I bet it is too thick for this though!
If you have something flat like an anvil, concrete floor, etc you can lay it warped side up on a piece of thick leather and hammer it flat.
You can make a 3 point jig for the vise to bend it back. One jaw gets a rod positioned in the middle (vertically) and the other jaw has one rod on each end. You could just tape some 3/8" rod scrap in.
For me I can either bend them by hand or they are usually too thick to have much warp... I usually fix that later during heat treat or later grinding.
I hope this helps!
How thick is it?
I like to straighten by putting the tip on my bench, pommel in hand and press on the spot where the bend is. Be very careful and don't do it all at once or in one spot... slowly bend it back and move around the bend so a new bend is not created. I bet it is too thick for this though!
If you have something flat like an anvil, concrete floor, etc you can lay it warped side up on a piece of thick leather and hammer it flat.
You can make a 3 point jig for the vise to bend it back. One jaw gets a rod positioned in the middle (vertically) and the other jaw has one rod on each end. You could just tape some 3/8" rod scrap in.
For me I can either bend them by hand or they are usually too thick to have much warp... I usually fix that later during heat treat or later grinding.
I hope this helps!
I find a "magebo" or bending stick that was in Murray Carter's book is very useful and can apply a lot of torque also simple and easy to make. The one caveat I will add is it can snap a blade very easily so be mindful of this and do it after tempering the blade and it has just come out of the oven. I made mine out of a scrap 2x4.
Photo:
https://books.google.com/books?id=xw-woxJuDZAC&pg=PT242&lpg=PT242&dq=magebo+straightening+stick&source=bl&ots=a71c5X_XJI&sig=K3aS9voCH24vjrB_3UOgEYkStvc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cgZ1VY_zPOuIsQShz5vYCg&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=magebo%20straightening%20stick&f=false
Photo:
https://books.google.com/books?id=xw-woxJuDZAC&pg=PT242&lpg=PT242&dq=magebo+straightening+stick&source=bl&ots=a71c5X_XJI&sig=K3aS9voCH24vjrB_3UOgEYkStvc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cgZ1VY_zPOuIsQShz5vYCg&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=magebo%20straightening%20stick&f=false
ok, thank you. I will post pics as soon as i can. I will try that, thanks for the help
I did some research on that stick, very neat! Thank you very much for the idea!
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2014
- Messages
- 168
One method I picked up from ShopTalk was to clamp your bent blade to a straight piece of steel or aluminum and take your tempering heat. If it's still not straightened, you can overbend it by shimming with spare change. It took out a 1/8" bend over a 3/16" thick 9.5" OAL blade for me.