Home Made Steel, Hada and Hamon

N

NVHammerHead

Joined
May 14, 2009
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69
Here's a little something from my latest smelt from about a week ago...

Hope the photos turn out. This is made from taconite and magnetite ores, mesquite charcoal as a fuel source, powdered limestone and ground green glass as flux in a behive smelter design...

The "layer count" by my feeble math skills is around 100,000 or so. I don't think it turned out half bad for an old fogy working outta his back yard.

Oil quench and the hada is quite visible on the kissaki..the blade is about 3/4 the way polished and now it is time to dress it up before I go any futher on the polishing...don't want to mess up all the work it takes to polish and grain the blade out..I am doing a hybrid polish using both abrasives and reagent etches to reveal the grain...

NVHammerHead

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Hello:

actually when you cut into 4 or 5 pieces and weld instead of folding and then welding you get it done really fast.

I have enough of this material for two more swords...maybe if the Gods are happy with me that is..

NVHammerHead
 
Looks good and clean, good job.
Crucible or bloomery?
I'm building my first bloomery smelter today and running my first smelt sometime next week.
Del
 
Doc, lots better pictures than posted elsewhere. Thanks!!
What carbon do ya figger ?? bruce
 
That looks very nice! Do you have some pictures that show the entire blade? Some pictures of the smelter would be nice as well. Thanks for posting!
 
Hello:

Thank you for the kind words....as far as the smelter goes..that's history as you just destroy it to get the bloom sponge iron out so there's nothing left. Made it out of adobe and some extra sand mixed in to help galze it over a bit.....took 11 hours to get about 30 pounds...after all the compression and getting the gunk out I had like 23 pounds left...there was a lot of crud in there, slag bits, charcoal chuncks,,SLTT...

C content on the hammered out bars look like 60 to 70 points on the spark test...worked alot like a med C steel too and heat treat went pretty well...Once I get it all dressed I will finish polish and post a pic.

All in all...not to shabby for an old fart working with minimal equipment...The Hada turned out better than I expected so I am happy with the way it came out...now I am working on the siya, got the habaki fitted and the grip core made and shaped. This is for a client in So Cal...I do have enough for another couple of swords outta this melt so i will be finishing them up and putting one on my website..

All this for book 4...what a monster that is becoming. Geeze I do not like doing Japanese style blades but I owe it to Bob E. I still miss that man to this day...I don't want to take the stuff we figured out that's in my head to my grave like with what happened to him..that would be a crime...He passed far too soon...

NVHammerHead
 
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....as far as the smelter goes..that's history
Click to expand...

I figured it was toast, but I figured it was worth asking in case you had gotten a few shots before the smelt. Feel free to post pictures as the sword comes together.
 
I love the very fine hada

it shows your exceptional skill at forge welding, especially with no kizu
 
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