Is forging still worth it?

answered wonderfully by saber. non peer review = almost anything goes as far as what you want to pass off as truth (on a scientific level - even if its very easily debunked through testing). peer review = people working in the feild and actively studying are your editors, so your much less likely to get away with complete misinformation.
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Well, that makes alot of sense to me.
If you write a scientific paper, your work (the paper) is judged by other scientists from the same field, who do the same work, right?
And that keeps the hype and BS down, right?

So, following the judged by your peers concept, if you made a knife instead of writing a paper, your work (the knife) should be judged by other people from the same field, who do the same work (make knives), right?
_______________________________________________________________
As long as there is a market for the forged blade and a market for stock removal blades, they will continue to be made. And the debate will continue.
This is not a black and white, right or wrong issue. There are varying shades of gray, and more than one means to an end.

Ed Schemp, that was a fantastic post. Well said.

I'll leave you with quotes from 2 respected knife guys

"After all that, it's just a knife"
Bob Dozier

"Buy what you like."
Les Robertson
 
Chuck Bybee said:
What do you want to learn from the test? If stock removal or forging makes a better performing knife? The only constant is the blade steel, and even that is variable because the knives would be from two different batches of steel. To do a valid test the variable must be minimized. Two knives from the same bar of steel that are heat treated the same. Two different knife models from two different knifemakers will not tell you anything.
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you know, i was hasty in making that post... didnt quite do what i meant it to do, and it wasnt quite as well thought out as i meant it to be.

cliff regularly brings knives down to their breaking point in geometry to see where their boundaries of performance are, so that a 1/4" thick battle mistress has the same edge profile of a mora. if each is at 15 degrees on both sides and the edge bevels have been removed to make a comparable edgh thickness on both - they are now on the same level. by doing so, you can compare heat treatments and edge quality in a way that is of value.


i guess the reason i bring up swamp rats use of 52100 is because of how far out of the normal expectation of the steel they have been able to take it. same goes for their use of d2, wich is normally thought to be reletively brittle at high hardness. i have heard legends of forged knives abilities, but havent seen any cases of them like i have with stock removal. it seems like stock removal makers are advancing what a knife is capable of while forgeing remains the same.

i guess im letting personal bias get in the way on this one... my core values of what characteristics a steel should have (good edge holding, but with the abiltiy to withstand shock stress and lateral/torqueing stress) make me judgemental on knives where they arent of necessity.
 
Seth,

"i guess im letting personal bias get in the way on this one... my core values of what characteristics a steel should have (good edge holding, but with the abiltiy to withstand shock stress and lateral/torqueing stress) make me judgemental on knives where they arent of necessity."

Thing is Seth, as far as knives go, we ALL let our personal bias get in the way, in some form or another.

Knifemaking is a craft. From that, you can do comparative tests between craftsmen, and their choice of material. Even at the industrial/production level, it is a craft, there are steps that need to be gone through methodically, and repeatedly from bar of steel to finished product. You can evaluate the craft, objectively, I think, but even in that I may be wrong.

It is also an art, and that is what gets people emotionally involved, and moves many of us. No matter how you try to do it, scientifically, you cannot quantify art. You can only qualify it. "Is it art? Do I like it, or do I hate it" Those are the only kinds of questions that you can ask about it. If you are so trained, you can analyze traditional mores about it, and judge it by that criteria, and be an art critic. But as far as I have heard, there are not too many art scientists analyzing art saying one artist is better than the other one.

I do have a question for you. If forging does not matter, and stock removal is statistically superior to forging AS A WHOLE, metallurgically, why do the craftsmen/artists in the cutlery field in the U.S. make katana (japanese long sword) using forging? You would think that many would simply stock remove, and temper. Most are forged to shape AND are made of carbon steel. Some are complex steels, some are simple steels. I personally do not have an answer for this.

I can tell you as someone who has competed regularly in competition with a sword, cutting, that I have never used, nor seen a stock removed sword that handled like a forged sword, with the qualities we look for; balance, weight, speed and strength of the blade, with regard to your afformentioned requirements of edge holding coupled with resistance to stress/torquing.

I have broken exactly two knives in my life by accident. One was a carbon steel pocket knife that I stuck into a fence when I was 13, and broke the blade. The other was a Henkels Santoku kitchen knife that I was pounding through 5 lbs of frozen pork loin with a hammer. It broke, Henkels replaced it for free. This Henckels was made by stock removal, by the way.

I appreciate what science has to offer to the cutlery field. If if was not for science, we would not have stainless steels.

Science does not offer everything to the cutlery field, if it did, we would have all the answers, instead of more questions. No matter how scientifically you break it down, the art still matters. Maybe, even to you.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Just on the matter of Japanese katanas specifically, Bob Engnath was known to make a fine stock-removal katana. I would imagine that for longer blades it's just more convenient to start with round bar stock, rather than getting yourself a stash of 30 inch+ long flat stock. There's also the traditional element working in swords - for katanas in particular, tradition plays a huge part - many sword art practitioners won't touch a sword if it's not made in a manner as close to Japanese tradition as possible.

Also, with properties such as balance, speed, and weight - these are mainly matters of geometry, and I'm sure that if some smith somewhere were to become interested in doing stock-removal swords, it would be perfectly possible to duplicate the handling properties that appeal to the practicing swordsman. I would go so far as to say that part of a sword's appeal is the manner of its construction, and thus a sword made by stock removal would have less of a market than swords made by forging, because stock removal is not something the martial artist looks for in a sword. Ditto stainless steel, ditto non-traditional fittings, ditto non-historical blade shapes. Many of these features are kept traditional because all the pertinent field research in sword performance (i.e., battle, hacking people up, etc.) was done back when swords were still weapons, meaning that tradition = state of the art, as far as swords are concerned. However, much of what a Japanese-style swordsmith does is tradition for tradition's sake. There are so many misguided myths in that particular field that this entire discussion would seem like a roomful of people in perfect agreement by comparison.
 
i honestly dont know about the swords. the only one that comes to mind that i would trust to be of a similar or higher calliber would be one of the busse custom infi swords. i know that they have made them of a2, and with their heat treat i would imagine them to be of the highest calliber.

i honestly dont know. havent looked into it enough to even give an opinion on it. most of what ive read and heard and understand has been gleaned from random pages read at 4am, regarding the ability to forgeweld a soft core, hard sides and edge etc, and the different techniques involved in that, but otherwise my knowledge is very limited.

its a topic that is very rarely discussed from what ive seen, and id be interested in learning more about it. i havent seen any articles that discuss the structural beneifts of forgewelding damascus to increase strength, vs. alloying steel compositions like is normally discussed. honestly, i havent seen any articles yet that discuss the benefits of damascus over homogenous steel (wich may be because im not looking in the right place).

its an interesting point in the topic, wether damascus can be made stronger or better then regular steel, both in the common form (tortion patterns, etc), and in the older forms of core steels and other laminating techniques.
 
The use of lamination techniques has been much-discussed in more sword-oriented forums. People have extreme opinions in either direction (superior vs. inferior) but from a scientific standpoint, it's generally acknowledged that forging swords to shape does not compress it, "pack" the edge, or otherwise alter the basic composition of the steel. Furthermore, every forge-welding operation creates a lamination zone that may, at some point, de-laminate. Pattern-welded damascus is widely acknowledged to be, at best, a competitive alternative (in terms of performance) to the steels available today, depending on the steels used in their composition and the skill of the smith making the damascus.

As to the Japanese lamination methods, the most reasonable explanation for the compicated lamination process is the general scarcity of good steel in Japan in those days. High quality steel was reserved for the edge, while lower-grade steel (and sometimes iron) was used as core/side material. Some smiths have called these complicated lamination techniques inferior to a properly heat treated blade of homogenous composition, and others have adopted simpler lamination techniques (simple folded steel blades, or three-layer blades) for aesthetic reasons. Very few smiths will claim that one of their laminated (or simply folded) blades will outperform one of their own homogenous steel blades.

The biggest claim that can be made for laminated/wootz blades is that alternating layers of hard and soft material create a blade that withstands shock better, but maintains a hard edge. Modern steels can be formulated in such a way as to balance hardness and toughness, possibly (probably?) as efficiently as mechanical mixtures of hard and soft steels.

There's really just no comparison between modern steels and ancient steels. Smiths will still make their own custom steels, but what comes out of our modern steel mills is everything that the ancients wished they had. As far as I'm concerned, forging is just one way to make blades - and a very nice way it is. Certainly it's not inferior to stock removal - not inherently, anyway.
 
Putting aside the chemistry for a moment. To me the key difference is the end result. The forging process seems to be more amicable to shaping the blade into something with proper geometry and balance. This may not be as big of a factor on smaller knives; but I have yet to see anyone produce a khukuri through stock removal, that comes anywhere near the knives made through more traditional forging.

n2s
 
NickWheeler said:
I forge, therefore I am.... :rolleyes: and I don't wear cowboy hats, ever.

-Nick-

http://www.wheelerknives.com
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Wut you got against cowboy hats? LOL

Cliff Stamp once noted in an aside that offered 2 identical knives, one being stock removal and the other being forged, he would pick the forged, simply because of the extra working of the steel from forging.

I own one forged blade, a bowie from Gib Guingard. It is a work of art. Part of the blade is unfinished, still showing the hammer marks and the roughness from the forge. To me, it is the most pleasing part of the blade. No doubt about how it was made.

Nick, what a bummer! With my old computer and old AOL, your banner on the homepage covered up the gallery link and I couldn't look at your knives. I'm going to try with my Dads PC. My Mac is just too old and the new ones are just too much $$$$.

Rob
 
Okay, I'll be serious :eek:


I first started making knives before I was even a teen-ager. I would look through magazines and see what I liked, and then with my progression into engineering I came up with design concepts that I liked.

When I was doing only stock-removal, I would pick up a bar of steel and draw a knife that would fit on that particular piece of steel. I very rarely could make a knife that really just did "it" for me.

When I started forging I found that there's an intimacy you gain with the steel that's not quite possible with just the saw and grinder.

I finally was able to start making knives that looked like I wanted them to. To physically create the expressions that had been locked in my head since I started.

Also, in this day and age, to most people steel is something absolutely static...something that comes in a definitive shape from a factory somewhere.
To be able to take a piece of it, heat it in a forge that I built, then use my hands and a hammer to sculpt it into a blade of MY design/liking is absolutely EMPOWERING! :D

I have studied at length, and continue to study, the metallurgy behind what I do in the shop with knives. Utimately I believe it comes down to the thermal cycling and hardening, tempering, and edge geometry to come out with the best possible blade of a given steel. Simply from the heat-treating perspective, the forging is a series of thermal cycles that can either help set-up a fine grain in the post forging thermal work, or can actually blow it up and make it very poor.

I can sit down at my band-saw and start the process of making a very fine cutting instrument out of S30V. I do it farely often.

But would I rather sit at the band-saw or go grab a 2" round chunk of W2 and start forging it into a knife?

For me personally... I want to stand at the anvil. So for me, in that little way, forging is DEFINITELY "WORTH IT."

However, I still do both, and still love making knives either way.

I'm just a knifemaker in the end :D

-Nick Wheeler, bladesmith

http://www.wheelerknives.com
 
:D "I'm just a knifemaker in the end"

, a humble servant ready to provide all your bladeware requirements :D

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Belts and abrasives etc., bits etc. are all irrelevant to custom knives costing 500$+, it is common for forged knives to start at $1000 and go up. These prices are all based on popularity of the maker more than anything else. This does not mean those materials are free, it means that the cost of materials is inconsequential to the final cost of the knife because it is a minor percentage.

Where this becomes an issue is with machinability and how it influences the makers time, not the belts. A maker would actually make more money if he had belts which wore out twice as fast but cut twice as fast because his time spent grinding is a lot more costly than the belts he went through same for the rest of the equipment. For a hobbiest guy its the opposite.

Be completely frank, how many hours does it take a forger like Fowler to make a pronghorn. This is time he spends, not time waiting for it to cool or whatever as you can be making another knife while one is tempering etc. . Now divide that time into the cost and look at the hourly wage. Now see how inconsequential the materials cost are to his time.

Now if you want to look at equipment in general, you can get costly on both sides depending on ovens, cryo facilities, etc. . My point was that simply that forging doesn't save you money because you can use an odd shaped piece of steel, or save you money because you can hammer a knife to shape rather than grind it all away.

Yes I have used Fowler's 52100 and 52100 from other makers including another custom of similar edge geometry and a Howing Rat from Swamp Rat. Fowlers was far behind in terms of edge retention and the blade strength was really low as the spine was annealed soft and thus trivial to bend. It cut decently well due to the thin edge, but was easily out cut by the custom which had the same edge and thinner stock which also had a more durable edge. More details can be seen in the various reviews.

We went though all this when I did the review, it can all be seen in the thread in the reviews forum.

-Cliff
 
Cliff Stamp said:
...it is common for forged knives to start at $1000 and go up.
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Where in the world did that come from? Very few bladesmiths have a starting price of $1000.00. From most of the top bladesmiths, basic hunters will start at well below $1000.00. For those that are new to knives and would like to check out forged ones, please don't be mislead by Cliff's statement. You will find thousands of forged knives that are well under $1000.00 and even quite a few that are under $200.00. There are at least as many stock removal makers that have a starting price of $1000.00 as there are bladesmiths in this region.
 
High end mainly, which is what I specified earlier, plus I was thinking on large bowies mainly, the smaller hunters and utility pieces are usually a lot cheaper. When the price drops down and your profit margin gets small, then almost everything is significant. But even then though, it is not like forging allows cheaper blades for reasons noted in the above and makers time is pretty much paramount. The only time that you can ignore time is when your "makers" are actually production workers and their hourly wage is actually really low. But then this really isn't applicable to a discussion of forging vs stock removal, especially when the names tossed around promoting forging have 5+ year waits and extremely expensive knives.

-Cliff
 
LJK said:
Hey Charlie Cheesewang:
Looks like you'll be needing more popcorn and soda.
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Charlie went on a short vacation. He should be back later this week. ;) :)
 
In defense of Ed's Pronghorn, Cliff, the one you chose to base your entire argument on was an older model knife. Nothing wrong with that knife, it is a glimpse in time on the journey of Ed's knifemaking. Your assumption that it's performance qualities should represent all of Ed's knives and the knives he currently makes, is far off the mark.

Personally, to me Cliff, you have become like an old woman at the Oscars saying who's the best and worst dressed. When you decide to get serious and maybe make something yourself, I will think more of you as a man. Let those who you critique be your judge as well. If you have any grit...

As for this arguement about stock removal vs. forging, it has lost interest to me.
David
 
2knife said:
.... base your entire argument on
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Which isn't the case. What I said is based on working with many other forged knives, and basic properties of materials, which again have simply been ignored in place of lyrical fantasy. I also compared Ed's knife which other knives *made at that time*.

You really want to believe that Ed's 52100 is so much better than other forgers currently using it whose knives I have used then go ahead. Have you ever actually compared them and found Fowlers to be greatly superior? I have never seen this done.

As for I have never made a knife, that is nonsense and shows simple fanatical devotion and inability to even consider an opposing viewpoint thus red herrings are thrown up in defence.

If you want to know how a car handles do you ask your friend who owns and drives one, or do you go to the people who make and sell the car and ask them.

-Cliff
 
Cliff,
Your reputation is built on your words. Others who have devoted themselves to the pursuit of knives have done the work. I feel you should base your opinions and criticisms on more. You take cheap shots. I know different.
David
 
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