making a higonokami

[clockworkfish]

Hey y'all, so i've been wanting to make a higonokami for the past year especially after looking at http://www.christoph-reischer.at/wb/pages/de/galerie/higonokami.php but the part that's been holding me back is how to make a clean and accurate bend in the metal, the rest seems easy enough. Would i need to develop a die for this or is there some simple way of bending this shape accurately that i am missing? i figure it shouldn't be that complex as the design has been around for long enough. in addition ive kind of dreamed of making a linerlocking higo by using like a 410 stainless for the handle. if anyone has any ideas that would be greatly appreciated

 

[Carcara]

The simplest piece of tooling needed is a bar of steel for a mandrel the thickness of the blade with one smooth edge with the corners rounded so they do not cut into the metal you are forming around it. With brass or mokume gane, it is a basic metal smithing exercise of cold forging, annealing, forging, annealing, forging until the metal is snugly wrapped around your mandrel. Using hammers with polished faces helps. Any dings and dents are then filed and polished out. Usually after the last course of hammering it is not annealed to give a work hardeded condition. With 416 I might consider hot forging it around the mandrel depending on how stiff the steel felt..

 

[clockworkfish]

OHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh that makes a lotttt of sense! cannot believe i didn't think about that, used to steel not lighter metals. Thanks very much man!