New Bladesmith Progress Pictures. New Advice.

[bhforge246]

Good Evening Everyone,

I am new to Bladesmithing and have been getting great advice from members on this site. Below are images from my third attempt and blade making. Can you please let me know if I am on the right track and what I could do differently to improve. My intent is continue to build my skills.

Have a great night.

Tom

 

[john april]

its hard to tell without seeing all the angles and bevel thickness, but they look good to me. i am from massachusetts also.

 

[Storm Crow]

General shaping looks pretty good. On the bottom picture, you have a lot of really sharp hammer marks. Looks like you need to dress your hammer face, rounding the edges. Preferably, the hammer face should be a section of a sphere.

Another thing I'd look for in person but I can't see tell from the pics is bevel thickness. Not just how thin the edge is, but how thick the steel is back of the edge.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I wish I had a series of photos or a video of Sam Salvati forging a knife at Ashokan last month. He took a bar of steel and shaped a ready to clean up and HT knife from it. His had shape and flow and crisp lines. You could have done HT and put an edge on it and it would have been a nice knife.

You knife is a good start, but it clearly is just an edge pulled down from a bar. Sam shapes the whole bar, makes indents at the ricasso and pulls the edge down from the projecting steel, draws out and shapes the tang, etc.

Try using the right amount of heat so you get the most efficient amount of steel movement from the hammer. Most new makers start each forging heat way too cool, and should stop and re-heat more often. The deep hammer marks look like you are trying to make harder blows do the job of proper temperature control and hammer control. Also, think how every blow will move the steel, and place the blows in an overlapping pattern.

 

[Chris Meyer]

I don't have a video of Sam Salvati forging a knife, but here is a photo of a blade he forged at Ashokan 2013. I believe that he dressed up the sides of the choil and perhaps the blade itself with a belt grinder but, as you can see from the scale, he hadn't done anything to the face of the blade at this point. As amazing as his forging is, keep in mind that he is a full-time Blacksmith.