Pattern Welded Sword WIP

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Yesterday I ground the edges of the core clean, and ground the tip end to a nice round shape.

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This morning I started drawing out the edge wrap. What fun! NOT! For some reason my power hammer keeps wanting to change squares into diamonds. :mad: Also, I'm not used to working with pieces this long. It's already over 4' long in the picture below, and still have a ways to go.

The edge wrap is about 600 layers of 1095 and 15n20.

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Phillip Patton said:
Yesterday I ground the edges of the core clean, and ground the tip end to a nice round shape.

This morning I started drawing out the edge wrap. What fun! NOT! For some reason my power hammer keeps wanting to change squares into diamonds. :mad: Also, I'm not used to working with pieces this long. It's already over 4' long in the picture below, and still have a ways to go.
The edge wrap is about 600 layers of 1095 and 15n20.
Click to expand...

Not an easy project to say the least. Shows stones that you are doing it here for ALL to see. :cool: :thumbup:
 
Well, forging for this project is on hold until I get my power hammer in order. Not only does it turn squares into diamonds, it turns straight bars into corkscrews. :mad:

Anyway, today I worked on the drawing. I finally decided on which style appeals to me the most, and made a full scale drawing. It's a Petersen Type L. The blade is 30" long, the grip area is 4", and the overall hilt length is just under 6", for a total overall length of just under 36". The blade is about 2-3/8" wide at the guard, and 1-1/4" wide at the tip end of the fuller.


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Well, after a break of a couple weeks, I'm about ready to pick this one up again. I decided to make a set of combination dies for my power hammer. Combination means it is flat on one half and rounded on the other half.

Just so you know what goes into making the tooling for stuff, here are some pics of the die making process.

I would love to be able to buy these instead of make them, but I doubt anyone makes them exactly like I need, and also, they cost anywhere from $400 to $700. :eek: Cost for me to make them, around $80 for both...

The raw material:

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Drilling a hole and tapering it for the lathe center to ride in:

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Chucked up in the lathe, using a four jaw chuck, which can handle odd shaped pieces like this. I've also started taking material off.

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Here it is all done on the lathe:

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Here both of them are done:

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Here they are with the working surfaces coated with anti-scale compound:

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This is after oil quenching them. They were still pretty hot, so I put them in my plate quenching rig:

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Here I'm laying out the mounting holes in the base plate:

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I first drill a small "pilot" hole, then drill it to finished size:

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After tempering the dies, I grind a bevel all around the edges, so the weld goes deeper:

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Arc welded:

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I'll have to do a little grinding of the weld bead around the bolt holes and also the ends of the die, then it will be ready to use.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get both dies finished and be able to get back to drawing out that edge wrap...
 
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that you are including the manufacture of tooling in this thread elevates it to a whole other level, Phillip.
 
AWESOME!!!!!
i am just starting work in NASA langley's machine shop, so i totally appreciate your work here. I was also trying tio make my own combination dies for a little hydraulic press i am making. what kind of steel did you use for the dies?
thank you!
~chris
 
Bill Burke said:
Chris the crucible lable says 4140 in the first picture of the die in the lathe
Click to expand...


heh heh.. oops! i did look there first before asking.. i swear! *grins* so 5150 would also work? i know it is about the hardest crap that standard tools can machine..

philip... how come you are using a HSS lathe cutter and not carbide? or am i not seeing that one too? (very possible)

thanks so much
~Chris
 
Here are the last two pics showing the finished dies installed on the hammer:

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I also re-aligned the hammer head, so hopefully it will forge things flat and straight and true. :thumbup:


knifemaker87 said:
so 5150 would also work? i know it is about the hardest crap that standard tools can machine..

philip... how come you are using a HSS lathe cutter and not carbide? or am i not seeing that one too? (very possible)

thanks so much
~Chris
Click to expand...

Chris,
I'm sure 5150 would work well also. Personally, I would rather have dies that have a higher carbide content, so they don't wear so quickly. I'm planning on making another set of dies soon, for general purpose forging, and I think I'll use A2 if I can get some.

I'm using HSS cutting tools because I don't have any good carbide one's. ;)
I have some from Harbor Freight, and they're crap. I should get some nice one's, but I don't use the lathe a lot, so it's not real high on my priority list.
 
Great stuff Phillip. I appreciate your taking the time to show some machining along with the forging.

Looking forward to the next posts.

Peter
 
This morning I fired up the forge and finished drawing out the edge wrap. The power hammer was on it's best behavior. :thumbup:

Here's some pics showing the drawing out process. For those who don't know, drawing out is when you lengthen a piece by reducing the width and/or thickness of it.


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I ended up with a piece 1/4" thick, 3/8" wide, and 53" long:



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Here I'm grinding one side of it clean. This clean side will be what mates to the core bar.


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Here it is all ground:


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Next step is to heat the edge wrap in the middle, and then bend it. I was going to heat in the forge, but decided I didn't want or need 10" heated up, so I used the oxy/acetylene torch instead:



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I formed it around a round bar which has a diameter the same as the width of the core bar:


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Here it is fitted. Turns out the edge wrap was too thick, so I had to grind it down to fit the thickness of the core. But that's ok. I was actually worried that is would be too thin in some places.


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wow. This is so awesome.
 
I just made and installed the straps that keep everything aligned while I'm forge welding it.
Fwiw, the straps were forged from 5/8" mild steel round bar.


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Tomorrow morning, hopefully, I'll forge weld it all together. :thumbup: Cross your fingers and say a prayer, everybody. This is one of those steps where it could all be for nought, if the welds aren't perfect.
 
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