Pattern Welded Sword WIP

[Sam Salvati]

Good sweet lord, Phillip that is stunning beyond anything.

 

[Bruce Bump]

Very cool thread Phillip. Theres a whole lot of twisting goin on. Cant wait to see her done.

 

[Tom Krein]

Phillip, absolutely one of the BEST EVER W.I.P. threads!

It takes a LOT of extra work to do a W.I.P. thread... THANKS for sharing!

The billet looks fantastic btw!

Tom

 

[Phillip Patton]

Well, I haven't actually done any work on the sword since I last posted, but I did make some sword length etching tanks, which I will need at some point.

I also mixed up almost enough ferric chloride to fill the tank. I used to get ferric chloride from Radio Shack, but the local ones don't carry it anymore, so I got some in powder form and mixed it up. Much cheaper this way anyhow. :thumbup:

Here it is in the bucket. As it "ripens", it will change color some.

Here are the tanks. They're made from 4" PVC pipe, and are a little over 4' tall. The one on the left holds the ferric chloride, the one on the right holds the neutralizer, which is trisodium phosphate, or TSP. I have been using plain old baking soda in water for neutralizing, but it sounds like TSP is better.

 

[Triton]

Well, I haven't actually done any work on the sword since I last posted, but I did make some sword length etching tanks, which I will need at some point.

I also mixed up almost enough ferric chloride to fill the tank. I used to get ferric chloride from Radio Shack, but the local ones don't carry it anymore, so I got some in powder form and mixed it up. Much cheaper this way anyhow. :thumbup:

Here it is in the bucket. As it "ripens", it will change color some.

Here are the tanks. They're made from 4" PVC pipe, and are a little over 4' tall. The one on the left holds the ferric chloride, the one on the right holds the neutralizer, which is trisodium phosphate, or TSP. I have been using plain old baking soda in water for neutralizing, but it sounds like TSP is better.

Snazzy. Not as "shazzam" as pounding on red hot metal, but I like that you are showing ALL the parts it is going to take to make this sword a reality.

 

[Burchtree]

Fantastic WIP thread - :thumbup:

 

[mohd]

Great work :thumbup: Very sweet pattern :thumbup: And another great WIP thread :thumbup:

All this while I've been wondering about how this style of pattern were being made. And your thread gimme some answer to it

Thanks for all the showing and the telling, Phillip

Mohd.

 

[Phillip Patton]

Well, today I did some forging on the sword. The tip end was too thick and wide, so I had to draw it out in two dimensions, while tapering it also. Here's some pics of that process:

Here you can see the slight taper I just forged in. This is about 10" of blade in this picture.

Moving up the blade:

About halfway up the blade, I started widening it, instead of drawing it lengthwise:

Here it is with all the blade pre-forged. The final width is supposed to be about 2-1/4 at the guard, and 1-1/8" just before the tip taper. I don't know if there's enough material to get that much width. I hope so, but if not, then it'll just be a narrower sword than originally intended. Remember, inside each blade is a smaller one waiting to be set free.

 

[Phillip Patton]

Next step is cutting off the extra, and drawing out the tang:

Here it is next to the pattern after I shaped the point:

Next time I work on it, I'll be widening the blade further by forging the edges out. I'll use the power hammer for that, because it's so much faster than by hand, and more importantly, it's much easier to keep the blade straight and true. I'll be using a different set of dies than I used today.

For what it's worth, we're up to about 125 pictures so far.

 

[supasuprab0b]

looking great!

cant wait to see this finished.

 

[Dawkind]

Outstanding!!!!!!!!!!

 

[atakach]

cool stuff, lotta time in that hunk of steel ya got there,

what is the thickness of the tang gonna be?

 

[gollum.]

great thread, cheers for going to all the effort
usually a good lie down is in order after forging all day ,
may I enquire about the powdered ferric chloride as I used to get it from radio shack despite the high cost and I'm due for a fresh batch.
regards Jason

 

[atakach]

if i may http://www.graphicchemical.com/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=43&cat=Acids+&+Mordants has it all

 

[Sam Salvati]

Phillip, thanks so much.

 

[Phillip Patton]

I just finished forging the sword. It was a learning experience. :grumpy:


Here I'm using the rounded dies on the hammer to draw down the edges. I think there's a special skill needed here that I don't have yet, or at least didn't have when I started. The border between the core and the edge wrap is not as straight as I'd like it to be. But, on the plus side, there are no bad welds. If there were, they would have made themselves known by now, since forging this way would force the layers apart.

 

[Phillip Patton]

More pics of the forging:

Here it is all done and set next to the template:

Here I'm grinding the scale off with the angle grinder:

After that I gave it a quick etch to see whether the core is reasonably straight. I will have to heat up the tip end to tweak it straighter.

To be continued...

 

[atakach]

excellent work, on the edge of my seat waiting to see that test etch.....this is better than a movie!!

 

[Duflar]

Ya this is like one of those cliff hanger episodes. I love this thread. Thanks for all the hard work your putting into this Phillip.

 

[CarpScot]

Thanks for taking the time to post this WIP. It is one of the most interesting things I have ever viewed on-line. :thumbup: