Results of my morning forge session.

Salem Straub

Salem Straub

Joined
Oct 20, 2008
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Well, here's what I spent a couple of hours this morning doing, thought I'd share. I took a piece of W1, 1" round by 8" long and forged it into this blade. I got this steel from Deker, I love this stuff and it's priced so right.

Usually when I forge an integral, I leave the bolster area round and fairly thick, 5/8" or so. I thought I'd try something a bit different on this one. While a large blade, I want it to have a slim feel, so I forged the bar down to about 1/2" thick by 1" wide stock, then used my guillotine fuller to set down the start of the blade and the plunge about 7/8" apart. The resulting bolster is about 1/2" thick right now and will be a little slimmer when ground clean.

After setting the bolster, I forged the 2" to the right of the shoulder into a full tang, I guess about 4-1/2" long. It'll be tapered by grinding.

Then I forged the blade steel to the left of the bolster into a kind of hybrid camp/bowie thing. The blade has a mild clip which will be a little more pronounced after profiling. I forged the entire rest of the bar into a blade, I just figured I'd find out how long it wanted to be. It's been normalized twice.

Hammer wise, I broke the stock down with an 8# double jack, did most of the shaping with my 6# straight peen, and wet-finish-forged the bevels with my 3-1/2# flat faced cross peen. Now I have a couple blisters...

There is a lot of steel in one of those drops, the overall length is 15-1/4" and the blade is 10" from tip to bolster. I plan for this blade to get green canvas micarta, SS corbys, and a hamon.

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Nice, Salem:thumbup: I like how the bolster turned out. The handle design is right up my alley too. Very nice work, and I can't wait to see more.

I just finished up a day in the shop as well, but mine was a lot more boring, mostly cutting and gluing up handle slabs and liners, my least favorite part of knifemaking......but even that is still pretty good:D
 
Cool I want to try to do that too...But with a bolster and pommel...But i dont have a guillotine or a hack tool....
keep up the good work
 
Hey thanks Jon, I'll probably post more later. Stay tuned.

Thanks John White. Your knives are SICK.

Frontier, you should make yourself a guillotine. It's pretty easy, you should see mine. You'd laugh it's so ghetto looking. I welded it together with a torch before I had arc. But it gets the job done.
 
Awesome forge work Salem! That piece has a really nice flow. It is shocking how much steel is actually in 8" of 1" round isn't it?

I can't wait to see how this one turns out. Make sure you post more pics!

-d
 
Very nice work. I would have thought you used a power hammer, and am glad to see that you didn't!
 
Really nice job. That is some clean looking work, very nice lines too.
 
Hey thanks, guys. I'm really not trying to fish for compliments, if someone out there hates it, fire away. It's just that the opinions of knifemakers matter a bit more than the general public.

I know you guys have killer stuff on your benches. I wanna see what everyone else is up to...
 
Well, it's not forged, but you asked so this is what I was working on today. Got these five blade cleaned up post heat treat and I have a bunch of handle slabs and liners all glued up getting ready to put on. This was a really fun batch to work on.

Oh yeah, my best buddy stayed with me in the shop ALL day long.....only because the kids were in school:D

Again Salem, I'm really looking forward to watching your latest project progress. I think it's off to a killer start!:thumbup:

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I like your clean grinding, Jon. Those look great. Also quite the motley assortment of clamps you have there. Those little Kant-Twist clamps are swell. Is that a little kiridashi-type blade over on the right?

Jeez, you guys that grind from barstock really crank 'em out.
 
Salem Straub said:
I like your clean grinding, Jon. Those look great. Also quite the motley assortment of clamps you have there. Those little Kant-Twist clamps are swell. Is that a little kiridashi-type blade over on the right?

Jeez, you guys that grind from barstock really crank 'em out.
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LOL, yeah I've got a nice eclectic clamp collection:D I have five of the Kant Twists, and would love to have a couple dozen more but they are pricey little buggers!!

I don't know if that little knife would qualify as a Kiridashi. I call it my Two Finger Wharnie. Here is a pic of a finished one.

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Salem Straub said:
Hah! That little knife is crazy. I really like it.
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Thanks a lot Salem! I like it too. The design is actually just the result of having a small piece of barstock left over that I didn't want to go to waste. That one was one of my first knives, but I've made some improvements and I have several more pieces of steel that I don't want to go to waste!.........:D
 
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