San Mai BAC WIP

Bruce Culberson

Bruce Culberson

Joined
Feb 6, 2007
Messages
1,298
Not sure if this will work out or not but I'll try to document my attempt at making a wrought iron and 15n20 San Mai knife.

Disclaimer: If you live in the USA please be aware that San Mai III is a registered trademark of Cold Steel. I live in Canada and I'm trying to make San Mai BAC....

Wrought Iron fromm a wagon wheel rim (that my dad gave me) and 15n20 from Aldo Bruno:



First up is to straighten the wagon wheel:



I was told to get wrought iron good and hot for forging:



To be continued....

I guess I missed photos of the next couple steps, but I cut two pieces 5" long x 1.25" wide from the straightened wagon wheel. Then I ground one side of each of them to clean, solid steel and tack welded them to a bar of 15n20:



To be continued....
 
Looking forward to this Bruce.
Hope you are able to get warrantee on that crooked 15n20:D

Darcy
 
Run your forge hot if welding wrought. Also a little rich so you have nice flames coming out of the forge.
 
Thanks for the tip JT. I run a venturi burner, so not much control on the atmosphere. I did run 'er hot with flames coming out the doors though:



My friend DEllis stopped by with his 10lb sledge which made easy work of drawing out the billet:



The billet stretched out from the initial 5"x1.25"x7/8" to 9"x2"x1/4". Gonna split this billet into 2 and we'll each make a knife:



Looks like it welded and the core stayed pretty centered:

 
So what does BAC stand for? In my line of work it stands for Blood Alcohol Content, which may be appropriate here too [emoji1]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
A.McPherson, I stand corrected (thanks Rick) - BAC stands for Bad Ass Cutlery.

Here is the Adjustable Air Intake Control Cylinder I use on the venturi side arm burner:



When you depress the end of the cylinder it does reduce the air flow causing both more flames and lazy flames to exit the door of the forge.

You can see in this video that it was in place for the forge welding project:

[video=youtube;Y_N5-GdSCgo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_N5-GdSCgo[/video]
 
Last edited:
Bruce Culberson said:
Right. I do use a proprietary Adjustable Air Intake Control Cylinder (AAICC) that I developed. I'll post a pic of it later....
Click to expand...

I grinned when I read this!:D
I notice you didn't use the Caribou purple can:rolleyes:

Darcy
 
So things I will never understand.
How can you put "genuine draft" in a can?
Isnt draft beer supposed to come out of a tap and go into an ice cold mug?
Dozier
 
I marked the billet down the center, then cut it in half with a zip cut:





Then into vinegar for a quick etch:



DEllis and I were each going to make a knife from the billets but ran into some issues - which I'll let Darcy explain.....
 
I decided to make a Japanese inspired style blade from my half of the billet......I will let the pictures do the talking for a minute.











It showed much promise for turning out nice, except the core was a bit on the thin side. That, unfortunately, was a bigger problem that I thought. I managed to keep the core centered nicely along the edge, but after hardening the blade(full quench) it is not rigid enough. I tried to flex the blade, and it will take a permanent set with minimal pressure. The wrought iron just doesn't have enough strength on it's own, and the core is too thin to add the required rigidity. The core ended up about .035" and the blade is .190" at the thickest with minimal, but full length distal taper.

Another blade to keep the cull bucket from blowing away in the wind:rolleyes:


Anyway, Bruce has a plan to manage this problem with his half of the billet. Over to you amigo:thumbup::D

Darcy
 
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