sword questio

[Bart student]

Hello folks,

I've built myself a gas forge, many thanks to you bladeforums-members and the search function, especially Mr Fogg and Mr Reill's Pages have been extremely helpfull.

But now I wanna forge a sword (Single edged, more like a streched machete)... i'm still working on the movable backwall, I think I'm gonna cut a small strech (bout 2 inches long by 1/2 inch high) in the back of the stainless steel housing and make the same hole all the way trough the ceramic wool, so i can manouver longer things trough and heat certain sections. Now the forging itself won't be such a big problem, It's the hardening that bothers me... hw do you heat such a long thing at once? I've been able to heat things up to 15 inch OAL in my coalforge, by moving it up and down trough the forge... Can I heat a sword that way too in a gasforge? Or Do I better make the mounth of the forge much longer, so the heating camber get's much longer?

And how do you harden 5160 to a swordlike temper?

Anything else i need to know about forging swords? Good sword FAQ pages somewhere?

greetz & thanks in advance.

 

[Charles Dean]

You can move the whole piece through the forge like you were with the coal forge. Don Fogg talks about it in his katana forging section of his website. As far as hardening you can harden and temper like you would a knife.