Today's little ugly project.

Gotta get myself to sanding the bone one final time, polishing the edge out and all that fun jazz. Life ain't so quick and easy w/o a belt sander :P
 
DarthTaco123 said:
Gotta get myself to sanding the bone one final time, polishing the edge out and all that fun jazz. Life ain't so quick and easy w/o a belt sander :P
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I hear ya there man! Get yourself a good file (mil bastard) and clamp the blade down flat to the edge of a table so the handle hangs off with the edge facing you. File away. You can remove material quite fast that way. You have to move the clamps around to get to everything but it works much faster than just sandpaper.
 
That's what I've been doing thus far! Been working well I suppose. Never too fun when you're past the smithing part. Something about hammering in 2000 degree steel brings out the zen in me.
 
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Here's the progress so far. Gonna take an angle grinder with a wire wheel to the blade then put 'er to the stone. I fear the temper on the Sax is a little too soft for my liking, but we'll see. Got a good spring to it though!
9A7CF512-5268-4FF2-AFB4-6124DDCE628B.jpg
 
Couple of stout blades there. Tough and manly type blades but they look like they would do a good job. One of the things I will mention is that you might want to consider tuning your hammer you forge with. If you can keep your strokes flat and you always dimple a specific spot sand that off so your strokes leave a smoother blade. Less filing to do once you are done peening the edge. It takes time but it really is worth it to keep practicing till you get to that point.
 
Gotta pick me up some sand paper to put a bit o' polish on them, and yes Shav, I do indeed need to work on the hammers :P. It's not too bad with the dimpling now with my awful hammer strikes, you should have seen my first knife, that was made with the logic of "big hammer hit hard make knife". I ended up learning that day that steel indeed does burn, it doesn't feel good on one's wrist, and railroad spike are bad steel.
 
i seem to recall one of our other forumites pinning his foot to the floor with his new-ground sharp pinty when he also was barefoot in his shop.

p.s. - forgot to say i like that seax a lot.:)
 
kronckew said:
i seem to recall one of our other forumites pinning his foot to the floor with his new-ground sharp pinty when he also was barefoot in his shop.

p.s. - forgot to say i like that seax a lot.:)
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Hmmm? Wonder who that couldda been:rolleyes:
 
luckily it was NOT me. maybe he will confess if he sees this. :)
we could always hunt thru the archives. i seem to recall he posted pictures. it was not a pretty sight. of course even before the incident he was not exactly pretty.

personally i have stepped on a two-penny nail in my sneakers, almost sliced my thumb off cleaning a fish (5 stitches), got stabbed in the gut with a snapped epee blade during a match (only went thru about a half inch), almost cut off my left index fingertip (3 stitches & a dead nerve), and other minor cuts, scrapes, bruises, hematomas, major tissue damage and other minor unmentionables. so far have managed not to drop any knives, tip down anyway. oh, i forgot, got blown up by an IED. (one we made from scavenged chemicals when i was a junior in HS, two of us got some minor shrapnel wounds, i still have glass in varios bits of me.)
 
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kronckew said:
luckily it was NOT me. maybe he will confess if he sees this. :)
we could always hunt thru the archives. i seem to recall he posted pictures. it was not a pretty sight. of course even before the incident he was not exactly pretty.

personally i have stepped on a two-penny nail in my sneakers, almost sliced my thumb off cleaning a fish (5 stitches), got stabbed in the gut with a snapped epee blade during a match (only went thru about a half inch), almost cut off my left index fingertip (3 stitches & a dead nerve), and other minor cuts, scrapes, bruises, hematomas, major tissue damage and other minor unmentionables. so far have managed not to drop any knives, tip down anyway. oh, i forgot, got blown up by an IED. (one we made from scavenged chemicals when i was a junior in HS, two of us got some minor shrapnel wounds, i still have glass in varios bits of me.)
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You forgot the time you got crushed by the drawbridge and the wolves ate off all your appendages before the moat monster saved you;)
 
that doesn't count, it was only a flesh wound; the elder goddess, cthulhu's sister (the beautiful ol' one eye, my beloved) put me back together very nicely. the moat monster got a monster cookie too. the draw bridge got 50 lashes. it's bi-polar i think, rapid mood swings, sometimes it's up, some times it's down. Poppy had a severe talking to with the dire wolves that just because my limbs got scattered didn't mean they could eat them like they normally do to others. i gave them what for too, after my limbs grew back.
 
kronckew said:
major tissue damage and other minor unmentionables.
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Kron, even I know you have to keep the sharp pointies away from your unmentionables... they just don't go well together. Much blood spilling.


Darth, that ring tail is looking really good. But why do you think RR spikes aren't good steel? I have seen some really nice T-hawks and knives made from them. Seem to forge out well but don't know how they do with hardening?
 
RR spikes don't harden very well, only about 1040-1045ish. I could probably case harden 'em or come up with some super soaker for them but it really isn't worth the effort when I've got a bit o' rebar left that hardens much easier.
 
DarthTaco123 said:
It's not too bad with the dimpling now with my awful hammer strikes, you should have seen my first knife, that was made with the logic of "big hammer hit hard make knife".
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It's amazing how quickly hot steel will move under the hammer. One guy, I forget who exactly, likened it to stepping on a moist cow patty.
 
DarthTaco123 said:
RR spikes don't harden very well, only about 1040-1045ish. I could probably case harden 'em or come up with some super soaker for them but it really isn't worth the effort when I've got a bit o' rebar left that hardens much easier.
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i've got a rr spike hawk, i think it's been case hardened & tempered, nice colors anyway. haven't sharpened it as it already was a razor when i got it, so can't say how hard it is.

spiketomahawk004_DCE.jpg

i bought the head, the rest is my fault.
 
DarthTaco123 said:
Heated it to ~1500 degrees and quenched the edge, let the heat sink back into the blade from the spine to temper it. No hamon though, got's myself a bit too pieced-together forge for that.
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Nicely done!
If you quench just your edge, you'll get a hardening line-even if you then quench the rest of the blade at sub-critical (this can crack an edge if it's really thin, but it gives a very tough spine-more like differential tempering than hardening.
Tempering an edge with the heat of the spine is a beautiful thing when it works right-i did some tool dressing when I was younger and that was the technique: reforge point, heat to critical, quench, hit tip on grinder (or hotfile) and watch the colurs come in, then into the slack tub.
Isn't it nice that it's not -20 in the shop anymore?
 
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