- Joined
- Jan 10, 2010
- Messages
- 1,818
This is my first large blade made from the very, very high carbon steel I've been making recently with a different design of an 'Aristotle furnace'. It is a larger furnace capable of making pucks of high carbon steel (by melting and carburizing antique wrought iron nails) in the 6 to 10 pound range. The down side is that it really, really packs in the carbon. My first run actually resulted in cast iron. I've since been altering parameters to bring the carbon content down.. but it is still too high and very difficult to forge. So for this blade I tried to do a 'piled structure' where I basically forged down piles of alternating layers of the steel and wrought iron. The wrought iron was intended to bring the carbon content down and worked very well. After the first forging pass things started to behave more like normal steel.
Here are a couple of pictures showing how this blade got started.
Anyway... I wanted to make a modern blade with more modern lines but also reflecting a time in which knives and swords were made this way. I based it on what are called 'war knives' that were commonly found throughout Europe during the Celtic age. They were basically big knives with simple, sometimes recurved blades. The handle on this one is based loosely on various styles I've seen.. and many had ring pommels of unknown use. I also wanted to make something a bit more toned down after my work on the Migration Cutter!
It is 18" or so OAL, walrus ivory spacer, Ceylon ebony grip and wrought iron/copper pommel.
Here are a couple of pictures showing how this blade got started.
Anyway... I wanted to make a modern blade with more modern lines but also reflecting a time in which knives and swords were made this way. I based it on what are called 'war knives' that were commonly found throughout Europe during the Celtic age. They were basically big knives with simple, sometimes recurved blades. The handle on this one is based loosely on various styles I've seen.. and many had ring pommels of unknown use. I also wanted to make something a bit more toned down after my work on the Migration Cutter!
It is 18" or so OAL, walrus ivory spacer, Ceylon ebony grip and wrought iron/copper pommel.
