What makes a knife "forged"?

[Lorien]

I forgot, yes, you definitely need to harvest the raw material yourself and smelt it in a bloomery made from your own feces

 

[Jesse Latham]

Threads like this make me chuckle. And gives me the urge to add edge packing is required.

 

[N.W. Gean]

Threads like this make me chuckle. And gives me the urge to add edge packing is required.

The way I had some steel moving on me last week, I would almost swear that was real. I either broke the laws of physics or just didn't have good hammer control...

 

[helobite]

Factory claims for "forged" blades are stretching the definition. At least for pocket knives, blades are "blanked" from sheet sheet with punches. Then they are ground, and somewhere before or after, heat treated. I do have a Cold Steel "forged" knife, and I am certain it is a forging. That is a blank piece of steel, pulled out of a oven, and hit with a multiple ton forge hammer. It is a very quick way to shape material.

Advertising claims about forging are all based on the romance of someone beating a hot billet on an anvil with a hammer. Custom smiths can do that, but not cost competitively with factory knives.

It is my opinion, the OP should do whatever he wants. However for a custom knife, I would rather have a ground billet that is afterwards sent to a heat treatment shop. When individuals heat steel by eyeball, they are likely to burn the steel.

 

[scott kozub]

Why you said that ? Why state that you forge your knives is marketing for the mass?? Nothing is wrong with forged knifes . In fact, it is not an easy job to get experience take years of hammering and many knife maker enjoy to forge knives .And there are people who like forged knives and they appreciate that experience Some of them sell that knives for price you can only dream ............

I didn't mean to imply that forged knives are inferior. What I meant is that much marketing implies that forged knives are superior which isn't necessarily true. I have customers who walk when they hear I don't forge because they think forging makes a superior product.

Some day I hope to get set up to forge because it looks like a lot of the fun and the artistry far exceeds stock removal in my opinion.