What's going on in your shop? Show us whats going on, and talk a bit about your work!

[bike4fun919]

Wenge scales, 1084 etched blade.

 

[Stromberg Knives]

My latest in the works, a recurve fighter with a very tapered tang and a very shiny swedge.

 

[Justin Schmidt]

Padauk hunter

 

[Michael Black]

Just finished my first attempt at damascus and started grinding only to find delamination :-/

Suggestions welcome! It's 1084 and 15N20 in a propane rich forge using regular borax. I ground each piece of steel before welding and pulled it straight out of the forge to my anvil as quickly as possible, using light-ish strikes from the middle towards the edge with a hammer with a fairly round face.

I did forget to offer a burnt offering to Hephaestus first though, so maybe that's my problem...

 

[ashwinearl]

I have yet to finish one. I am waiting on an etching machine to put my maker's mark on. With hope, I will move onto the next step. The funny thing is that each step I get anxious and hem and haw. I'll keep practicing something, till I get the courage to try the next step in the process and then all the knives move forward.

The latest step was heat treating a few that I hadn't sent out in my baby forge. Next step is etching, then epoxy, then handles, then sharpening, then sheaths...whew.

 

[Rhinoknives1]

stag frame handle, suminagashi white steel, forged and water quenched
first one of a two piece set

sweet! Your a brave man to grind Stag, the only time I’ve ever ground Stag or Bone is where someone has over stayed their welcome in my shop! Works like a charm to clear out a room!!

 

[shoudan]

Currently preparing this Tanto for an interrupted water quench hoping for a nice hamon. Steel is 80CrV2 and I left the edge 2 mm thick. Wish me luck.

 

[mknife]

after cutting the block .... made a lot of dust, it is time to mount the handle! .... even the holes have succeeded well! It seems obvious and simple, but this material is really something that I do not recommend to people who are not equipped with a lot of patience and carbide drill bits.

 

[kuraki]

Just finished my first attempt at damascus and started grinding only to find delamination :-/

Suggestions welcome! It's 1084 and 15N20 in a propane rich forge using regular borax. I ground each piece of steel before welding and pulled it straight out of the forge to my anvil as quickly as possible, using light-ish strikes from the middle towards the edge with a hammer with a fairly round face.

I did forget to offer a burnt offering to Hephaestus first though, so maybe that's my problem...

After you set the welds, how much more forging down did you do? It almost looks to me as though you got the welds set for the most part, but didn't get completed coverage with hammering after the fact, or, maybe didn't have quite even heat soaked all the way through the billet.

 

[kuraki]

I got a lot done this weekend.

Working on a pair of kukris for a customer who's coming up to spend the day with me in the shop next weekend to see them get finished, or close to finished. I straightened, surface ground, tempered the spines and got the bevels on one pretty much finished.

Got my new order of taps in so did a little work on this liner lock.

I still have heat treated blanks from almost a year ago that I'd sent out to Bos in a batch, so I finished out 3 of them. The first is AEB-L with a scotchbrite finish, black cord over blue cord. The other two are 80CRV2 that were parkerized, black cord over elephant print leather.

Got this guy sharpened up and ready to go. It's being donated to the Enlisted Association of the Tennessee National Guard banquet.

 

[Kevin McGovern]

I finally got the shop completely moved. I just finished this one. It's Nitro-V with my "coffee table" stabilized maple burl. I am really happy with the sheath. I'm finally at the point where I'm comfortable making leather sheaths and don't make as many stupid mistakes with them.





My neighbor must know about my old tool addiction. She gave me this 1920s Myers Drill press. It needs a lot of work, but it's really cool. Who among us can't use another drill press right?

 

[kuraki]

Rewinding the $#!^&% clock spring on my $#@&!^$ mill. Only took a dozen attempts.

 

[bike4fun919]

Waiting for scales, but which ones??

 

[Natlek]

This is some serious grinding jig I'm working on .Almost done , five bucks for parts from scrap yard and lot of work . . .. ..

 

[Roxport]

I don't post much, only a handful of knives so far, but this is probably the first knife i have been mostly happy with. My first kitchen knife and first saya. 1084 cocobolo and G10 scales. Saya and pin is purpleheart with a basswood liner polished with a mix of mineral oil and bee's wax. This one just seemed to fall into place, such an amazing feeling.

 

[Michael Black]

After you set the welds, how much more forging down did you do? It almost looks to me as though you got the welds set for the most part, but didn't get completed coverage with hammering after the fact, or, maybe didn't have quite even heat soaked all the way through the billet.

Hmm, yes that could very easily be the case. The initial welding I tried to flux it and get it up to temp about 3 times, but I never really went to town on it like I could have to make sure I covered every little part of it. Maybe that's what I did wrong. I may not have waited long enough and only the outside got the proper temp too. Thanks for the advice!

 

[john april]

natlek, looks cool ! post a video once its up and running. roxport, nice job on all of it. kuraki, i am glad you conquered the spring !

 

[kuraki]

Hmm, yes that could very easily be the case. The initial welding I tried to flux it and get it up to temp about 3 times, but I never really went to town on it like I could have to make sure I covered every little part of it. Maybe that's what I did wrong. I may not have waited long enough and only the outside got the proper temp too. Thanks for the advice!

Thinking about it some more I really do think that it was less about the heat and more about where you put pressure. When I first built my forging press, I naively assumed all my troubles were gone and found very quickly that if I didn't get pressure on every square inch of the billet during my welding heats, I would end up with some delaminations like yours. But instead of being very localized and surrounded by good weld, they tended to be across the billet in the direction of my press dies.

Changing to flat dies for welding that put less pressure per square inch than the rounding dies I started with, but covered more area more evenly, made that go away completely.

 

[bike4fun919]

Leopard wood scales, 1084 blade

 

[Nsewell]

51st knife but the biggest by far. Forged 1084 mortissed tang , od micarta guard