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

Unfortunately just got a notice that Peters' heat treat prices will be going up as of the end of this month. blah......
 
Another 4" drop point hunter. this one wearing maroon linen micarta...one of my favorites! working on final polishing and buffing.

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I spent some time with a really good friend today. We're only 30 miles apart, but we just don't get together enough. Anyway, Stuart forged up this nice little petty, (started off bigger, like probably most pettys do, lol!) and it's impressive to me how much competence he has in moving the steel to exactly where he wants it.

Me? Not so much, lol! I started with a 5" long by 1"(?) round bar of DH3 old ass W2, and now have kind of a sword type object which weighs about 10 pounds. I used his press to draw it out, but that was lots of hammering on my part. I'm happy enough with it to normalize it and start figuring out what's under all those gnarly hammer marks and seeing it I can salvage something from the bar of steel I molested for several hours today.

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Stuart made this knife awhile ago, and I was I stole it while he wasn't looking- it's an awesome piece.
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Thats why I made my oven 27" long! I do blades up to around 23" or so long occasionally, so I wanted to be able to heat treat those. A local forge has stuff for much longer blades should I ever need it, too.
 
Taz said:
Thats why I made my oven 27" long! I do blades up to around 23" or so long occasionally, so I wanted to be able to heat treat those. A local forge has stuff for much longer blades should I ever need it, too.
Click to expand...
I'm just gonna normalize and refine the grain here, and bring it back to Stuart's for hardening since he has a nice big oven for that
 
Got the 2nd 125Cr1/15N20 144 layer blade done! Left this one a bit thicker, so the pattern isn't as smooshed together:

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Kevlar guard with a orange G10 spacer, Orange AmeraGrip handle and it has a carbon fiber pattern blaze orange Holstex sheath. Delivered it last night to my buddy; he is going to upstate New York this week for his deer hunting trip, so I got it done just in time! He wanted a fixed blade with a blade like his Buck 110, but a handle like I usually make.
 
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My latest Kaibab Kommando in NitroV leather and Elk, just under 13" OAL. Man, matching those antler undulations in leather and steel is a lot of work but I like to preserve as much bark as possible. Nothing's glued up yet, I'll be installing the guard and pommel tonight I hope.
 
I have been pretty quite in knife shop as I was trying to get ready for a solo elk hunting trip deep into the Montana mountains.

Successfully harvested a cow elk 2.5 miles from the truck so had to process in the field to be able to get the elk off the mountain, no side by side hunting in my world...

I know many makers have their idea of a perfect hunting/skinning knife but from my 34 years of hunting experience I have always been a fan of smaller more nimble knives for the task.

This knife is non optimized Magnacut at 62 Rc. Spine thickness is 0.070 inches and blade length is 2.75 inches.

I gutted, skinned, cut foreleg knuckles, and separated out major muscle groups with this little knife and it was still cleanly slicing recipt paper after.

I do love Magnacut!

 
New big toy in the shop, a 15kw(real power is lower but strong enough) induction forge! My shop does not allow for propane or coal and that forced me to look on other alternatives. Figuring out the proper cooler and electrical was a challenge. As mentioned above, it does not draw 15kw but 9kw. Nonetheless, it draws 40 amps hence the monster plug on the right side of the cart.

So far I've only done a few tests but I'm quite impressed. Even without the proper coil, I can heat up a 5mm x 50mm bar to forging temp in less than 20 seconds. Also, the variable power allows for some pretty good control on the temperature, might be a good alternative for thermo cycling. Once I've used it more, I'm going to do a proper review.

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