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- Jan 10, 2010
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Here is the ..middle.. of the first in a series of art knife/sword projects I will be doing. I was recently struck by the cool patterns you see in the worm/insect eaten wood you find under the bark of dead trees. So I've been on a mission collecting interesting pieces and stabilizing them and preparing them for this series. This one will be inspired by a Burmese Dah and Mr. Don Fogg. This 20" blade is forged from my own steely iron smelted from ore in a small bloomery furnace. The bloom was broken into chunks and sorted according to carbon content. Some pieces were run through a re-melting 'refinery' hearth to add carbon and general clean-up. Other bits were re-melted with some Campo de Cielo meteorite. Other bits were left as is. All of this was stacked and worked into a billet and then forge welded to a bar of Aldo 1075. I intend to give the blade a geometry (not shape as much as distal taper and cross-section) and balance and therefore cutting characteristics of a katana. Here are a few pictures of the progress...
I couldn't resist a quick peak at the pattern during grinding..still lots to do before heat treat.
I couldn't resist a quick peak at the pattern during grinding..still lots to do before heat treat.
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