Hello!
My name's Kevin. I'm from all over the (South) East Coast, and am somewhat of a Nomad. I've lived and visited all over the world, but I am currently living outside Honolulu Hawaii.
Long story short, I broke my hand pretty badly in April and went from working on a wooden boat to making coin rings because I could use my arbor press with one hand. Somehow or another, that led to me to trying knives. I'm not sure the logic path there.. metal to metal? Before I completely ruined any nice carbon steel, I messed with scraps from a small metal shop associated with where I work and did i-dont-know how many bevels to try and learn some tips and tricks.
I've made a handful of 'knives' since building my first forge (to heat treat)--it was a grill with fire bricks and a pipe, powered by a hair drier. I got inconstant heat from it, so a couple weeks ago I put together an empty propane tank, gas powered forge with a DIY venturi--I also finally had corrective surgery for my hand the week before! I'm a little slow working, only having a hand and a half but I'm healing everyday!
I've been having a lot of fun making small backpack/camp hatchets, and have had much more success heat treating edges since the forge upgrade! They've chopped down a couple trees and held up!
I don't have a nice grinder yet, but I'm making due with a HEAVILY modified 4x36 that has become a 2x36. Going to get around to making a cheap one when all the scraps are right at the metal shop.
I've been doing mostly stock-removal and have been playing around with forging scrap metal. I don't exactly have an anvil yet. I've been using this giant vise I found for free that is huge and heavy. It's not the greatest, the flat surface pot-mark fairly easily. Soon hopefully I'll come across something better here.
Sorry for rambling!
Hi Kevin. Welcome aboard the ABS forum.
Dan has worked hard and has provided us with a lot of videos to watch. I would advise you to do just that while healing and gathering the necessary tools you might need for your circumstance. Let us know what we can do to help you.
Kevin
Welcome to the ABS. I know about not having but one hand to use because of breaking some part of your body. It can be very frustrating.
I hope your hand heals well. Until then it would be a good time to study as Lin suggested. You can find many ABS youtube videos to help
on almost all of your forging and heat treating. You can find many others about making tools.
Take care of your hand.
Anthony
Kevin
Welcome to the American Bladesmith Society and the ABS Forum. Our mission is education and you will find a lot of useful information on our Forum.
In addition, please visit our ABS YouTube Channel to view videos on many bladesmithing techniques at, click: https://www.youtube.com/user/ABSwebmaster
Dan Cassidy
Journeyman Smith
Send an email to Dan
Hello Kevin and welcome to the ABS and the forum. I will throw in my agreement for watching the videos on the ABS channel. A lot of really good information.
Let us know how we can help.
Brion
Brion Tomberlin
Anvil Top Custom Knives
ABS Mastersmith
Greetings and Welcome. Hope the hand is getting better. You probably forge better hurt than I do whole, anyway <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//smile.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />
Looking forward to seeing your work.
Sorry I haven't posted in a while on here. Works been hectic but I've still be practicing forging and grinding. I tried a tiny piece of Damascus a couple of weeks ago and failed miserably. Had some small scale success on mokume though. And today I managed to get a small piece of San mai to work out. Sadly, when I clamped it to my little jig for tempering I dropped it and it cracked. 😑
I already have a second small billet worked up I'll try shaping up tomorrow.
I got a very rough shape on it hammering it. But I did have to use the grinder quite a bit.
I feel like cheated a little bit. I used 80Crv2 for the core, and sandwiched it between 2 pieces of borderline sheet metal. I think it was like 14ga. I figured since I had trouble getting the welds to take, the thinner metal might be easier to work with starting out, and to learn from.
Did it crack merely because I dropped it? After I was roughly shaped, I heated it and let it cool in the forge to anneal. Then further shaped and drilled the holes. When I was ready to harden it, I heated it up t critical and let air cool 3 times. Lastly soaked for 3-4 min at temp in the forge and quenched in a peanut and veg oil mix.
Note: I did etch it for a couple minutes in PCB Etchant, I was really excited to see the San mai effect.
Iheres the small piece I'm going to try and work with tomorrow:
It started off with the same sheet metals, and a .210" core of 80Crv2
First, since I somehow missed your introduction, welcome.
As to why it broke, if you dropped it post quench but pre temper it broke because it is brittle in a fully hardened state. But, don't look at it as though all is lost. You can learn a good bit from a broken piece of hardened steel. If you can, get a clear close up image of the steel where it broke, showing the area that was on the inside. If the grain structure isn't right it will lead to failure.
Chris
|quoted:
First, since I somehow missed your introduction, welcome.
As to why it broke, if you dropped it post quench but pre temper it broke because it is brittle in a fully hardened state. But, don't look at it as though all is lost. You can learn a good bit from a broken piece of hardened steel. If you can, get a clear close up image of the steel where it broke, showing the area that was on the inside. If the grain structure isn't right it will lead to failure.
Chris
Thanks. Something like this?
It's started to develop a little bit of rust in the scrap bin. While the normal world it's winter, it's still Hawaii here and everything rusts like you wouldn't believe
Also since I mentioned it in my original post, here's my "anvil"
One of these days, I'll come across a proper one from a ship at the scrapyard or something.
Kevin, the grain structure looks a little to big to me. I would recommend posting these images in the apprentice forum asking for opinions. I know I don't always scroll down far enough to see this forum, you will probably get more views and advice there.
Chris
