Hi guys, so decided to make a split blade dagger, here is the template rendering. sorry not really precise scaling but will give you a idea. the handle will be sculpted out of African black wood and the guard and pummel will cast aluminum ....the designs of pummel and guard may differ from the rendering....any ideas ...fire them off I'm open. take a look and comments are very welcome. Cheers
I would do all the bevels and details of the blade before cutting out the slot. Might be easier having a solid tip, take finish to 400 grit then heat treat. Instead of casting and risking porosity and other junk I would just cut out of a larger plate or round bar and have the pommel turned on a lathe.
Hey John, yeah that was my plan in order to split the blade...thinking of using the old angle grinder. the reason for casting is I just fabricated a Arc foundry and looking forward on getting creative with it. and the other reason is I don't have a lathe...wish I did, because I got tons of idea that would require it.
Local welding supplier carries 1/8" to 3/8" carbon arc electrodes and they have a copper coating to improve conduction.
It is vaporized and little to none will make it into the melt. They are used for gouging steel for weld preparation and copper transfer would result in cracking if absorption was an issue. To make life easier and a little safer search on "carbon Arc welding" and the electrode holder that was used back in the early 1900's. There is even a version that had a hydrogen injector for welding stainless steel, today you could use argon for shielding the material in the furnace
the basics of it all and how to build one, antiques are rarer than hens teeth http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-carbon-arc-torch-for-your-220-volt-stick-we/ Older welding books from the 40's go into detail about the process. and you are basically building a carbon arc furnace, tons of pictures of old designs you can build
Oh yea, one electrode in the roof or top and a couple in the floor of you furnace will work better. This is how industrial size units are set up since the current flows through the material and it melts sooner plus arc initiation is pretty straight forward
Basically that's what it is...also saw that princess auto sell some various carbon arc electrodes....I saw another guy that built a electric melting pot...but wouldn't trust it really....
I think a refractory clay might work but if it leaks like what happens in a mill you would not want to be around. Might be easiest to have one electrode angled and fixed in place going in from near the top or even in the top. The second one you could feed into a hole in the top that you could use as a feed hole if you want to add in more little bits as it melts.
