Hey guys, I figured it would be cool to have one thread for all of my work. I will be posting everything knife related that I make in this thread. Today I spent a few hours at the forge with my Dad and came out with these two knives. The little one is almost ready for heat treating. I forged that from an old German wood lathe gouge. The bigger one is a camp chopper forged from 5160 I want to make for myself. It's far from being done at the forge. I still have to give it some distal taper and forge in the bevels. I might make the profile a little different too. Let me know what you guys think!
Looking good man. Forging is quite an addiction I have found, still hunting an anvil but I now know why many of you forge your blades. The freedom of it all is wonderful
Forging is addicting and frustrating at the same time lol. Thanks for the complements everyone. They are far from perfect but its a blast to do.
Thanks Steve, I'm going to grind the bevels and leave the rest with the forged finish. The handle is a little to short so I think I might make a little leather lanyard with a piece of antler on it to lengthen the handle a bit.
Nice!!! I just about finished a new Damascus 10" blade but I treated the African blackwood handles with Tru-Oil and apparently that takes about a week to fully dry a cure. Wasn't expecting that so now it's cured but waiting for my custom makers leather stamp to show up before doing the sheath.
Awesome man! Did you make the Damascus too? I have never tried Tru-Oil or black wood before but I have used tung oil on ebony. It seemed to dry fairly quick.
I bought the Damascus at a great price $40 for a 12" x 1 1/2" ladder pattern billet 4mm thick. The African black wood looks amazing but being such a hard wood I think it takes a while for the oil to fully penetrate it. I used it on Chechen hard wood it wasn't nearly as hard and seemed to cure in 24hours.
That's a pretty good deal on the Damascus! Where did you score that? I bet it's the hardness that slows things down.
Cool thanks man I bought a billet from cutting edge and its no good for blades. It's got some cold shuts. It's also not solid damascus there is a layer in the centre like "San Mai" style but its not consistently the same thickness and in some spots it comes right to the surface. I forged a blade from it last fall but its garbage now. One side of the blade has the pattern all the way through and the other side has a huge bare spot.
Bummer! These billets seem to be fairly good pattern goes straight through would suggest thinning out the billet a bit for the average knife to get a really nice cutting edge OR hollow grind.
How thick are they? The billet I bought was 1/4" thick. It's good enough for guards and bolsters but that's about it.
Ok so I did some playing around and came up with this. I think it looks awful. What do you guys think? It feels way better in the hand with that little piece of antler on the end but... I think it's funny looking.
