Last week I moved my wife's decrepit old garden shed from where it has been since we first bought our place. Lo and behold, underneath I found enough coal to fill a 5-gallon bucket.

This weekend I didn't have to work, so I fired up my forge for the very first time. I mean really fired, not just building a wood fire to heat the shop or roast hot dogs. I attempted to harden two mountain main-style throwing knives I've been working on. They are just made from mild steel (it was all I had at the time), so I didn't expect much out of them. They are so soft that even throwing them at a stump a few months ago put a bend in one.

The forge itself worked great. It's about 3 feet across, so I blocked it in with some bricks, and used an air mattress pump for a blower. If you want to push a lot of air, that's definitely the way to go.

Here's the results:



Heating the steel: On the first knife, I tried to use the clay hardening method, which didn't seem to work so well, mainly because the clay broke off while I was turning the blade over. The second knife (the one with the rivet holes in the tang) I just heated and quenched. Nothing fancy.


As you can see, I clearly need to invest in some tongs.

I really like the way the speckling pattern turned out. I think the one with the rivet holes will look nice with the edges polished and the speckles on the flat of the blade. The other knife is more of the experimental model.





By the way, as a safety note, those are really stupid gloves to wear for hot work. The backs are all nylon.

After they had cooled off, I took some sandpaper to them to see what I ended up with. Both of them still have a long way to go, but I think they will be okay for throwing knives.

My next project? Turning a railroad spike into a lance head.

I have a few more pictures at http://s441.photobucket.com/albums/qq132/Stormsforge/Forge%20Work/Mountain%20Man...

As always any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

oooooooh-ahhhhhhh nice

I've considered this but being fat and somewhat lazy (there has to be an easier way to do this) I'll keep this one as a pipe dream ... perhaps when I retire.

#62

ooooh, what is this magical unbreakable shiny stone you are using?   

looks good, man! 

Paleoarts wrote on Jun 7^th, 2010 at 9:50am:


You see - there was no need to react indignant when we were shocked by your use of steel knives in your crafting.

Rat Man wrote on Jun 8^th, 2010 at 3:25pm:


Heat 'n beat. Isn't that where wrought iron comes from? (I had to peek...nope)

It appears that a "bloomerie" or forge was established at any location where good grade bog iron, a sizable river and an abundance of timber for charcoal

... bog iron is transformed into wrought by melting in the bloomerie

Et Cetera wrote on Jun 8^th, 2010 at 7:25pm:

You'll need a different kind of furnace because pure aluminum melts a a lower temperature than iron. You might accidentally vaporize a small portion of the aluminum you are working with and cooling from too high a temperature could cause warping if you use a "real" iron furnace. I've melted aluminum foil in my backyard grill, which barely reaches high enough temperatures to temper most steels.

A week or so ago we went to the Golden Spike monument in Utah, where the two halves of the Transcontinental Railroad met up. Everyone else is admiring the exact, fully functional replicas of the two engines. Me? I looked at the tender full of coal, and all I could think of was. . .

"Man! Could I pound a lot of steel with that!"

And Grandma got kind of lippy along the way. We worked out a solution though . . .

lol