I had the idea of using a small stainless steel hatchet as a cut-off tool for forging. It seemed like a good idea – stainless is not very sticky and it’s pretty tough stuff.
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I had the idea of using a small stainless steel hatchet as a cut-off tool for forging. It seemed like a good idea – stainless is not very sticky and it’s pretty tough stuff.
Some closeups of metal using a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens. The depth of field of the lens is very shallow, and it’s a pain to hand-hold.
Doing flat-grinds on a belt sander is an eye/hand skill you never completely forget. But you can get rusty. So, I’ve been working the stiffness out of my muscle memory, while experimenting with my whole tool-chain to see what works best, where. My tool-chain has gotten vastly more powerful and complicated since I was in high school, making “prison shiv” style knives with just a file and a bench grinder.
Something seems to have clicked and I’m getting good results forming welded bar-stock, now. I’ve started to consistently and easily (it’s still work, it’s becoming predictable work) get forge-welds and I’m producing bars that harden nicely, don’t warp or blow apart, and seem to be very tough with good edge-holding properties.
I’ve been continuing to experiment with welding, and have tried to actually make a few things out of some of the steels I’ve been assembling.
One of the things I love about science is that it proceeds not just by learning what is true, or what works – but by learning what is not true or what does not work. Naturally, we’d all rather make great leaps of understanding, but sometimes we can learn a bit, and push things in a good direction if we can handle a bit of failure.
Today, I advanced the art of blade-smithing a tiny bit by discovering another thing that does not quite work.
This is not a weapon (the weapons of war are unfortunate instruments) – it’s a Japanese-style box cutter, a “kiridashi.”
So far, everything I have tried to do, today, has failed. Everything. I’m afraid to even try to boil an egg for lunch.
Today when I went over to the shop there were signs of ninjas in the sand-tray.
This is what I have on my workbench right now. I’m pretty pleased with how they came out because they’re all my metallurgy. There’s still plenty of time to ruin them, though.