forge pics

Worth asking the big boys, though- the place I got my kaowool wouldn't sell anything less than a 100 sq ft roll. Luckily for me, since they didn't sell it in lower quanities, they just *gave* me 16 sq ft. The guy at the warehouse wouldn't even accept a tip.

Definitely not at high as it could be- I'm no expert, but I have managed to freeze my 20 lb tank solid a couple of times. I put it in a bucket of hot water before I start now, and that's better. Still annoying, though- with any luck, I'll be able to scrounge up a 100# tank soon. From what I gather, that's about the size a guy needs to keep the tank from freezing.

I *think* I hardened my 1095 properly- it couldn't be filed, anyhow. I used cold water brine, and it seemed to work pretty well. I also tossed about a half cup of dishsoap in there as well without knowing exactly why, other than that was part of that "superquench" recipe. Tempering is where I kind of screwed up.

Seemed like the important part from what I could gather was making sure to normalize the part a few times before hardening- IIRC, the reasoning behind that was to relieve the internal stresses so that it does not crack in the quenchant.

"MatthewK" wrote

Remember that water-quenched material is usually not drawn again after that. The closest you come is warming the 'bouging' anvil used to straighten out warped blades. That's why they use the clay-mask to retard the quench somewhat in lieu of further heat-treatment.

Work on your water-quench maybe- it really does have some advantages that the Japanese explored pretty fully. That 'rotted leaf' thing is a refinement to the quench, as is saturated sea-salt. You can use 'ice salt' if you want- anything that will raise the boiling point of the water and retard the 'suddeness' of the quench. I hear that 'crankcase' oil is good- both for the carbon saturation and the lowered flash-point. The big dog bladesmiths use proprietary 'quenching' oil that doesn't flash, but it's relatively expensive I guess. I have some given to me years ago, and it just keeps working. I use it for tempering engraving tools- little stuff.

The axiom has always been 'forge thick; grind thin'. All of the heat treatment is done before grinding. Stock removal grinders have always been the one's pushing the steel soas to do as much grinding while the steel is in its annealed state as possible. Learn to 'draw-file' after forging, rather than grinding. The Japanese use a 'sen'; kind of a 'spoke-shaving' tool rather than a file, but the principle's the same. They don't grind the shape of the blade, they forge it- the exceptions are the big scallops and the grooves, those are formed with various 'sen' tools. You can get by without a grinder- step to a polishing lathe for finishing.

"Chilla" wrote

Yeah; right- Japan gets *cold*. They get lots of snow- why do you think they wear such heavy clothes? February is February, even in Japan. Look at the latitude of the mid to northern islands, much less the mountainous aspect, elevation, etc. The hot areas are the lowlands and the Southerly islands- and them only relatively. Even Okinawa can get chilly sometimes.

Chas

Life :) Unemployment has given me too much time to think of educational opurtunities. All the cool ones don't pay anything either. It looks like I have to go back to school :( :) I've never been the schooling type.

I really need to clean too, I've been so lethargic everything is ticking me off. :)

In retrospect, that seems like dumb stuff to get stressed about. :)

I haven't yet, I'm thinking a few 18x1.5 inch 1/16 thick pieces from one of the knifemakers outlets. I should probably just place an order with Admiral or something.

matthew ohio

Snipped all kinds of cool stuff I appreciate.

Thanks for putting that in perspective. I was looking at lindsay publications. They have an old time collection of machinist arcticles on metal scraping. Do you think that would be worth a look? Seems thats all a sen is.

Dumb kid question, whats a polishing lathe? A stick with wet/dry paper, compound?

matthew ohio

"MatthewK" wrote

absolutely- in fact, you may be able to get pieces of carbide that will fit your needs as well; a step up in technology. The handles can be wood- the Japanese ones are. The blade is very hard steel with a thick scraping edge. They can be shaped, like one made to make a dished groove; flat, angled, edge guides, depth guides- all 'easily' made. The blades held in with wedges.

A motor with wheels on it. Upper end ones are called 'polishing lathes' because they're specifically made with the right bearings (mostly) for that particular work (as opposed to raiding yer old lady's washing-machine motor). Baldor is the industry standard- mine is 1 1/2 horse pushing 14"x 1 1/2" wheels, if I want. I have a 2 horse Chinese one; made to run big grinding stones, and a 3/4 horse to run cardboard wheels. I don't 'grind' on any of them- much

Chas

Well that was interesting, I was living under a misconception. When I went to Japan it was in September and it was God awful hot, about 37 C.

Scortchio!

Where I live I've never seen snow and it's never gotten to freezing the lowest being 5 degrees.

Japan goes to -2 on average in winter, so I guess that's cold.

Regards Charles

Chas wrote:

That is about 41 Fahrenheit, right?

"Chilla" wrote

sounds reasonable- winter in the mountains is a bit more brisk.

We run from above 100F in the Summer to -25F. in the Winter. Japan ain't so bad.

Chas

Regards Charles

BTDT and instead got a job with the railroad climbing poles and digging ditches. :) Went from going to be a pharmacologist to a friggin ditch digger. :) Good choice (for me!) looking back on it.

That's what most the stuff that gets stressed about really is, but only after examination can it be seen? ;)

All I got in 1/16" is 6" wide sheets of English O1 from Enco and

What ever happened to the 8670-M idea? Cutting tool situation?

Alvin in AZ ps- if I had it my way most of the young guys would work outside and if they want to later, migrate to inside work as age catches up with them?

Japanese swords being close to a medium carbon steel might get away with that but Matthew's 1095's a different story.

I feel as tho the low-medium-high carbon steel catagories are a direct result of experience since thay don't have anything to do with carbon percentages directly.

Low carbon steel doesn't harden after being quenched from non-magnetic, so for sure, no need to draw the temper. ;)

Medium carbon steel will harden but doesn't -have- to have its temper drawn for all uses it's put to.

High carbon steel -has to- have its temper drawn, every stinkin time. Even if it just boiling water for an hour, high carbon steel is more fragile than glass "as quenched".

That's my thinking on it and I figure before they knew carbon and phosphorous (as elements) had anything to do with it, they had other ways to explain the three types of steel.

What do you think, guys? :)

And some "little puppies" too, since that's what I use. ;)

ATF is cheap and will do in a pinch tho, but not as good as the "real" thing. (ATF smokes quite a bit and its smoke can support a flame, BTDT)

I see quenching oil being like motor-oil, I have no real knowledge of what all's in it but it's better stuff than I could come up with myself. :/

:/!

AmZoil's Amatuzio ruined his car engine putting synthetic jet engine oil in it as an experiment. At that point he knew he didn't know crap about motor-oil! :)

Alvin in AZ

(and Fig 7-1 Page 174 ;) The lower normalizing temperature for 1035 is ~1560F.

It's now obvious as anything that a careful normalizing step (or three) is about "grain refinement", huh? :)

You said you liked to learn from the old guys and me too(!) but sometimes their explaination for the un-seen part of it, doesn't match with an otherwise really dangged good idea! :)

I don't diminish their idea on such trivial ramblings.

"What to do" is more important for me to learn from them and it's up-to-me to figure out "why" that procedure is a good idea. :)

Alvin in AZ

Let me toss in a suggestion- a machinist degree only takes a couple of years to earn, and there's a shortage of qualified people just about everywhere from what I can see. It's not much like the old days, either- the hardest part about the job is dealing with boredom when you're running a long job. But, depending on your area, it generally pays pretty well, especially compared to unskilled jobs- and often presents a lot of opportunites for scrounging scrap material and running parts you may need on the bosses' machines (if you get the ok first, of course!)

There's a lot of math, but the schooling also involves a lot of hands-on with machinery.

Yep. I was dealing with a seasonal layoff in the spring last year, and I know exactly what you mean. Give me 70 hour work weeks over a layoff or unemployment any day- it's all a matter of momentum, and once you loose it, it's tough to get going again for anything, no matter how simple.

Thank you Alvin! That statement rankled me nearly to a rant but I'm no historian and I wasn't going to go there. My gut and experience tell me there is no way you can get away with no temper unless you are woking in a low/medium carbon steel in the first place. And at least some of the swords made by the japanese were pushing high carbon - or parts of it were. There is the technique of pulling the blade out of the quench while it's still pretty hot, too which probably will get you hardened steel that is somewhat tempered. I did that to a short sword and at first it seemed to not get hard but after cooling for the night it hardend up nicely. It may have been somewhat tempered already at that point but I wasn't taking any chances. Been there done that and twice shy. It would be worth doing some experimentation though.

Nasty stuff. Takes a week to get the smell out of everything including the house even if you work outside. Add that to the fire hazard and it aint worth it. I'll stick with my mineral oil thanks.

GA

wrote

I was building a mountain rifle, tweaking the lock- my fault. It was about the 493rd time I compressed the spring in a hand-vise.

Chas

"Kyle J." wrote

Case construction and clay-mask quenching. Sorry; that's two ways.

Chas

You still end up with some seriously brittle steel in the final piece - even if it is all in the edge it will chip badly the first time you smack somthing hard with it. No sir - I would not try it. If it's being done there is more to the story than meets the eye.

GA