The Season is open !

So, after a long winter, I finally got the forge and anvil out again. For the forge, I have made a slight improvement (dramatic actually, it works so much better now).

So the blower mechanism is replaced with an oil burner blower, which has a mechanism for adjusting the amount of air flow.

And on the next day I had it on a table, to make it easier for access and positioning.

I also forged a small knife:

Getting some heat in and rust out...

Getting the basic shape in:

notice that the curvy side of the blade is actually the back...

Side by side, Starting point and finished knife, sorry, didn't have too much time to get pictures out of the actual forging of the knife... but it is mostly drawing the handle out, curl to the tip and twist to the thicker part... A fair convenience is in the area where the tang connects to the blade as it is nice to press thumb there so a better and stronger grip is possible.

Water quench for the blade edge only, then a let to normalize with the remaining heat, after that some mild re-heat and cooldown. If this would not have been just a forging practice more attention would be put to this phase. Also this is a piece of mystery steel, so no idea how it holds the edge.

Then sharpening, first rough with bench grinder, then with angle grinder and sand paper disc, then fine grain grindstone (the rotating one, tahko in Finnish) and finally a very fine hand held grinding stone.

So, there you have it, see you next time !