forge material questions

I can see your point on forging. You can only work so much steel in a given heat so even heating is not only unnecessary but probably unwanted. That's why my "forging" forge is only 7" deep with a pass through port. However, I still think that having the flame directed down onto one spot on the blade will give problems with heat treating if care is not taken.

Doug Lester
 
I certainly agree on that , It will cause pitting and all kinds of problems , My forge is about 20" long but I ht swords that are up 28" long cutting edge , you just keep it moving back and forth , watch that color . Ya-kire as it is referred to . I do all HT at dusk or early in morning so you make sure blade is evenly heated , during periods of low light you can see the color variations much better. As a matter of fact ,I just messed up a great blade . I was heating it up and I got a phone call and forgot about it ! It wasnt even in the direct flame . You can see what happened in one of my prior posts. I managed to salvage the rear section lost about 8" of blade .
http://knifedogs.com/showthread.php?16580-bubbas-bad-luck&p=150800#post150800
 
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Thanks for the pointers. One of my planned projects is to make a short sword/large seax this summer. I'm going to have to creat a pass through port on my heat treating forge, which is about as deep as yours, when I repare it after it gets a bit warmer here so that it can be used with longer blades. It's nice to know that it should handle it. Now all I have to do is figure out how to temper it. I'll probably use a simple steel to forge the sword from and use a torch to temper it.

Doug Lester
 
I temper swords up to 26" long in my kitchen oven ! I do this by laying sword diagonally across oven make sure you clean off the oil or the lady will get PO that parks stinks like hell . Aldo has some really great w-2 and 1075 its real nice for swords , low manganese ! it seems to quench better without breakin, cracking . A torch with a big burner about 2-3 in. across works pretty darn good . I used to do hamons with a torch that also works pretty good . Good luck on the new piece . Making them swords is a lot different than knives , them long pieces of steel are sensitive . I f it bends the wrong way after quench , you can use a wooden mallet or the side of a 2x4 to straighten it but, the window is very short about 1 minute or less after quench ,after it cools a little its fully hardened . Have one I am doing hamon on today its made from 9260 makes great swords and because it has 2% silicon its tough as hell . Does a great hamon also . Take care ...... Bubba
 
9260 shows a hamon, interesting. I'd never have thought that it would due to the high silican content. I like making my large knives from it. Unfortunantly, I can't find it in the widths that I would need for the project that I have in mind unless I want to invest some major money in having what I want made up. I only found one supplier who could supply anything wider than what Admiral sells but they had a $2000 minimum order.

Doug Lester
 
Just out of oven , there is no clay left on blade . Hamon is Suguha ( straight ) lets see later how it turns out after polish ?? this steel is from admiral steel also. Look at my page below for more pictures and detail !
 
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Very nice. I did take a look at at the ITT diagram for 9260 and it does seem like the nose of the curve is about as far to the left as for 1095. Maybe it's not as deep hardening as I thought. Thanks for the pics. I guess that I'm going to have to give that a try. Maybe on the Nesmuc I'm thinking about starting in the next day or two.

Doug Lester
 
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