My youngest apprentice

[Mark Knapp]

This weekend Warner ground the four sides of the billet flat on the surface grinder.

We marked it at a thirty degree angel and cut it into tiles 5/8 of and inch thick. Even after annealing the billet was too hard to cut on the band saw so we had to cut it on the chop saw. Here's one of his buds helping him.

Next we clean up the pieces, flip them 90 degrees and tack weld them together for the forge weld. Then the "end grain" will be visible on the sides of the blade.

Stay tuned.

 

[Mark Knapp]

We flipped the "tiles" 90 degrees to show the end grain of the billet on the side of the finished blade.

We heated it up to less than forge welding temperature and did some compression presses to close up all the gaps between the steel tiles.

Then we gave it a little flux and did the weld press.

Stay tuned.

 

[springer82]

Ho,, Ho,, Ho,,,,
Very cool. He's having fun!!