Thinking about started to forge

[Holland Bramlitt]

Thinking about starting
to forge

Hey guys I am thinking about starting to forge for the first time and was wondering how hard it is. More than likely I will just forge some 52100 for pocket knife blades at first. I have some 1/8 thick bars and was wondering how hard it would be to forge them down to 3/32 or if it is even possible. Always done stock removal and not wanting to beat the blade shape out just get them to the thickness I want and then I will grind them. Thanks for any help and hope everyone has a safe and wonderful new year.

 

[leighwill]

Hi there, i forge all of my blades and it isn't hard at all as long as you get the steel to a decent forging temp, or bright orange to yellow heat, if you are indoors its easier to see the colours.
as for getting a uniform thickness all over unless you have a Flatter tool, it will be painstaking.
when i forge mine i do the blade shape, form the tang and start the edge leaving about 2-3 mm thickness on the blade edge. then i take it to a sander to clean it up and get the pits out.
I'm nowhere near an expert on this but i will help if i can.
Happy new year.
Leigh

 

[Doug Lester]

With that thin of stock once you have forged to shape, set your bevels and ground out the hammer marks and scale you will probably have the blade down to at least 3/32". Possibly a little thinner.

If you are working 52100, forge it hot. In the bright orange to yellow range. Do not strike it when there is no color in the steel. To heat treat, austinize it to to no more than 1550 degrees and soak for at least 5 minutes. When I austinize I can adjust my heat treating forge so that it burns just around 1600 degrees. I would temper in an over starting at 400 degrees and test to see if that's a good hardness, if I were tempering in an oven. I austemper my 52100 blades in oil at about 440 degrees for three hours. That will give me some martensite formation, maybe around 25%. The three hours may be a little longer than need to convert the rest of the austinite to bainite but it won't hurt the blade either and it should give me a hardness of around HRc 60, but right now I don't have a way to measure it. The edge of the blade will cut into soft steel wire without denting or chipping.

One of my waiting projects to to override the temperature control on an electric roaster that I have so that it will hold a temperature of about 510 degrees. That way I can get a conversion to 100% bainite for around a HRc of 58.

Doug

 

[Salem Straub]

Hard or impossible? Not at all. I've forged 2" round 52100 into 1/4" flat bars by hand. THAT sucks. Now I have a power hammer and those days are over.

I think if I was starting with 1/8" 52100 and wanted a 3/32" blade I'd just grind it from the start. I both forge and stock remove, many times IMO forging wastes time and is not always appropriate for a design. It sure is fun though, and does help a lot if you want to reduce stock thickness significantly or make an odd shaped blade.

52100 will move right along under the hammer, as mentioned above, work it pretty hot.

Don't start out with too large a hammer (2-3 lb. should be a good start for most) and have your anvil at a good height, the standard being as high as the knuckles of your closed fist when standing with your arm hanging down loosely at your side.

Another thing I'll mention is that forging scale is pretty rough on belts, use old belts to get most of the scale off, then start really grinding. One thing some folks do, especially when working with just files after forging, is soak the forged blade in vinegar/water overnight to loosen and dissolve some of the scale.

 

[Doug Lester]

Salem brings up a good point on equiptment. Personally I wouldn't even consider trying to break down a 2" bar by hand but I live in a residential area so a power hammer is out of the question and a treadle hammer could be just about as noisy. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to afford an hydrolic press. Barring that, a good anvil is essential. I had thought that I was farely well situated with a 110lb European style anvil until I go an 87lb block of steel and saw how much easier it was to forge with. It's not even heat treated. It made me wish that I had seen about getting a 100lb block of 4X4" heat treated 4140 from Old World Anvils. I anticipate that I'll have a much easier time breaking down 3/4" round bar now that I have a better anvil to work with.

Doug