WIP--4th forging attempt

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NJStricker

Well-Known Member
I haven't completed too many knives over the past 6 or 9 months because what little time I've had to devote to knives I've used to put together a forge, a collection of hammers, and a railroad track anvil.

Well, here's my fourth attempt at a forged blade. I hammered this one out last week. My first 2 were a couple of buffalo skinners that I'll rework and try to straighten the blades. Third one wasn't too bad, a drop point blade, but the handle looks like a bent piece of bar stock, which it pretty much is (I was going for a full tang).

On this one I wanted to see how far I could draw out the steel, and I wanted a hidden tang. The piece of bar stock in the photo is just a little shorter than the piece I started with for this blade. The blade is about 5 1/4 inches long, and I took the photo after soaking in vinegar overnight to get the scale off. I've been staring at as many Scagel and Herschel House knife pics as I can find lately, and I hope those influences have come through.

DSCN0923.jpg
 
before I read the text of the message in looking at the picture, I thought scagel blade. He never had a belly knife, he seemed to have heel cutters...
 
I am a stock removal guy, so I don't know much about forging, but it looks good to me.
 
Yeah, I did only stock removal up until about a month ago or so. With the limited equipment I have, I was able to forge to shape and start the bevel in less time than it would have taken me to make the same blade using stock removal. And, I would have had to start with a bigger piece of bar stock to get this shape. Now I can work outside the rectangle.
 
Looks good but you may want to leave a little more around the ricasso area I try to leave about 1 3/4" and try real hard not to hit it there. Pull the choil down a bit more.
Remember that you can always take away but you cant put it back.
It's good to see forged blades like that, good work.
 
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