Thread: Old style forged blades

In my reading of old books available thru Google Books I ran across one that said the concave portion of the blade was hand forged into the blade. However there was no description of the forming tool that was used .

Perhaps a swag of some type?

Old books are great for that--they'd say things like "take care to use the razor properly, lest you cut your throat," without giving much detail about what "properly" entails.

I talked to Mike Blue about forging in the hollows a while back, and it seems like it would be possible but difficult. We kicked around some ideas for a tool but didn't come up with anything spectacular.

I would probably try to use a guillotine-style tool with dies on both sides. The big anvil tool I have on my website could accept dies that might work. The problem would be that there would be that the force would be spread out over a lot of surface area, and it would take a while to move the metal.

I haven't pursued it because it seems like it would be hard to ensure that the edge winds up centered...

I'm in the process of doing some research into barber-surgeons on the early 16th century right now. A bit earlier than your time, but I'll try and pass on what I find when I do.