Search:

You are correct. No mirror polish needed for forging. That would only get ruined at the very first hammer strike anyways. Just grind it flat with one of these.

324531

For my anvil I welded a piece of scrap armor plate to a scrap piece of track. I simply went to a local machine/fabrication shop and asked if they had scrap pieces. They use things like hardox, AR400,...

Case in point. I found about 15 or 20 future razors on a fence post while bear hunting today. This could also be flattened out and used as a make-shift anvil.

323671

I started with an old brake drum and my mom's hair dryer as a forge. The fuel was pine bark (burns hot but makes a lot of sparks and ash). My anvil was any scrap piece of metal that was flat. I would...

Okay, here is how I do it. As a further disclaimer, I would only use this on a basic carbon steel. Basic carbon steel is forgiving and can produce good results even if your procedure or your...

All I have is a toaster oven and a forge as well. I've spent many years in a factory that heat treated metal. One of my jobs was to calibrate all the instrumentation, write the calibration procedures...

Typically railroad spikes are a medium carbon steel and are not recommended for blades. They are popular as "blacksmith" knives, but those who are serious about it will forge weld a better piece of...

These are all made from car/truck springs. EDIT: I guess that one of them was an old harrow blade.

323108

323109

323110

323111

I think that is highly likely. Which is one reason I don’t really care for car springs as a skinning knife. It dulls too quickly for my preference. But it does take a mighty fine edge.

Interesting..... years ago an old guy told me that Studebaker springs made great knives. I wonder if he just had a bunch of broken ones to play with?

Anyways, I guess what got me wondering about...

I find that car and light truck springs are usually a bit over 1/4" thick, but that is before polishing them. They all need to have the pits removed from the surface that narrows them down quite a...

That’s how I started learning to make knives 30 years ago. That and the library. There was no YouTube or even the internet. I couldn’t just order whatever steel I wanted, but there were plenty of old...

Most car leaf springs are not thick enough and are too wide. I cut a slice off of them so they are about 1.5" wide. Then I forge them down to 1" wide. This also thickens them up so that they are...

I find that old vehicle springs make a great straight razor. The springs that I have used in the past are on the "lower carbon" side of "high carbon" steels. Don't get me wrong, they are very...