So after Finals hit in Berkeley, I had absolutely no time for metal work besides a small hammer I used as a distraction. It's been a long three weeks, but now I'm home, with finals behind me. I set up a new smithy in Humboldt to work in. The biggest improvement in the working space for me is setting up the anvil to the right height and placing it in sand to absorb the impact of the hammer. It makes the anvil feel about a hundred pounds heavier, which is great.
For the past few weeks I've been working on a hammer that I ordered online from Blacksmith Depot. When I received the hammer it was not in great shape. I had ordered a refurbished head that had formerly been attached to a handle, so there was a lot of cleaning and sanding that I had to do in order to make a workable tool out of it. I went outside my co-op and found a eucalyptus branch which I then carved down to the right size for the handle. I flame-hardened it and attached it. The result was much to my liking.
The first thing I worked on when I got home was a double hook that I gave to Mel. I cut off a 1.5 inch piece from my 3/4 inch thick bar of copper, and I stretched out the metal with my new shiny hammer. I then worked the pieces over the horn of my small anvil to form two hooks. I did a small bend at the very tip in one direction, and the larger bend opposite. Then I bent the piece in the middle, and twisted the two sides to give it a bit more decoration.
The next thing I worked on was a bowie knife. It's the first time I've made a knife of this type. Most of the time I like to work on smaller knives, but I decided to make myself a hunting knife. The blade is made of a file that I annealed about a year ago and haven't worked on since. I used a low-temperature forging process to shape the blade and refine the grains, hitting quickly with light blows along the edge for about a half hour. I then finished the rough shaping on the grinder, and profiled down the blade a little bit. I did a fine sand on the blade to prepare it for heat treatment. The heat treatment was one of the more successful I've done. I made a mixture of the local orange clay, sand, and ash with which I coated the back of the blade. The mixture worked surprisingly well and successfully hardened onto the blade and stayed there. I put bricks around the forge to allow it to reach a uniform temperature, turned the gas down to hardening temp, and put the knife in. I let it soak for about 10 minutes at hardening temperature and quenched in oil. The hamon line was readily apparent after a brief wire brushing which was very exciting. I then tempered the blade at 400 F twice for one hour each, and began finish sanding. I used grits 80, 120, 320, 400, 600, and 1500 on the steel to get a mirror finish. Next I began shaping the scales out of a local curly maple that I got at Almquist lumber. After rough shaping I epoxied the scales to the tang. The JB-Weld 5 minute epoxy cured too fast for my liking, leaving me little time to fix any problems with the glue. I had to use two of them, one for the initial glue, and another to patch the spots that I missed with the first one. Then I did a finish sand on the handle and used a hard lacquer. Altogether the knife took 3 days and about 35 hours of work. The result was quite satisfying, especially after I stitched its sheath. The hamon line in the polished blade is difficult to make out, but there is a great difference in hardness between the spine and the edge. I estimate the edge to be around 56 Rockwell C hardness. I didn't want to make it too hard because it has to be durable enough to withstand heavy cutting without fracture. The grain refinement precautions taken during forging should ensure that the knife will have superior longevity and sharpness, but time will tell if that's true.
