keen on making a few small carving blades

[teef]

i've been spoon carving off and on for close on 25 years, getting back into it again a bit more seriously lately. bought my first adze and a drawknife, great additions to the process. now working on small cups and bowls so things are progressing nicely.

as it happens though there are a couple things i'd really like to add to my tool roll :

the first is a teardrop scorp, one sided blade. the other is a wee dogleg gouge.
the trouble is that these tools are not cheap! in fact assuming one pays the basic going rate you're looking at something like £150+, and a LOT more if you opt for those offered by the popular makers. not really what i had in mind. and besides, who knows what you'll want next? unlike the bum fluff from certain politicians i could mention money _really_ doesn't grow on trees around here so ...

so i started thinking "what do i need to DIY this?". i'm not totally shooting in the dark here. in a previous life i took a run at being an indy jewellery maker so i got to know torches and metals and simple forging fairly well, albeit of much softer metals (obv).

anyway, i started poking around and discovered what looks like a fairly viable option for a basic DIY garden forge for small scale stuff without getting into bottled gases and suchlike:

that's a box bellows -- Japanese style in this case but one of the Chinese style is a bit simpler to make -- connected to a steel pipe connected to a wee firebrick-lined pit with a shovel full of charcoal thrown in. pump the bellows, heat the metal, forge the blade, repeat until you've got what you need.

like i said, i've got somewhat related metalworking experience, i could bang a cheap-and-cheerful bellows together without much trouble. scrounge a bit of pipe, flea-bay a few firebricks, make a bit of charcoal in the back garden and what's to stop a fellow from giving it a go?

of course with any blade that does tough work heat treating is where things can get complicated but assuming you stick to basic metals -- 1080, 1095, maybe O1 if you're feeling adventurous -- that too should be doable without going apeshit on complicated gear.

so -- and thanks for reading this far, i know i do go on a bit -- has anyone tried this or anything like it? success or fail i'd be very interested to hear about it.

 

[1 shot willie]

Interesting post Teef.....look forward to following your progress with it

 

[Bam]

That's some serious stuff going on Teef, good luck with it and I'll follow your exploits with interest.

 

[saxonaxe]

Teef, this is a question from the ignorant. To make those specialised shape tools would it be possible to buy a ready made tool, say a straight blade wood carving knife, heat it up and bend it to shape, say that Scorp thing, then re-harden it?
Or would the original hardening be lost in the process and not regainable?

Just curious because there's a few sites that sell ready made blades at quite reasonable prices.

 

[teef]

that's a good question, and cuts straight to the meat of blade making, so to speak.

there are generally two ways to turn metal into a blade of choice: the first is what everyone knows about, forging: heat, hammer, final shaping, heat and harden, then heat to temper, final shaping and sharpening. the point is that to shape a blade by hammer (or bending) it needs to be soft (annealed) and to turn it into a cutting tool you need to harden and temper it.

the second method is stock removal: get a pre-hardened bit of metal, grind it to shape it and then sharpen. no heat was applied to the pre-hardened metal so no heat is required to re-harden and temper it.

so, for simple blades buying a premade blade and doing the grind and sharpen process is perfectly viable and, speaking from a bit of experience, quite satisfactory.

my issue is that the blades i want are far from "simple" because there is pretty much nothing out there that is a close, pre-made equivalent. i have seen vids on Youtube of people making basic scorps out of old spanners but obviously you are quite limited in terms of the final shape. i specifically want the teardrop shape -- the flat bit can be used like a regular carving knife while the round bit lets you cut bowl shapes -- so stock removal on a spanner isn't really going to do it for me.

so that leaves me with the forging/bending option and that means you need to get the metal up around 1350-1400 C range. in other words, a forge of some kind.

tempering is a more controlled process and typically one uses a tempering oven of some kind. for simple metals the tempering can be done in something as simple as a toaster oven or even a domestic kitchen oven. modest temps for a sustained period -- 20 -120 mins is the usual ballpark for the simple metals. this assumes you are aiming to get good performance out of your steel meaning easy of sharpening, good edge retention, and good toughness.

 

[Ystranc]

I love the bellows!..... as a stopgap I have used an electric heat gun with a steel pipe wedged over the nozzle pointed direct into lump wood charcoal in a firebrick lined stove made out of a gas bottle but those bellows of yours look proper!

 

[Ystranc]

that's a good question, and cuts straight to the meat of blade making, so to speak.

there are generally two ways to turn metal into a blade of choice: the first is what everyone knows about, forging: heat, hammer, final shaping, heat and harden, then heat to temper, final shaping and sharpening. the point is that to shape a blade by hammer (or bending) it needs to be soft (annealed) and to turn it into a cutting tool you need to harden and temper it.

the second method is stock removal: get a pre-hardened bit of metal, grind it to shape it and then sharpen. no heat was applied to the pre-hardened metal so no heat is required to re-harden and temper it.

so, for simple blades the buy-grind-sharpen-done process is perfectly viable and, speaking from a bit of experience, quite satisfactory.

my issue is that the blades i want are far from "simple" because there is pretty much nothing out there that is a close, pre-made equivalent.
so that leaves me with the forging/bending option and that means you need to get the metal up into the 1200-1400 C range. in other words, a forge of some kind.

tempering is a more controlled process and typically one uses a tempering oven of some kind. for simple metals the tempering can be done in something as simple as a toaster oven or even a domestic kitchen oven. modest temps for a sustained period -- 20 -120 mins is the usual ballpark for the simple metals. this assumes you are aiming to get good performance out of your steel meaning easy of sharpening, good edge retention, and good toughness.

Are any of those Eastern European blade smiths up for giving it a go? That small gouge looks like it would be a bugger to make.

 

[teef]

yeah, i've ordered a couple items from the guys in the East and some of them do exceptional work. trouble is they know it and charge for it, as they should of course. for what i'd pay for that single gouge i could buy the gear for and make the forge and buy a shitload of good proper steel to go to town with. i'm fortunate enough to still have my tools from my jewellery days so the hammers and anvils i've pretty much got covered, at least for small and basic stuff. if i wanted to get into forging full size bushcraft blades i'd probably be in over my head.

 

[teef]

I love the bellows!..... as a stopgap I have used an electric heat gun with a steel pipe wedged over the nozzle pointed direct into lump wood charcoal in a firebrick lined stove made out of a gas bottle but those bellows of yours look proper!

finding that bellows was the tipping point for me. i can make that and it does a proper job quietly. right up my alley and that convinced me that this is a doable thing.
they forge japanese swords with that same basic setup so i should be able to manage the wee things i've got in mind.