I promised Om (I think, else I'm mixing up people) to post some pictures from my blacksmithing course. I convinced our photographer to take some quick photos in the light box of the two knives I made. First I made a single iron knife. This knife was smithed from a solid piece of iron, an old hand chisel for stone works. This was exactly like I had imagined, the iron material is heated in a forge until it is a light orange colour, beaten against an anvil with a hammer, and the process is repeated until you have the shape you want. The danger is overheating the iron to the point when it will start to burn, that means the iron is damaged and cannot be used. When iron is burning, it shoots out small firework sparks, so you can observe the flames over the forge and at the first sign of fireworks, you know it's time to take out the material. Heating the right part of the material, the part that you want to work with, is hard. Thin parts get hotter faster, and iron steals heat along the material, so it took a while to get the hang of this. If you want to work with thick parts that are close to thin parts, you have to accept that you cannot get the thick part to optimal temperature, because the thin part will be burning at that time. So, thick parts means heavier strikes with the hammer, means blisters in your hands. I then used a bench grinder to get the knife to the final shape I wanted. The knife was hardened by heating it up to a specific temperature (different temperatures for different kinds of steel). The temperature is read by observing the colour of the steel. Finally I sharpened the edge with the bench grinder again. This knife is meant to have a wooden handle. I haven't made that yet. Full size version here. The second knife I made has a welded blade. It consists of two different irons, one soft and bendy, and one hard and easily cracked. The soft iron is folded around the hard iron, so the edge of the blade will be super hard and super sharp, but the blade won't break as easily as if it was entirely of the hard iron. When you weld, you first make a strip of hard iron, and then a strip of the soft iron that is three times as long, but still joined to the rest of your material (so you have stuff left to make the handle from later). The soft iron is folded around the hard, and then it's time to weld. You put flux in the cracks between the different pieces, and then heat the iron until it is really really close to burning, almost entirely white. Take out the material from the forge and beat it hard and fast to make the different pieces of iron join and form a single piece of iron. Once this is done you can continue to smith the handle core from the soft iron. I decided to make the knife with a solid iron handle (no wooden handle on this one), so this knife doesn't have that thin handle core that my other knife had. The rest of the process is fairly similar to when smithing a single iron knife. You can see a black crater on the handle close to where the edge begins. That is from the fold, so that was the edge of the soft iron that was folded around the hard iron. It is almost impossible to see on the edge of the blade the transition between the different irons. Full size version here. Here are the two knives together. Full size version here. I have more pictures from the course, but they are in my friends camera. I will post them here as soon as I get them. Some of these pictures are from the welding process, and they turned out quite cool, sparks shooting everywhere. My friend started a small fire in a coal bag when he welded his knife, but we put it out with a fire extinguisher. Neither of these knives are very useful, they aren't that sharp and the blades are quite short. But they were very fun to make, I learned a lot making them, and I like the rough rusty look of them.
The first knife looks like a skinning knife. Is that where you got the idea or was that just happenstance? Very neat stuff.
Thanks everyone for your friendly words. I've never used or seen a skinning knife, the first knife just turned out that way. With the second knife, I had a more clear idea of how I wanted it to look.
I got a few pictures from my friend Björn who was with me at the course. This is me waiting by the forge, next to our teacher, Lars Torvaldsson. Got a bit of soot on my face there, but it's mostly beard. The text written on the hood says "This week's special: Odd hook 50 SEK". He get a lot of tourists in the summertime. Full size version here. This is Björn in the welding process. Very dynamic, this picture! Full size version here.
