I got the urge to try forging a knife last night, found a couple pieces of rebar in the yard and started research on what I would need to do to make it into a knife. This is my first attempt at forging anything and making any type of knife.
The knife is supposed to be a small utility knife, 2.5" blade, about 6" overall.
This is the forge I threw together from some housing bricks and a propane torch. Worked pretty well once it got heated up, ran it for three hours straight at full fire with no problems after some slight cracking sounds at startup.
Finished forge shaping. Blade close to desired thickness at spine, forged some slight thinning toward edge. I had trouble drawing out the heel like I wanted, but I have enough metal to work with to get close to my desired profile. Handle was tapered.
Since I don't have proper hammers for this type of work, I one-handed a sledge hammer for the majority of the work accompanied by a small ball-peen hammer. For an anvil, I used the little flat anvil spot on top of my bench vice.
This is about 3.5 hours total, including building forge, to this point. I hope to finish this week. I will continue to update this thread as I work on this.
The knife is supposed to be a small utility knife, 2.5" blade, about 6" overall.
This is the forge I threw together from some housing bricks and a propane torch. Worked pretty well once it got heated up, ran it for three hours straight at full fire with no problems after some slight cracking sounds at startup.
Finished forge shaping. Blade close to desired thickness at spine, forged some slight thinning toward edge. I had trouble drawing out the heel like I wanted, but I have enough metal to work with to get close to my desired profile. Handle was tapered.
Since I don't have proper hammers for this type of work, I one-handed a sledge hammer for the majority of the work accompanied by a small ball-peen hammer. For an anvil, I used the little flat anvil spot on top of my bench vice.
This is about 3.5 hours total, including building forge, to this point. I hope to finish this week. I will continue to update this thread as I work on this.