spring steel

marekz

marekz

Well-Known Member
hello, Question--how do I go about setting this spring up to forge. I was thinking using a cut off wheel to cut it to size and then forging it but i dont know how long of a piece i would need to cut/forge (say) a 4" blade with a 4-" tang. If i used an 8 " piece of bar-i feel it would give me way more steel than what i need--thanks Marekz
 

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Are you wanting to do a full tang or a through tang? If it were me, I'd start with 4-5" of material, straighten that much with a torch, unless you can get it in your forge, and then go from there. When I work with round stock, I find it easier if I forge it flat before trying to forge the blade. Hope this helps you.
 
I would start with about a 2' piece and forge the knife, you don't need tongs that way and just cut off whatever you don't use.
 
The first questions which come to my mind are.....

1. What is the diameter of the spring?
2. How thick of a blade are you wanting to make?
3. How wide of a blade are you wanting to make?

Once you decide the answer to these questions, you should be able to determine the mass of steel needed to create your blade. I'm not a very experienced maker, but it all comes back to geomety and algebra to determine the mass needed to accomplish your mission. I'm sure Ed, Bruce, or one of the experienced smiths will chime in eventually and give you an expert opinion.
 
This is just me but when I tried using one like that I cut a coil out of the spring (a circle if you will) and straightend it out and cut what I needed out of that.
 
the diameter is 3" round. I wanted to cut a certain amount off the coil to get a knife at about 8" long with the blade 3-4"--5/32 thick approx 1 1/2 to 2" wide. If i cut the coil- I would have a round swirl of steel to work with. Thanks for the advise but ,since i havent done any real forging, i still have a problem figuring out how to -first of all flatten it. Im figuring - i can stick the piece in the forge and slowly un coil it, then hammer it down to the size i desire, then work on heat treating it. anyway thanks for the advise. Ill cut about a 4" piece and just use what i need for the blade and just hold on to the rest. thanks again-marekz
 
I think that I would stick with cutting a section out of the spring and forging it out. A 4" piece of that 3" spring is going to forge out to about 4' of 2"X1/4" flat bar, if you forge it out to 1" round first and my calculations are right:rolleyes:. If that sounds like a lot of work, you're right. I hope you have some power equiptment to work with. I forged out a piece of 1" rebar that I found in my back yard after I moved in out by hand to give me about 2" of flat bar for testing and it wasn't fun. It was good steel, shattered like glass after I quenched it in water, so I'm going to work with it. I'm not going to throw out a 6'X1" bar of of moderate to high carbon steel just because it's going to be a bear to draw out; I'm just not looking forward to it.

By the way, don't worry about heat treating it before forging. Just taking the steel up to forging temperature to straighten it will take the temper out of it. Just remember to give it a good soak to make sure the steel is austinized all the way through.

Doug Lester:sleeping dog:
 
No all i have is a good ole anvil,tongs and hammer. I dont have any power equipment. I also have a thick 8ft long cable wire. I was thinking if it was possible to use a part of it and just keep on folding it with my hammer.--seems like that would take me a week and a torn rotator cuff in my shoulder. I wish there was a way around power equipment for stuff like that without killing yourself. Darnit to get a power hammer is so far off my list. I quess ill stick with the basic steels for now. shite--thanks Marekz--BTW i wanted a hidden tang
 
Do you have any friends that work for beer? Get a couple of sledge hammers for them and you hold the hot steel. It's sort of the traditional power hammer. Make sure that you give them the beer AFTER they've forged out the steel. Another problem that you might have is finding some tongs that have wide enough jaws to hold that size stock. I have some tongs for 2" but I'm not certain that I've seen any for that size, though I think that Glen at GS Tongs might be able to make one for youl.

Doug Lester
 
with out a power hammer you have a long project there. I agree with the friends work for beer our my second option would be find another smaller piece of steel. if you do use it like Rusty said cut a piece out and forge the blade cut.Then shape the handle. good luck....Steve
 
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