About to start forging....

Casey Brown

Well-Known Member
So, I've been doing stock removal for a couple of years now. I'm now set up to try forging. From everything I've read, 1084 is a good steel to start out on. I've previously only worked with O1. About to order a batch of steel from NJSB, and was figuring .156" thick by 1.5" wide. Any recommendations on a good size to start out with? It really didn't matter before, because I could just cut or grind off the extra.

Thanks for any input,

Casey
 
5/32" x 1 1/2" is pretty thin and pretty wide to start forging with. It won't give you any margin for error to correct uneven forging and deep hammer blows. You'd best REALLY know what you're doing.

For someone just starting, and assuming hunters and small to medium camp/bowie knives are the reasonable goals, I'd recommend 3/16"+ or 1/4" x 1" for the hunters and 1/4" x 1 1/4" for camp/bowie knives.

With a little practice you can forge a pretty long, tall knife with reasonable thickness from 1/4" x 1 1/4".
 
I was literally just reading a few ht posts on the forums here, and thinking the same thing. Ed Caffrey was mentioning not ht'ing anything thinner than .200", so that makes a lot of sense. Going to have to get out of the stock removal mindset if I'm not using a professional heat treater. It's all about the learning process right now. Thanks for the feedback, John.
 
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So, following up with one more question on dealing with the blade thickness. If I go with a say 0.2" thick spine prior to ht, can I still grind my bevels down to 0.01" or 0.02" thickness (dime thickness), or do I need to leave that thicker also until I fine tune my ht profile?
 
I take my edge thickness down to about .040" prior to heat treat.

.020" or less and you might start flirting with distortion or cracking.
 
Going from stock removal to forging does require some changes in thinking. Often times some trial and error to discover just what the specific differences are for you. Personally, some blades .200" thickness, and any blade .125" or less gets profiled and heat treated before grinding any edge bevels. Don't be afraid to leave things overly thick. You can always remove excess material, but once it's gone, you can't ever put it back.

It's very rare that I start forging a blade with anything less then .250" (1/4") stock...... for me, anything thinner and it's very easy to run out of steel before a blade is finished.

It will take some time, experimentation, and some adjusting, but I think once you get your process down for forging blades, knifemaking will be more fun than it's ever been before. :)
 
Thanks so much for the replies.

Ed, do you try to hammer in your bevel profile at all, or wait and grind the bevels exclusively after ht from a fiat profile?
 
When working with "thin" stock, I don't forge in the edge bevels..... if I do, and get that edge thin prior to heat treat, more often than not....bad things happen. Since I rarely use stock thinner than 1/4", it's rarely an issue.
 
Nothing else to add to the advice that's already been provided above. I've been forging for about a year and like using .250 x 1" 1084 to forge hunting size knives. My next order will be .250 x 1.25" and 1.5" as I'm wanting to start messing around with some camp knives and Bowies in the near future.
 
I just started forging and I have a question. After quenching the blade is there anything else needed to be done before I start sanding ?
 
After quenching the blade is there anything else needed to be done before I start sanding ?

YES! "Heat Treating" is generally divided into two (or more depending on steel type) steps. "Quenching" also known as "Hardening" and Tempering.

In short, the goal of Quenching/Hardening, is to make the steel as physically hard as it can be. The problem is that along with hardness, comes brittleness. The second step with most forgable steels is Tempering.

Tempering is best described as a Controlled Softening. This is accomplished by heating the blade to a much lower temp, for a given duration, than used in the hardening step. The goal being to leave enough hardness in the blade for it to hold an edge, but take enough hardness away to ensure it's not brittle.
For most forgable steels, they can be tempered in a typical kitchen oven. The temps range from 350F to 500F+ depending on the steel and the desired end hardness. Likely the most important thing is to ensure the oven is accurate. Changes take place in the steel every 25 degrees F. So if the oven/oven dial isn't accurate, you can chase your tail for a LONG time.

There are a lot of other things occurring in the steel during tempering, and I suggest educating yourself on various tempering methods for different steels...... each steel can be tempered at different temps depending on geometry, edge thickness, etc. Most of us have sacrificed a lot of otherwise good blades learning what temps and times work best for the type of steel(s) we use, and the geometry we put on it.

When it comes to "sanding", the job is MUCH easier on a tempered blade versus one that you attempt to "sand" fully hardened.
 
Ed thanks for the info. I had read that I could use the oven at 400F for 2 hours and then let set in the oven as if cools down for 2 more hours. I have some tool steel and 1095 that i have been working with, so i'll try a few things and see how that goes.

Thanks again
 
Letting the blades sit in the oven as it cools down for 2 hours is not necessary. I would take the 1095 out of the oven, allow it to cool to where you can hold it, and then return it to the oven for another 2 hours. I rarely do just one tempering cycle. The extra cycle will temper any untempered martensite that converted from retained austenite during the first cycle.

Doug
 
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