FIRST KNIVES

One of the reasons I named this blog "Romance Country Forge" is because I am crazy about knives and I have always wanted to make forged knives rather than stock removal knives. I am now learning to forge knives and heat treat them correctly. I am making progess but it is very slow and sometimes confusing. The knife makers all have a different idea about how to heat treat a blade. They have great looking knives and all swear they know the secret. I wonder. It confuses me when I hear  knife gurus with different formulas. Must you anneal the steel before you start working it on the anvil?  Some say yes, some normalize only, and some throw the steel in the fire and start hammering with no foreplay at all. How many times should you quench, temper, or normalize???  Does it DO anything when you point the blade to magnetic north to cool? So many conflicting answers.  I see other blogs and websites  raise some of the same questions. It is nice to know that others are confused as well. I have struggled with heat treating. It is very complex with more variables than all the math teachers I have ever known. I have made a few blades that I thought were good and I have cracked, broken, and burned a lot of steel as well. The three broken blades on the opening photo are but a few of my victims. 

Another thing that bothers me is the controversy over Primative vs. Spaceage techknowledgy.  One argues that you should not use electricity, grinders, gas forges, or new steel. The other argues that you must have every gadet and tool available and  a degree in metalurgy to make the best possible knife. I am thinking there is middle ground.  I lean toward the primatives. Not because of any shared core belief but because I like to make things, because of the simplicity, and because I have always believed that building on  basic knowledge will get you where you want to go.  I built my forge and anvil from scrap but there is electricity and modern tools in my shop, too. I like to recycle steel for several reasons i.e.  it is cheap, I have bins and buckets full of plow bits, disc blades, files,  and old tools and it is ecologically sound. In spite of this I have been thinking about buying one type of steel and using it exclusively to remove some of the variables out of the heat treating equation until I learn what I am doing. Haven't decided yet. Here are a couple knives that I forged that I am proud of.

The big skinner went to my brother-in-law. He is a deer hunter. He told me what he wanted and seemed happy with it. After he got back from deer camp last week I was very pleased that he called me to tell me how well the knife performed. The second little knife is one that I made for myself. I wanted a good knife to butcher rabbits. I like it. I  rarely have to  sharpen or touch-up the blade. My wife likes it,too, and I have to hide it. I promised to make her a couple of knives and I will put plastic or composite handle scales on them as she puts knives in the dishwasher (shudder).

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FALL IS HERE

The maple trees in our front yard were spectacular this year. The leaves turned from green to a flaming red in abount three days. They lasted less than a week and then a stiff wind took them all down toward the pond. I hated to see them go. They gave the farm a splash of color as the season turns drab.

This old farm is a warm place to be after years woking on the road and out-of-state. It was neglected for most of the last twenty years. Now I am spending a lot of time cleaning up after nature. Land goes wild quicker than we think. I have to reclaim the pastures, gardens, and orchard. The county bulldozed a quarter mile of fence to widen the road so there is fence to rebuild as well. I have worked hard but enjoyed it. I wish my health were better so that I could throw myself into the project and get it going quickly like I used to do. My grand mother once said that ..."when God takes away our youth he gives us wisdom and patience in return". I finally understand what she meant, however, I am thinking that it was not a fair trade. I liked young and stupid.

I have a lot of the worst jobs behind me. Now it is a matter of finishing my list of projects and maintaining what I have already done. The pastures were in terrible shape. The sweet gum trees send out clouds of seed on the wind and the southwest pasture had thousands of saplings up to the size of my forearm. The other two pastures grew up in weeds and persimmon sprouts and much of the grass we established was shaded out. I will have to mow three or four times per year to keep the weeds from seeding out and give the bermuda grass a chance to send out roots and smother the weeds. I had second thoughts on mowing the southwest pasture. It went wild and the animals moved in. There was a large herd of deer bedding in the sweet gum thicket, the turkeys had active nests,in the fringes near the woods, and there were so many rabbits and quail that I couldn't get an accurate estimate.The thicket was matted with black berry vines and sumac. the edges were still full of lespedesia. Pretty much a critter heaven. I waited until the turkeys left the nests before I mowed. It was still not comfortable to destroy that habitat but I had to do it this year or the trees would have been too big to knock down with the tractor and bush hog and then I would have had to cut individual trees with the chain saw.

The gardens were also ravaged. they were solid bermuda sod. I worked the vegatable garden numerous times with the breaking plow and disc and then hit it with the Troy Built tiller. Dolly worked her flower beds all summer long. I pruned fruit trees in Februrary and they all bore lots of fruit. There is still lots to do but I no longer feel like I can't take a day off to fish or work on knives. I will post more pictures as soon as I figure out how to load a slide show.

GETTING STARTED

I retired in November of 2008 and my kids/grand children live out-of-state. I have three main interests aside from my wife. Fishing is an old addiction and I never get enough of it. Knife making is something new for me but I have had an interest in it for as long as I can remember. I made 10-20 knives by stock removal method in the late 1980's but I always wanted to forge knives. My farm has been neglected for the past twenty years while I worked in Nebraska. Now I am having to pay the price. I would like to spend most of my time fishing or learning to make knives but the farm takes most of my time for the present.

I have managed to put together a small bladesmithing shop. It is pretty primative. A lot of the equipment is home made or things I had on hand. The forge is made from a gas can for an outboard motor. I cut the top off, drilled holes in each end, and ran a 2" pipe through the holes. The pipe had holes drilled at one inch intervals and was capped-off on one end and connected to a blower on the other. the can was packed with a clay and sand mixture for insulation. The blower is an old BUFFALO FORGE hand cranked blower. I got it for free because it didn't work. It was an easy fix and now I have a very nice little forge set-up. I set my forge in the end of the quonset hut and added a squirrel cage fan in the end of the wall to carry out the smoke from the charcoal I burn in the forge. My anvil is a 4"x4"x32" square piece of steel that I got for 30 cents/pound ($42.00) This was my most expensive purchase for the shop. I welded a frame of scrap angle-iron to an old Frieghtliner brake drum to hold the anvil in a vertical postion and mounted the drum to a piece of 3/4 inch plywood. I had intended to pour cement in the brake drum to make it more massive and add weight to the bottom but this was unnecessary. My wife and I go to the WORLDS LONGEST YARD SALE every year. This year I looked for things to use in the shop. I came back with eight hammers, twenty-odd files,and over fifty chisels,punches,jack hammer bits, and odd pieces of steel. I spent less than forty dollars.

It is bed time, more tomarrow.