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I've been meaning to starting learning bladesmithing for a very long time. It's one of the main reasons I built a forge in the first place. I figured a machete would be a good place to start -- no one is going to complain if a machete is ugly, after all. And while I'm rarely called upon to chop my way through jungles (woe), I just like the idea of having a machete that I made myself.
I started with one of the 9/16" suspension coil springs I found at Boeing Surplus. First I straightened out a nice long section, which itself took most of a forging session. Then I flattened about two feet of it, another 2 sessions and 3 blisters.
This is the blade blank I ended up with. It doesn't show in the picture, but the regularity definitely improved as I went along. The part I did first has some very deep hammer marks in the flat of the blade. Yay learning, I guess.
Then I clamped the blade down and started filing. Why did I do it by hand? Because I don't have a belt sander. And it's a good skill to have -- you can do surprisingly precise things with just a file, if you're patient enough. I spent about 4 hours working on it, and the time passed fairly quickly. With the flat of the blade rather uneven in places, I didn't bother dressing that up any. I really like the look, anyway.
This is what I ended up with. I'm very happy with the results. The definition where the tang starts is crisp, the bevel is regular and there is only a little bit of waver to the blade.
With the blade roughly finished, I went to harden it. Which means heating it up and then quenching it all at once in water. It went well, without any deformation of the blade. I tested it with a file -- after hardening, a file should slide along the surface, unable to get a bite. Instead, the file bit in exactly like it had been for the last 5,000 strokes. Uh oh. I took one of the scraps, heated it WAY up, and quenched it. No hardening. Feeling a bit desperate, I tried quenching it in oil. Still nothing. (And now we're out of vegetable oil.) Whatever those springs are made of, it isn't basic high carbon spring steel. Too bad I didn't notice that BEFORE all the filing.
So I put a basic handle on it and called it done, leaving me with an utterly useless machete-shaped object. (One that is, I must admit, really satisfying to swing around.) But I learned a lot, and I'm pretty confident the next one I make will be much, much better. For one thing, I went to Online Metals today and picked up 9 feet of W-1 drill rod. If I can't get THAT to harden I'll need to hang up my hammer for good. We're in Spokane for the holidays, and I brought the forge over so I can get some more practice in. I figure I might as well play with really sexy heat-treating techniques while I'm at it. Should be fun.
I started with one of the 9/16" suspension coil springs I found at Boeing Surplus. First I straightened out a nice long section, which itself took most of a forging session. Then I flattened about two feet of it, another 2 sessions and 3 blisters.
This is the blade blank I ended up with. It doesn't show in the picture, but the regularity definitely improved as I went along. The part I did first has some very deep hammer marks in the flat of the blade. Yay learning, I guess.
Then I clamped the blade down and started filing. Why did I do it by hand? Because I don't have a belt sander. And it's a good skill to have -- you can do surprisingly precise things with just a file, if you're patient enough. I spent about 4 hours working on it, and the time passed fairly quickly. With the flat of the blade rather uneven in places, I didn't bother dressing that up any. I really like the look, anyway.
This is what I ended up with. I'm very happy with the results. The definition where the tang starts is crisp, the bevel is regular and there is only a little bit of waver to the blade.
With the blade roughly finished, I went to harden it. Which means heating it up and then quenching it all at once in water. It went well, without any deformation of the blade. I tested it with a file -- after hardening, a file should slide along the surface, unable to get a bite. Instead, the file bit in exactly like it had been for the last 5,000 strokes. Uh oh. I took one of the scraps, heated it WAY up, and quenched it. No hardening. Feeling a bit desperate, I tried quenching it in oil. Still nothing. (And now we're out of vegetable oil.) Whatever those springs are made of, it isn't basic high carbon spring steel. Too bad I didn't notice that BEFORE all the filing.
So I put a basic handle on it and called it done, leaving me with an utterly useless machete-shaped object. (One that is, I must admit, really satisfying to swing around.) But I learned a lot, and I'm pretty confident the next one I make will be much, much better. For one thing, I went to Online Metals today and picked up 9 feet of W-1 drill rod. If I can't get THAT to harden I'll need to hang up my hammer for good. We're in Spokane for the holidays, and I brought the forge over so I can get some more practice in. I figure I might as well play with really sexy heat-treating techniques while I'm at it. Should be fun.
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A copy of 'The complete Bladesmith' by Jim Hrisoulas may be handy, too. I haven't got my own yet, I just borrow other peoples' copies every so often, but it's very good.
I'm a fairly indifferent bladesmith, but some things I've found handy while forging out the blade is a good range of differently faced hammers - dished, flat, round, cross-peen, etc, depending on what profile you're heading for, and also one or more spring fullers (because filing or grinding in a fuller from scratch is just tedious.).