forging stick tang from 1 1/2" stock

[Scott Roush]

I've been getting more into hidden tangs now and was wondering what the easiest way to forge a stick tang from from wide stock. I've only been able to get 1 1/2" x 1/4" 1084 from Aldo and I find it very easy to forge the blades.... but what about the tang? So far, I've just narrowed it down a bit on the anvil and then ground the rest... but it's such a waste of steel...

thanks a lot for any suggestions!

[Lin Rhea]

Scott,
       I try to judge the amount of material to displace into the tang and hold that part on the edge of the anvil striking the material only on the part that is on the anvil. Notice that the hammer is flush with the anvil edge.
 
Here is how I choke the material in and toward the rear of the blade.
 
   


 

Then just hammer where I think it needs to go. I keep drawing the material in much the same way from all sides. The clsoer to the anvil edge, the lighter and more careful I have to be. Accuracy is important, so take your time. Here are a few shots along the way. This is a small blade, but the principle is the same for large blades. Lin

   

   

   

   

   

   

[kbaknife]

Perfect tutorial, Lin.
Scott, you may not have as good of aim as Lin does when starting out, so you can make a guillotine fuller to "set" the tang shoulders at the beginning of the tang then work it down from there.
I'll show you in a couple weeks.

[Scott Roush]

Thanks guys... I'm basically trying as you suggest, but starting with such wide/thin (1 1/2" x 1/4")stock, the steel wants to cave in, then I try to flatten, etc.  I did notice in those pictures that you leave your tang wider than what I have... I guess that would cut down on the work!

Karl... I made a Godzilla guillotine and it works great for some things, but I still have the issue of the edges wanting to bend over.  The problem with my 'Godzilla' is that there is too much lateral movement... I need to make a beefier 'pivot' point I think...

Anyway.. I feel like I would rather have thicker, more narrow steel to work with and things would be easier....

[Lin Rhea]

Scott,
       What kind of hammer are you using? Lin

[kbaknife]

Scott, here's another thought:
You mention the "edges wanting to bend over".
That says something to me.
It says you may not be getting enough heat into your steel. If only the edges are folding over, then maybe only the outside edges are hot!
Or, at least, hotter than the middle portions of your bar. Hence, they move more.
You need to heat your steel through and through!
Forge HOT!!
We'll take care of excess grain growth when the forging is done.
Forge HOT!!
Forge HOT!!

[Scott Roush]

Lin.. I'm using a 3 lb drilling hammer for heavy forging and a 2 lb Hofi type for flattening and lighter stuff.

Good point Karl... I tend to be pretty conservative on my heats...

[skillet]

What the guys above said. Also, don't try to move it all at once. GET IT HOT and start the taper slowly! A couple of blows while in the guillitine tool to get things moving properly is all it takes.

[Lin Rhea]

I think the guys are right. I have to agree that your steel needs to be hotter. Also when it starts flaring too much, turn it over (90 degrees)and work it the other way, back and forth. Lin

[kuch]

and dont hit it when it is too cold...like they said forge hot. takes quite a bit of forging for "hammer control" also.  But again Scott, you are ahead of the curve judging by your pics.

[Scott Roush]

forging hot! hot damn I moved some steel today... thanks a lot!

[Lamey]

Great advice here for sure,  for years I was forging on the lower end of the curve.  Then I met Jimmy Fikes and started working some with him,  among the things he taught me was to GET IT HOT and HIT IT HARD!  

When I say hot, i mean bright orange to yellow,  yes I understand that defies most common wisdom,  but when I started forging in this manner a few things happend-  Steel started to move easily, allowing me much more "input" on the steel.  The blades really started to "come to life" during heat treat,  which is probably due more to the normalization/thermal cycles run after all the "hot" forging.

Dont be afraid,  but do have fun.

[kbaknife]

Originally posted by Lamey:
 The blades really started to "come to life" during heat treat,  which is probably due more to the normalization/thermal cycles run after all the "hot" forging.

Dont be afraid,  but do have fun.

That's exactly correct, Matt.
You'll be doing the steel - and yourself - a favor by forging hot, but then you have the ultimate responsibility and need to reduce and equalize the grain structure following the forging cycle.
This is a  VERY! specific process that behooves the maker to learn so as to get the most out of the steel and minimize certain failure if not done correctly.
It's not difficult - but it is extremely necessary.

[Lin Rhea]

Experience is speaking in the above two posts. New guys please take it to heart.  


I have found that to accomplish the necessary tasks to have the best blade it takes my absolute full attention. I suspect this may be why some makers only work alone and dont have folks over to watch.

I can allay some of the danger by adjusting my forge hot enough, but not TOO hot for the task. Develope good forging habits and know your steel. When you get these things down, you can work in a crowd and make a good blade. Well almost. Lin

[chris amos]

"Good food is not fast and fast food is not good." Thats the long and the short of it. A well made, properly forged blade is a blade that the maker can take pride in and the customer can believe in. The maker has taken the time to understand the nature of the steel he is working with and has done his best to manipulate that steel in such a way as to get every bit of potential from it. Forging it "HOT" is a terrible idea and generally ruins any benifit that the proper forging process puts into a blade. Correct heat treatment starts with the first thermal cycles and the first hammer blows and can go wrong at any time there after. It is true that you can "correct" grain growth at the end with normalizings, fast quenches and so on, but this is a "band aid" or a "good enough" approach to knifemaking. Once any carbon steel reaches nonmagnetic it is at proper forging temp. Getting it hotter makes it easier to forge but increases grain growth and cancels out alot of the benifits of the forging in the first place. Yes you can "refine" the grain later but you can't get back to where you started and you won't have the quality of blade you could have had by taking the time necessary to properly forge the blade in the first place. At just above nonmagnetic you should have almost no visable scale coming off your steel when you forge it. Thats a good indicator of proper forging temp and correct forge atmosphere.

[kbaknife]

...which behooves each and every maker to "filter" all the information he receives as best he can and put to use those things which benefit him the most.
I make a lot of Damascus. If I was to forge my Damascus blades at barely over non-magnetic, I'd have welds tearing all over the place. That stuff needs to be forged at almost a welding heat.
At the Master Smith level, those very Damascus blades perform exceedingly well when subjected to abusive tests following proper grain reduction and thermal/quenching cycles.
We deal with a lot of different steels.
Saying "..you can "refine" the grain later but you can't get back to where you started.." doesn't hold water.
How do you think the steel mill got it "to where you started" in the first place? They had aaalllll kinds of grain growth and distortions and got it "to where you started" by simple grain reduction and properly controlled thermal cycles and quenches.
It's pretty easy stuff.
If they can do it - we can do it, and we DO do it on a daily basis.  
I recently sent two knives - one in my 5160 and one in W2 - to a fellow in Texas who tortured them side by side with a Randall fighter - one of the most respected names in the knife industry - and a fighter in the high dollar S30V. My knives left them BOTH! in the dust.
Even I was impressed.
And both of mine were forged hot, to minimize the number of forging cycles, and properly treated post-forging.
This poor old cat has been skinned countless times.
Good thing we have nice knives to do it with!

[Scott Roush]

my ears are perked on this discussion... great stuff.

[kbaknife]

Scott, this is simply the tip of an "iceberg" that has been floating around the ocean for decades.
It's important that we understand the knife world is accompanied by many philosophies, different "schools", etc.
But, behind it all is the steel industry itself that is made up of people far smarter than most of us when it comes to metallurgy.
It's what they do.
Chris knows full well that I am a close acquaintance and student of Ed Fowler, a man who I respect whole heartedly.
Ed's main focus is 52100, a steel which is prone to extreme grain growth when we exceed about 1500 degrees. That's why Chris talks about forging at not much over non-mag.
When we deal with stuff like 1084 and W1/2, we're working with steel that has much higher levels of vanadium, which those "smart" guys in the steel industry put in there to reduce and minimize and control grain growth.
So our forging temps become far less of an issue. That very vanadium then also contributes with vanadium carbides in the hardening process.
(At this point I refer back to the previous post when I mentioned how my W2 performed!)
I went and did Ed Fowler's "Seminar of the High Performance Blade" because I had just acquired 2400 feet of 1 inch square 5160 that was all made in one batch in 1984. Far as I'm concerned, it's the BEST! 5160 being used by any knife maker today.
I had a group of professional hunters from the Outdoor Channel field dress, skin, quarter and cut up for the freezer 8 bucks and 11 does with one of my hunters and never sharpened the knife.
It was forged hot. And I did the proper post forging cycles.
The guy I mentioned above who abused my knives has since ordered a field/camp knife. We're still working on the design, but earlier this week I took out a knife I haven't used in some time, cleaned up the edge, and took it to the wood pile.
I did this in an effort to reacquaint myself with how my 5160, forged down from 1" stock, performed.
I found a 6" diameter piece of oak that I had given to me from a pile of firewood of my neighbor's since they quit burning in their fireplace years ago.
I don't know how old this piece was.
But when I started chopping on it, it was like whacking a concrete block. I could barely get through the bark!
So, I chopped away until I felt it was certainly enough abuse to determine integrity of the blade.
She still sliced through paper with no snags, and shaved hair like I had done no cutting at all.
Do I want more from my knives?
Nope.
Do I forge them hot?
Yep.
Do I take responsibility for my grain growth and put it back where it needs to be before hardening"
Yep.
The picture you see below is not after chopping on some pine 2X4. It's after beating relentlessly on solid oak that laughed at me!
The next knife I forge, I'll forge hot.
 

[Scott Roush]

thanks Karl... it all makes sense and makes me glad that I'm sticking with 1084 for right now.   I also need to spend more time abusing my knives....

[chris amos]

A large number of my knives are forged from load control shaft 5160, the same times and temps that are used with the virgin 52100 that Mr. Fowler and I use are used with the 5160 to achieve almost as good of performance. "Industry" standards have very little to do with knifemaking standards, temps vary by many hundreds of degrees and industry guidelines are just that, for industry uses. Like Karl I test my knives, every one. One in ten is tested to destruction. On average I can expect 400 to 500 clean cuts on 1/2 inch hemp rope and between 8 and 12 180 degree bends before the edge cracks. The last blade tested has done 9 180's and will be tested further at the next High Performance Knife Seminar In WY. I forge the way I forge not only because I was taught this way by Ed Fowler, but because I have tested these methods and find they work. I don't understand all the fancy words and metalurgical formulas but Rex Walter, one of the most respected metalurgist' in the industry says that what we do works, that forging hot results in unrepairable grain growth, and results in an inferior blade. We are all free to do as we please, this is why I do what I do. I am by no means an expert or a master smith, only a knifemaker who will stand behind my work. For a more detailed explanation of High Endurance Performance Knifemaking feel free to visit. Knifetalkonline, Ed Fowlers web site. It has answers to almost any question you might have. You might even find Karl there once and a while!