I was lucky enough to score part of an old wagon wheel from a JS that lives right down the road from me and I decided to try my hand at forge welding.
I combined the wrought wagon wheel with a core of 1/4" 1084 and welded them to a piece of rebar and soaked them in kerosene until my forge came up to temperature.
After getting the wrought sandwich up to temperature, I pulled the piece out and had my 11yr old hold on to it while I worked it with the sledgehammer until I had a Nice flat billet.
Then it was time to clean up the edges and give it a quick etch to make sure the 1084 core was still in the center...
Then it was back to the fire to start forging out the blade shape.
I found myself paying much more attention to each hammer blow knowing that I had to keep the core in the center.
This was a valuable lesson for me...
After HT and testing, I decided to use some black g10 and curly maple for the handle material.
I Also wanted to try to dome the pins on this knife so I made a little jig to help me out...
This was a project that I have wanted to do for a long time but I kept putting it off for some reason....
I'm glad I finally did it!