Knife Smithing
This weekend, I've been in a blacksmith workshop, smithing a knife blade.
I took a two-day course in knife making, including blacksmithing, filing, and so on. We were five pupils, with two teachers present. There's been one forge, two anvils and plenty of workspaces for the later work steps.
The course took place in Berlin, about 20 minutes drive from home. Thomas, the course master, is a well experienced blacksmith, creating artwork, film and commission work and, of course, knifes, as a profession. He's also quite obviously a smith at heart. The way he talks about it and pulls you into it leaves little doubt that he's doing exactly what he should be doing. He'd studied music, though, majoring in guitar, piano and trombone. These days, he's playing hammer and anvil instead.
We started out with a simple 10x4cm piece of 6mm band steel. The steel type is called 2510, if you must know, and is a good knife steel - hard, but flexible enough if treated right, and it contains enough chrome to make it somewhat resistant to corrosion.
Our steel blocks were welded to half-yard steel handles and heated in the fire. Then we put our hammers to it for the first time, creating the wedge that would later seperate the blade from the handle. Next, we drew out the handle, then made a short but thick blade-form, and finally we bashed the blade until it was thin and long enough, and shaped it to our previously drawn designs.
After this beating, the metal was heated and cooled several times to give it a more homogenous structure. After that we heated it to about 765 degrees so it would become soft and easily filed.
Filing took several hours. Outer shape first, then taking away from both sides of the blade, and when you're nearly done, you switch to finer and finer files and sanding paper. At that point you try to remove all the impurities and grooves, as that will be much more difficult after the steel is hardened. Also, this is were you need to take a lot of care to get a straight edged blade and a good over all form.
Afterwards, the steel was heated again. Twice, to make it even again. Once, to make it real hard. (860 degrees, if I'm not mistaken) After that it's like glass - very hard but brittle and inflexible. So it's heated twice more, in a normal oven, at 185 degrees. After the first round, the knives were sharped with stones and leather.
The sides of the handle are still more or less untreated, as I plan to attach wooden parts there, and so the side of the metal is hidden anyway. The blade is not yet polished and will be shiny and clean once it has been polished.
The knife is surprisingly sharp, and should also be quite strong.
My finished blade, made from a 10cm by 4cm steel block, then hammered and formed to near 20cm lengh, shaped, filed, sharpened, drilled, heated for hardness and re-heated, and what not.
Thomas, the master smith, taking care of the fire. His pool of experience is vast and invaluable. He's also a very nice, down-to-earth person.
A knife is being smithed on the anvil. This is not my knife. I was holding the (incredibly lousy) camera instead.
That's mine, coming straight from the fire and cooling rapidly. Blacksmithing is fun! Without Thomas and Ingo, whom have been at our sides at every step, and capable of repairing our, um, experiments, it might have been much more frustrating, though. ^^
Since I am a programmer, my work is usually not physical. Therefor, I rarely get to hold any finished end products of my labor in my hands. There's little I can show around and say "I did this." But this weekend I got something very real to show for, and it feels great. I want to do more crafting in the future, if opportunity presents itself. This course was a great and rewarding experience which I can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who can lift a two kilo hammer more than once. That should be pretty much everyone :)
Needless to say, I'm feeling accomplished, glad I had the idea to do a smithing course, happy and slightly proud.
I took a two-day course in knife making, including blacksmithing, filing, and so on. We were five pupils, with two teachers present. There's been one forge, two anvils and plenty of workspaces for the later work steps.
The course took place in Berlin, about 20 minutes drive from home. Thomas, the course master, is a well experienced blacksmith, creating artwork, film and commission work and, of course, knifes, as a profession. He's also quite obviously a smith at heart. The way he talks about it and pulls you into it leaves little doubt that he's doing exactly what he should be doing. He'd studied music, though, majoring in guitar, piano and trombone. These days, he's playing hammer and anvil instead.
We started out with a simple 10x4cm piece of 6mm band steel. The steel type is called 2510, if you must know, and is a good knife steel - hard, but flexible enough if treated right, and it contains enough chrome to make it somewhat resistant to corrosion.
Our steel blocks were welded to half-yard steel handles and heated in the fire. Then we put our hammers to it for the first time, creating the wedge that would later seperate the blade from the handle. Next, we drew out the handle, then made a short but thick blade-form, and finally we bashed the blade until it was thin and long enough, and shaped it to our previously drawn designs.
After this beating, the metal was heated and cooled several times to give it a more homogenous structure. After that we heated it to about 765 degrees so it would become soft and easily filed.
Filing took several hours. Outer shape first, then taking away from both sides of the blade, and when you're nearly done, you switch to finer and finer files and sanding paper. At that point you try to remove all the impurities and grooves, as that will be much more difficult after the steel is hardened. Also, this is were you need to take a lot of care to get a straight edged blade and a good over all form.
Afterwards, the steel was heated again. Twice, to make it even again. Once, to make it real hard. (860 degrees, if I'm not mistaken) After that it's like glass - very hard but brittle and inflexible. So it's heated twice more, in a normal oven, at 185 degrees. After the first round, the knives were sharped with stones and leather.
The sides of the handle are still more or less untreated, as I plan to attach wooden parts there, and so the side of the metal is hidden anyway. The blade is not yet polished and will be shiny and clean once it has been polished.
The knife is surprisingly sharp, and should also be quite strong.
My finished blade, made from a 10cm by 4cm steel block, then hammered and formed to near 20cm lengh, shaped, filed, sharpened, drilled, heated for hardness and re-heated, and what not.
Thomas, the master smith, taking care of the fire. His pool of experience is vast and invaluable. He's also a very nice, down-to-earth person.
A knife is being smithed on the anvil. This is not my knife. I was holding the (incredibly lousy) camera instead.
That's mine, coming straight from the fire and cooling rapidly. Blacksmithing is fun! Without Thomas and Ingo, whom have been at our sides at every step, and capable of repairing our, um, experiments, it might have been much more frustrating, though. ^^
Since I am a programmer, my work is usually not physical. Therefor, I rarely get to hold any finished end products of my labor in my hands. There's little I can show around and say "I did this." But this weekend I got something very real to show for, and it feels great. I want to do more crafting in the future, if opportunity presents itself. This course was a great and rewarding experience which I can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who can lift a two kilo hammer more than once. That should be pretty much everyone :)
Needless to say, I'm feeling accomplished, glad I had the idea to do a smithing course, happy and slightly proud.