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Historical Inspiration This forum is dedicated to the discussion of historical knife design and its influence on modern custom knife work.

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  #1  
Old 06-22-2004, 07:30 PM
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J.Arthur Loose J.Arthur Loose is offline
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New forum welcome

Hey guys, check out the new bells & whistles.

How many Historical Inspiration forumites does it take to change a lightbulb?

Four: One to change the lightbulb and three to argue about how they made the old one.

ANYWAY... I started building the Viking smelter a few days ago...


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Old 06-23-2004, 12:04 PM
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Still getting used to the new layout. But overall I think Alex has done a great job for us once again.

Looking forward to see the results you get with that viking smelter.

Haven't done any new/old knives in while. Right now I'm doing Japanese chefs knives for a raffle. But I have at least stacked the billets for my next historic knife (or at least the next one worth showing here), a viking folding knife.

And I have gotten the steel for my first sword (only needed 2' had to buy 20', so I'm set for sword steel for a awhile :cool: )

So I should be back with stuff to show in a month or so.

I hate only having part time to work on knives. But if I was doing full time knife making, I could not realy afford to make the stuff I want to make. So I guess there is a trade off.


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Old 06-23-2004, 04:32 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by J.Loose
ANYWAY... I started building the Viking smelter a few days ago...
I actually have half my structure built and the ground leveled where mine will go. I found all the near-surface white clay deposits on our property and am ready to go! This weekend I'm hosting an armour-making shin-dig, but after that I want to get busy on the smelter. That...and 2000+ lbs of red oxide in the shop is really getting old. The mud daubers love it, though! Be sure and take some pics along the way!


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Old 06-24-2004, 08:36 AM
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Nice... let's both post pics & notes here in this forum... the new site has me interested in getting this place going! As a matter of fact... I'll post a pic later today. So far I have the base of the smelter constructed and I have found a great new book called 200 Years of Soil and Sweat, which details the iron working history in Vermont. At one point this state was quite the steel producer! There are maps to ore fields, mines & iron bogs! I have a 5 gallon bucket of bog iron on the way already...


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Old 06-24-2004, 09:10 AM
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We sit on tons and tons of siderite here. Not the best ore...but not the worst either. It's common enough that you can pick up small boulders just laying around and it's used for landscaping.

I've been using stuff from the links on the Rockbridge Bloomery site (http://iron.wlu.edu/). I wrote to several of the UK places who built and operated some of the period smelters, but thus far no one has responded!

Here's what I'm basing most of mine on: http://www.bradford.ac.uk/acad/archs...2/Rievaulx.htm

I'm hoping to have some finished knives by October which will use smelted iron/steel.

It's been drizzling here for a week. I ought to go dig some clay while the ground is like snot. A week from now it will be like concrete again! The joys of living on an ancient sea bed!


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Old 06-24-2004, 03:28 PM
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Don, who did you write to over here? I could see if we have friends of friends of friends who might be able to nudge people into replying

Roger


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Old 06-24-2004, 03:44 PM
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J or Don - Have either of you given any thought to making blister steel?
Stacking iron rods with charcoal in an oven and cooking it until the iron infuses (about a week IIRC). Best info I've got is the iron rods were 3/8" x 3/8 or 1/2" x 3' long.
Myself and several other "frontier" smiths are interested in "aquiring" some so anybody interested in making some?


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Old 06-28-2004, 03:11 PM
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Roger,
I'll dig out the old emails and forward them to you.

Chuck,
Hadn't really thought about it...but once I get some iron made I'm sure I could give it a shot. With regards to end result after refining, how does blister steel differ from some of the Japanese produced steels (tamahagane, etc...)?


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Old 06-28-2004, 03:59 PM
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Howdy Don - Frankly what I know about Japanese steel you could fit in a tea cup - a SMALL teacup at that. Here's some more info on blister steel

Blister Steel

Carbon combines with iron at elevated temperatures; however, in the presence of oxygen the process can be altered. Blister steel was a crude form lacking uniform distribution of carbon. It was made by heating iron bars buried in finely ground charcoal in an iron box, sometimes called a crucible. The latter term often confuses the modern student because crucible today implies a vessel in which the metal was melted. This was not the case with blister steel. After burying the iron bars in fine charcoal, the iron box would be covered with an iron plate and luted (sealed with clay to exclude oxygen). The box was then placed in a large forge (furnace) and heated to a bright red heat. Depending upon certain conditions such as the size of the bar, the box would be maintained at the prescribed heat for a period of time. Then removed and permitted to cool. The surface of the carbonized bars would contain elevated levels of carbon. Carbon content in the iron dropped toward the center of the bar. Large amounts of carbon caused the surface of the bar to flake or peel forming "blisters", hence blister steel.


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Old 06-29-2004, 09:42 AM
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Medieval case hardening...no problem!

Do you plan on then folding the steel or just using it as is?


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