I thought I’d sell my old anvil and get a new one. The surface of the anvil was pretty pitted, and if I tried to forge down an edge, the steel often picked up the pits. Also: new anvils are pretty!
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I thought I’d sell my old anvil and get a new one. The surface of the anvil was pretty pitted, and if I tried to forge down an edge, the steel often picked up the pits. Also: new anvils are pretty!
When you form the tip of a japanese-style war-blade, you cut the steel at a 45-degree angle then hammer the back over to form the tip. Usually, the cut-off piece goes in the bin, but with oroshigane or tamahagane, the material is valuable enough that you can’t do that.
I’ve fallen into a habit of randomly switching from project to project, as my interests hit me. That results in a pretty random output, but I’m having a lot of fun.
Willie Sutton said you rob banks because “that’s where the money is.” Well, what if you’re looking for wood?
The next step in the blade’s preparation is to clay up the edge, heat the whole blade until it comes to critical temperature, then plunge it into warm water to harden it.
A trope about samurai swords is that they are incredibly strong and sharp.
Since I didn’t have my laptop, I didn’t write up a daily summary of events so this is going to be a bit less narrative and a bit more stream-of-memory.
“Oroshigane” is the Japanese word for “shop metal” – steel that is home-brewed from whatever the smith decides is interesting.
From my bedroom window, this is one of the views:
Once I had the burner ring working, I set up a big pot (a turkey frier I picked up at TSco) and … That was it.