Hren Forge

Most folks think that you need a great deal of money to get into a hobby like smithing. This could hardly be less true. My forge is made of clay from my back yard. The charcoal is made from wooden scraps/deadwood in a 50 gallon drum, which only set me back $20. I you want, you can work with a cheap harbor freight starting anvil ($60) or better, find a heavy slab of iron (rr track is excellent) for free.

Newest creation. Still needs polish and a scabbard, but close to being finished. It's bigger than the artifacts, but I'll get that sorted for the next one.

First knife I ever made alongside my most recent. I've improved a bit, but still have a long way to go. Both are based on seax artifacts from the British Museum in London.

It's been what, three, four years? It's been too long. But now, I have my own land. Land I can use every day, shrouded in forest, where I can work iron every night.

And boy oh boy, do I need the practice.

I've been making decorative leaf hooks this weekend. It's great practice. You draw out stock, create an edge with a fuller, and punch out rivet holes all in one product. But this apperantly ain't like riding a bike. The hooks I've made today would get me crucified by any smith worthy of the name. Three years in an apartment have set me back to square one.

But there's only one way to improve.

Tomorrow I'll be making more hooks. And by God, I'll keep making them until I've mastered them. Making an ok knife is easy. I'd know. But learning a trade is work, especially if it's merely a hobby. But I'm obsessive enough to learn the trade anyway.

I forgot to take more pictures, but the heat-treating was a brilliant success. The secret, at least for me, is low ambient light and patience. I'd lay the blade on flameless, orange-white hot coals, flip it like a burger until it's the same yellow-orange color along the entire blade, then set it about four centimeters away from the coals until it cooled to a black color again. I'd repeat this a few times with each knife.

After that I'd heat a blade to the same yellow-orange color, tap it with a magnet to make sure the atom polarity had been randomized, then shove it into pre-heated vegetable oil and leave it dangling in the oil for five minutes.

I've found that this produces a straight, uncracked blade that a file will skate across. This works for 1095, 1085, rr spikes, industrial lawn mower blades, and 5160.

All that's left now is to temper and sharpen these 3 knives.

The 1st of three days at the forge this holiday weekend. I have a few projects to complete, including a few celtic ring-hilt knives.

The lighting is poor in the picture if the lit forge. The bed of coals in the front has almost no flames. It's putting off so much light, however, that my camera cannot tell the difference.

If all goes well I'll have two ring hilt knives for sale next week.

It's hard to work at a forge when you live four hours away from it xD. Thankfully my sister's wedding has given me an opportunity to fire it up. The larger of these knives will be delivered to a customer at clash of iron, and the other I hope exchange at Latta Celtic Festival. In two weeks I'll grind and heat treat them. They'll look so much prettier.

I'm moving, and the forge is depressingly cold this month. There's gonna be a big release of pent-up hammering once it's set up again.

If you look close, you can see a soul passing from the flames into the steel.