THE FORGE AND FURNACE
The belt grinder that I use for all my
knives
My humble forge shed back in Tennessee. It
used to be a goat shed before I claimed it.
This is my current furnace in preparation
for firing. The crucible has been sealed with a
refractory mix to seal in the air and prevent loss of carbon
via oxidation. The furnace is made from a rubbish bin
filled with castable refractory cement.
When the furnace is running it sounds like
a jet engine. After about two hours the metal has melted
and the furnace can be turned off and left to cool.
I like to cover the exhaust hole to slow
down the cooling of the ingot. When the crucibe is
removed, you can see that the refractory lid has become dished
by the heat of the furnace, and upon opening you can see that
the crushed glass flux has melted.
Finally, the Wootz ingot and some of the
pieces of glass slag. The crucible is still in good condition
and can be used again.
The ingot is heat treated to soften the
outside (I like to cut it in half first), forged into a bar,
and then after being cleaned up a little it is forged into a
knife blank. Then I take the blank, cut out the profie of the
knife and grind it to shape on the belt grinder. The final step
is to heat treat the blade and acid etch it to reveal the
pattern. I usually do not regrind the surface of the blade
before I etch, because I have found that the decarburised layer
on the outside of the blade tends to give a deeper more durable
etch and also is more resistant to rusting. This is not
the traditional method and in actual fact gives a reverse
pattern, (where the carbides were creates the dark part of the
pattern), but I like the effect and it sure lasts longer than
the traditional pattern.
