New direction.............................
Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 6:27 am
Hey all,
I just returned home from Wyoming where I was learning to forge the Ed Fowler way. Forging was just the prelude to the quenching and heat treating process used by Ed. It takes 26 separate cycles in and out of the forge, the oil, a freezer, and the paragon to get the results this man strives for.
Here are the four blades I made while I was there. The bottom two are awaiting handles, the top two need to be finished up to varying degrees.
The grind he calls a modified Michael Price grind. The blade is thinner at the ricasso, thicker in the center, and thin at the tip. The cut is initiated in the thin area near the ricasso and the thicker area in the center aids in parting the material. The penetrating tip functions in the opposite way.
You can see the quench lines revealed by the etching. Close-up pictures would reveal the grain structure in the steel.
I’ll stop boring you with this stuff and show you why he does it. The blade in the vise was forged at the same time I did mine, the same way. It bent 90 degrees 10 times at 90 foot pounds of pressure. It made 150 cuts on a hemp rope before we called it good and just quit, 500 cuts and more are not unusual.
Does a blade need to bend like that? One would like to know that it could before it fails and leaves you out in the cold.
We tested a well-known factory survival fighter in the vice, and it snapped at 15 foot pounds of pressure before it bent 30 degrees one time.
Take care.........................
I just returned home from Wyoming where I was learning to forge the Ed Fowler way. Forging was just the prelude to the quenching and heat treating process used by Ed. It takes 26 separate cycles in and out of the forge, the oil, a freezer, and the paragon to get the results this man strives for.
Here are the four blades I made while I was there. The bottom two are awaiting handles, the top two need to be finished up to varying degrees.
The grind he calls a modified Michael Price grind. The blade is thinner at the ricasso, thicker in the center, and thin at the tip. The cut is initiated in the thin area near the ricasso and the thicker area in the center aids in parting the material. The penetrating tip functions in the opposite way.
You can see the quench lines revealed by the etching. Close-up pictures would reveal the grain structure in the steel.
I’ll stop boring you with this stuff and show you why he does it. The blade in the vise was forged at the same time I did mine, the same way. It bent 90 degrees 10 times at 90 foot pounds of pressure. It made 150 cuts on a hemp rope before we called it good and just quit, 500 cuts and more are not unusual.
Does a blade need to bend like that? One would like to know that it could before it fails and leaves you out in the cold.
We tested a well-known factory survival fighter in the vice, and it snapped at 15 foot pounds of pressure before it bent 30 degrees one time.
Take care.........................
