Iron Knife

Drop by your local welder and pick up some 1/8" x 1" strap. Get 3-4 feet, enough for maybe a half-dozen practice blades. This is low carbon steel, close to straight iron. It was formed by hot rolling and has 'mill bark' on it. The carbon content will around 0.18%, thus technically, it's 1018 steel, but the stuff won't harden. This is for forging practice--a cheap way to work out kinks in your equipment and technique.

Time to meet Mr. Borax. Borax can be used as a flux to keep the steel surface from scaling too badly. There are two forms of borax, regular and anhydrous. You can get regular borax at the clay store (about a buck a pound) as it's routinely used in glazes. Or buy it at the supermarket as laundry soap, although that's getting harder to find.

Regular borax has absorbed a considerable amount of water and when heated the water vapor will escape and bubble. Regular borax is white puffy stuff that, when stirred up, flies around in the air and forms somewhat of an insulator while melting. The standard blacksmithing procedure is to put regular borax in the kitchen oven and drive off the moisture, turning regular borax into anhydrous borax. While the term is technically correct, it misses the point. Anhydrous borax (also called fused borax) is regular borax that's been melted, cooled and then ground. It feels and looks about like table salt and has very little capacity for absorbing moisture. This is the stuff you want, not moisture-free regular borax. There's also something called boric acid which melts at a lower temperature and acts much like borax. You don't want that either.

I get anhydrous borax from Rio Grande, it's item # 704-093 and costs $13 for a five pound box, the toll-free number is 800-545-6566. Get a Rio Grande Tools and Equipment Catalogue, there's a lot of stuff in it that applies to knife forging. This is one of the better companies I've dealt with and very prompt. I get steel bench blocks from them, item # 112-494.

Some people like forging to music. Pick out something which has a beat that fits your technique. I'm partial to Northern Plains drumming which runs around 80 beats per minute. The point is to find something with a rhythm which tends to organize your mind and actions.

Let's review -- To forge a knife you'll need six things:

1. Something to pound on (anvil)
2. Something to pound with (hammer)
3. Source of heat
4. Something to pound (steel)
5. Coolant
6. Knowledge of the process

We're up to #4 and working on #6.

From 1018 strap, cut a piece in the shape of the Forging Blank you worked out while clay forging, lay out your hammer(s) and tong(s), fire up the forge, turn on the music and go to it. Practice pounding 1018 steel into the knife shape you want. For the final shape we want a blade angle of 9 degrees and an edge of AWG #16, so forge to about 9 degrees and an edge of AWG #14 or #15.

This is the place to get it all worked out and begin building muscle memory and a skill set. Stick with it until you can get an acceptable shape. There's no point going on until you can. Once you have an acceptable forged knife that's the shape of your original Knife Blank, save it to use later in this tutorial. In fact, save all your efforts. As embarrassing and amateurish as they may seem at the time, they'll chronicle your progress and be a source for study and later insight.