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In the Shop
Making a Scorp by Bret Rochotte February 04, 2006
Here is a pic of a draw knife I'm working on, forged from an old file, with apple wood handles yet to be installed. I cast the spoke shave last weekend and made the blade yesterday. It makes nice shavings on the end grain of poplar.
Here is an image:
I need fair weather to do smithing or casting, its snowing here today. I need to heat treat the draw knife then push the handles on. Bret February 12, 2006 I made a scorp a few weeks ago from an old file. I set out to harden it yesterday, must have gotten it too hot and this is what happened when I lifted it from the fire:
So I have these pieces of really hard metal I got in a box of junk at an auction about 25 years ago, been saving it for who knows what. The blades have a bit of taper, kind of like a knife blade:
Green coal smokes a bit. I am a member of SOFA, and I can get good coal $10/50lbs, reason enough to join. I have a small rivet forge I lined with plastic refractory, I set the fire bricks in it to help bank the fire higher and retain the heat. The tyre is a pipe cap with several holes drilled in it, so it sticks up too high. Next time I re-line the forge I will use something shallower.
Here is the heated piece and the fuller, starting to draw the first tang:
As I fullered the skinny end, it begins to roll:
So I dumped on some borax hoping it would fuse as I draw and shape the first tang:
The edges on my old Peter Wright are rounded so I use this block of cast iron to form the shoulder. The anvil edges are not really as bad as they look in the pictures, resolution on the pics is not real high:
Next I flipped the piece around and begin to form the tang on the wider end:
This picture shows the tang starting to take shape, I put borax on this end as before, this is a welding heat. I'm hoping this end will weld so I can draw the tang into a solid piece:
Starting to form the shoulder, finished with the block as before, and hit it with a set hammer to try and get a square corner:
Drawing the second tang, I think the weld took:
Here it is so far:
Here is a hammer I bought at Darley's last summer. The seller is a Midwest member that happened to be at the same auction last May where I bought a bunch of boilermakers tools. There were several hand made hammers I bought, now I have this one too. This hammer has a big rounded end that will work to form the edge.
Here is the edge, I kept hitting the edge as it cooled to "pack" the edge, I read someplace that this helps refine the steel to make a better edge. I duno if it really makes any difference.
Next the blade was heated and bent around the horn of the anvil. I made another one yesterday with a flatter arc, this one will have a smaller radius:
The ends were reheated to bend the tangs:
I used the pritchel to bend the tangs:
And here is the rough piece ready for grinding:
Before I quit I heated up the one I made yesterday and quenched it in some used oil. I had no assistant to take pictures so by the time I got this picture the flames had gone out. The blade is definitely harder and took a pretty good edge.
Now I need to put the handles on. I Should have drawn the tangs longer so I can drill all the way through the handles and peen the ends so they won't slip off. I'm going to try just sticking them in and see if they stay on. I know there are smiths on this list that know a heck of a lot more than I do, please feel free to make suggestions. I show these pictures to demonstrate that if I can do this anybody can. It took less than 2 hours including dragging all the stuff out of the shed, starting the fire and putting most of it back in the shed. I let the forge cool down before I put it to bed. It was starting to snow and the sun was going down so time to quit.
Bret Rochotte |
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