Forged in Fire Home Edition : Bushcraft Knife

Blacksmithing has become very trendy nowadays. There are Tv shows where Blacksmithing artist show off all their knowledge and work. My 5yo son tell me sometimes : Daddy you can do it"so I said : Say no more. This is my Forged in fire Low Budget Home edition, using as usual what I had in my garage.

Encontrar buenas herramientas para camping se ha convertido en una verdadera aventura. En el mercado puedes encontrar una tonelada de ofertas en cuchillos para campamento pero soy de los que dice porque comprarlo por 100 si puedes hacerlo por 500 ? En teoria es mucho el trabajo y son varias cosas las que debes comprar para adentrarse en el maravilloso mundo del forjado de cuchillos. Existe un show de televisión llamado Desafio sobre fuego, del cual soy fan y no me pierdo ningún capitulo. Pues bien, mi hijo de 5 años me acompaña a verlo y siempre me ha dicho tu tambien puedes hacerlo. Pues bien esta es mi version casera de Forjado en fuego .

Step 1: Pretty Low Budget Backyard Forge

As usual, I have to work with what I have in hand. For the forge I used an old Milk Barrel to contain the coal and coke, and a leave blower as wind feeder, it has 5 speeds so Im able to regulate the heat source and intensity. The Old Milk Can was so old that it hasnt bottom, so all I did was buried a pvc pipe in the ground and connected to the air blower.

I used a piece of heavy duty steel as anvil, fixed over a piece of trunk buried in the ground.

For this project I used a Big 5 pound hammer, a small 1 pound hammer and a huge amount of Elbow grease.

Step 2: Forging

I had some Ferriers rasp from almost 20 years ago so it is a good High Carbon steel to work.It is well known the removing material technique but im going to forge it anyway. I spent forging the blade for almost three good hours ,tempering the blade in a mix of water and salt, one hour with the angle grinder fixing some mistakes and errors on the blade. I had to shorten the blade for 10 cms because there were major injuries for heat excess.

Step 3: Handles

I used the wood from a pallet founded in the firewood pile. At first, I carve the shape of the handle with the mototool and make like a box where the handle fits, but once the holes was drilled the wood just splitted appart, then I decided to secure the whole thing with three brass bolts / pins and then shape it with the angle grinder and fill the empty spaces with black resin. Finnally I added a pin cutted off a 100 pesos coin.

I like the final result , its so strong enough to batonning the wood.

Step 4: It Will Keal !

I really love the badass look and the strength of the blade. The first test it was cutting a piece of hard wood then cutting a soda plastic bottle in half, so definitelly it will cut. Then I tested his balance throwing it to a tree and in the second try I hit the bullseye.

This is my humble rendition to all those Blacksmithing masters and their awesome artwork. Once again it is proved that "NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION"

I hope you like it, rated and vote in the Trash to treasure Contest.Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.