Recently I made myself a rough knife and upon showing it to Garth, a mate of mine, he expressed an interest for me to build a bowie for him.
In exchange I will get a 25 tonne hydraulic jack that I wish to make a press with.

In the past, my heat treatment for tools I made are quite iffy, with heat bead and a vacuum cleaner rig as a blower.
So it is time for me to build a forge.

A few days ago, a member of another forum offered a forge and with his expertise in gas heating, he could help me with the bits and pieced that is needed to make a good forge.
So, last Saturday, I visited him to pick up the materials.
Well, you will see someone who is passionate about making things when you see his shed!!
I am duly impressed!!

Anyhow, after showing me how his gas forge work (WOW!!) He assembled the bits that I need for my forge.

Here are some of the goodies that I got from him.



Next stop is to cut open the bottle so I could stuff in the ceramic wool insulator.


After I stuff in the insulator, I weld it back, with my clumsy welding skill now it looks really ugly.. oh well


Then I cut out the opening, and make a "door way" from a stiff piece of refractory slab..
I was too impatient to see how it works, so at this point I just light it up for a minute or two, just to see how the fire looks like..
Pretty good I guess.

Next I reopen the "Door" and slop in some refractory concrete for the floor of the furnace


So I am done..
and left with waiting for the concrete to dry..
Rather than just sitting twidling my thumb, I decided to start on Garth's bowie.
Here is what I am up to..


Not bad for a weekend..

Damn...that looks awesome Gelan...better than my "forge"...a pile of wood in my Weber BBQ.

I like the look of your knife blank...nice shape. What did you use to shape and cut the bevel on the edge mate?

Cheers, Vince

Vince wrote:

What did you use to shape and cut the bevel on the edge mate?

A file and my hands
A lot of sweat mate

very tidy indeed.
reminds me of Vinces pig.
those knives you are making look just the ticket for fixing big tusky porkers!

Looks like an ozpig on roids.
Keep rubbing it in Galan, thats another project thats on my to do list for the last 20 yrs, I may get motivated yet.
The use of the 9kg gas bottle is a bloody good idea, keepem coming.

Impressive for sure. Make sure we see the finished product.

Thanks guys..
I'll keep you posted.

Awesome project and knife.

"...a pile of wood in my weber BBQ." And his better half blowing on the embers...

Gelandangan...THAT looks nice...Impressive.

CALL ME WHEN ITS TIME TO EAT!

gelandangan wrote:

Thanks guys.. I'll keep you posted.

I like it and thanks for keeping us updated.

Bushmaster wrote:

"...a pile of wood in my weber BBQ." And his better half blowing on the embers... Gelandangan...THAT looks nice...Impressive.

No need to blow the embers Bushy...thank goodness...with the bottom vents full open it dtraws plenty of air and it takes only a couple of minutes for 1/4" thick metal to get red hot, which is in the range of 800*F.

I wouldn't be game enough to get SWMBO to "blow the embers"...she'd give me the floggin' of me life for being a smartar$e.

Gelan...have a look at buying a linisher mate...will make the job so much easier. I gotta get one myself.

Cheers, Vince

Vince wrote:

Gelan...have a look at buying a linisher mate...will make the job so much easier. I gotta get one myself. Cheers, Vince

Got one mate, an el cheapo $89 Aldi stuff, it works OK, but because it removes metal a bit too fast, I do not like it,
I cannot control the flow as good as the ole hand job

Fair enough mate. Maybe you need a finer grade of paper on it though.

Cheers, Vince