Forge Upgrade

Yesterday was good day. I finally upgraded my forge from the tomato can design, to a much bigger and better one.

This is my old forge set-up.

I used a big tomato can for this one. I drilled holes in the bottom for air and cut slits in the sides for the steel to pass through.

This is my new design. I converted a smoker to suit my purpose. 

The air source is a barn ventilation fan I rewired.

Air enters the smoker through the door on the bottom.

The air flows up the body of the smoker.

It then comes through the slanted openings into the charcoal area, providing nice, even air flow. It also blows in through the circular holes near the top of the fire-bin.

I’m confident this will make smithing easier.

Utility Knife

I modified an old knife blade for this one. A broken saw blade that I had made into a different knife previously was the blade of choice. It started out as this…

 

I chopped it in half and gave it a flat grind, and it came out more like this…

 

This is the first knife that I tried to heat treat and temper. I don’t think I got it quite right, but that problem should go away with practice.

All in all, it was a fun project.

Refurbished Case knife

This is another one of my recent projects. I have had this old blade from Case cutlery for quite awhile now; however, I had only found the time to work on it recently. Sand paper and cedar scales turned it into a knife worth owning again.

(Before any actually work had been done.)

(After a rough power sanding to remove the rust.)

(Now I’ve done some finer hand sanding.)

(setting the epoxy with clamps for security. I let it sit overnight.)

And finally, the finished product.

Experimental Kama

When I woke up this morning I hadn’t even thought about making this weapon. This project came completely out of the blue. A couple months ago I had found an old pair of garden shears lying in the dirt way out in the back field. Of course, they were covered in rust, but I thought I could salvage the blades anyway. So I thought: man, what could I use these blades for? The tang is too short to make a strong knife. Since I couldn’t figure out a solution at the time, I forgot about it for quite awhile. The other day I found the blades again and sanded them off, but I still couldn’t think of how to make one of them into a good knife. Today I was in a knife making mood; so I went back to the trimmer blade, trying hard to figure out what to do with it. I was looking in my pile of wood for some good handle material when an idea hit me. Why not make a Kama? The blade was almost the perfect shape and size. So with a little sweat, a handsaw or two, a large rasp, some epoxy and leather; I spent the afternoon and evening crafting a satisfactory Kama. I am very pleased with how it turned out.

The kanji says: “Ronin knives”.

(scale)

Fortunately for me, the shears were made from pretty decent steel, so the blade holds a nice sharp edge.

My first knives

Custom job #1. Hardened steel is a pain to work with and I’m going to try to avoid it in the future.

Knife #1

This was one that I wanted to make with as much primitive material as I could. I used a saw blade, a bone handle, some wooden spacers and pommel plug. For the sheath, I experimented with some cedar blocks covered by leather.

Intro

Hi, my name is Ryan Stauffer. I am 16 years old and interested in starting my own knife making company. I have made and sold 2 knives as of yet. I am pretty new to this activity. I made my own knife forge with a little bit of inspiration from YouTube. My forge consists of a large tomato paste can, on top of a brick structure, with a hair dryer underneath as a blower. I am still trying to find an anvil to hammer out my knives on, but I’m making do for now. This blog is going to follow my story as I try to build my own company: Ronin Knife Works. We’ll see how this turns out.

Ryan.