This is a forge welded steel cable wakizashi I made while attending Michael Bell's swordsmith school. It is still in rough polish, so I guess it needs maybe another couple of months' work before it is completed.
It is a shinogi zukuri blade, that is, there is a ton of bevels and edges on the blade, which are pretty tricky to forge, and much trickier to polish without accidentally running over them and wiping them out (no way to put the missing metal back on). I have to be very patient and careful with polishing this beauty; no sandpaper here, strictly Japanese water stones...
Initial material right there in the center, a piece of 1 inch thick steel logging cable.
The blade during forging.
Right after filing it all to correct geometry (notice that at this point the blade is still straight).
Applying clay for the differential hardening.
The blade after water quench hardening and grinding (the blade is now curved).
Oh, somewhere in there was a ton of straightening the blade after it warped during the quench. I was to squeamish to take pictures as we all feared it might break at any moment...
Here is a photo from Michael Bell's site with the finished product. Looking really smug...
No comments:
Post a Comment