Okay, but there are a lot of photo's so I guess I'll just take it one thing at a time showing what I did. The knife in these photo's is the only forged knife I ever made (actually helped make) or ever will make. I have a friend who is a black smith and a pretty good one. He has been trying to get me to do blacksmithing, but I am not going to. He knew I made knives, so he said for me to come over and he would show me how to forge a blade and I had always wanted to try that anyway.
So I drew out what I wanted to make and we threw a piece of round stock 52100 in his double burner gas forge and heated it to the color he said it should be and we both took turns beating it out into a flat piece. Then we started working on shaping it with the hammer and that was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. He would have to correct all of my mistakes. So we finally got it to where he was happy with it and he asked me if I wanted his touch mark on it and I said sure, so I stamped the blade.
You forgers and black smiths all know what a touch mark is, but for those who don't, it's an identifying mark unique to each forge sort of like a trade mark. My buddy's is a buffalo skull with the initials BMF which stands for Big Medicine Forge. You'll see it in the photo's.
I did not even take my camera with me when we made the blade, but there wasn't a lot to see in that process anyway. Just imagine two guys beating on a piece of hot steel for about three hours and then using a file for the finish shaping. Then we quenched it in pre heated oil. He examined it and tested the hardness with a file and pronounced it ready.
Now I know why people use the stock removal method for knife making. That forging is hot and a lot of work and it ain't pretty and the knife blade ain't exactly flat or square like a piece of flat stock. But it is what it is, so I am going to finish it.
Everything is laid out here to begin. There is the micarta, the nickel silver metal and the nickel silver pins, heat blocker, and various sized drill bits.
Here is the blade on a piece of paper ivory micarta. My original idea was to make the handle half black and half white, and I did that but it looked like dog dung, so I took the white off and made it all black. That is the beauty of making your own. You can change your mind if you want to.
Here I am cutting the nickel silver flat stock into the proper sizes for what I am going to pin and silver solder to the tang. Nothing fancy, just a common hack saw with a new blade and careful sawing.
These are the nickel silver pieces that I am going to attach to the tang.
These pieces need to be cut pretty close and then touched up with a file.
Now clamp the nickel silver to the blade with a vice grip or something similar, and use the holes in the tang to guide the holes in the nickel silver. Be careful here because that nickel silver will climb up the drill bit then swing out and cut you if you have your hand where it can get to you. These are 1/8 inch holes for the pins. You have to drill both sides this same way.