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Shawn's forging shed

bluesman said:
Nice Shawn.

I see that many of your knives have sharpening choils. I used to think that these were a must and filed them into many of my knives that did not have them.

Lately I've gone the other way on them as they can be problematic when cutting cord if you're in a rush. I'm going to try going without them for a while and assess. What got me going on this is seeing Howard Clark's knives. Many of his, including the one of his that I own, do not have choils.
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Honestly it's part 35 year old habit and part possibly skewed thinking.

My first hunting knife when I was 12 was one of those Schrade 152(?) things with that weird up-swept curve from the ricasso. I hated trying to sharpen that on the basic stones and limited knowledge of a 12 year old. I never could get that part of the edge right. The next one I picked up was some cheap thing with really soft steel, and it didn't take a lot of sharpening practice before it started to look like the Schrade.
That started my habit of putting a choil in if there wasn't one already.

With some of the ones I'm making now, I try to leave the ricasso even with or below the edge a bit to act as a sort of a guard. In my mind, the choil on those makes it easier for people with little sharpening experience to maintain the edge as there is a more defined place to start from.

I definitely see (and have encountered) the issue you mentioned. Knowing more about the different steels and how a good knife should hold an edge, I can see where they wouldn't be as necessary in some that I am making now. So I guess it falls more into habit than anything else.
 
Shawn! Awesome to see you on site again! I know you have been busy...but still glad to see you!
 
Great..... now @ShawnF could you explain to the rest of us what sharpening choils and ricasso are????
 
Spider said:
Great..... now @ShawnF could you explain to the rest of us what sharpening choils and ricasso are????
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To the Guy who accused me before of NOT googling things :ROFLMAO: ;)

A finger choil is a large un-sharpened part of the knife blade that is located at the ricasso: where the blade becomes part of the handle. Usually, this section is curved to accept the index finger. ... A sharpening choil is a small notch or relief at the end of the edge right next to the ricasso.

A ricasso is an unsharpened length of blade just above the guard or handle on a knife, dagger, sword, or bayonet. Blades designed this way appear at many periods in history in many parts of the world and date back to at least the Bronze Age— essentially, as long as humans have shaped cutting tools from metals.
 
ShawnF said:
With some of the ones I'm making now, I try to leave the ricasso even with or below the edge a bit to act as a sort of a guard. In my mind, the choil on those makes it easier for people with little sharpening experience to maintain the edge as there is a more defined place to start from.
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I definitely agree with your thinking here, and I do think that a small choil looks better. The cord cutting issue is likely not very important unless we are talking about a rescue or dive knife.
 
I just did something I really never want to do again......

I put 2 blades in the forge as I was bringing it up to temperature for heat treat. Got them to temp and didn't need to adjust the valve on the burner to hold it at temp because it was slowing down on it's own. Got the soak they needed and pulled the first blade to quench. Just as I did the burner was just about to the point it was fluttering.... Luckily the new forge holds enough heat that I was able to still get the second one quenched and they both came out hard enough to skate a file.

That was cutting things WAYYY too close. Reminder to self.... MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ENOUGH PROPANE IN THE TANK DUMMY!!!!!!!
 
I've forgotten what size tank you are using Shawn. I use the 20 lb. tanks and I have four of them. When I start using the forth one I get the other three filled so I almost always have spare full tanks around.
 
Close call Shawn! I use 100# tank. No flow control safety features like the 20 # tanks have and it won't freeze up on me while forging. The big plus is that my propane company will fill it up when they come to fill up my house tank. They just wanted to inspect my forge regulator. It's so much cheaper than taking it somewhere to fill it. Glad you got the quenches in!
 
bluesman said:
I've forgotten what size tank you are using Shawn. I use the 20 lb. tanks and I have four of them. When I start using the forth one I get the other three filled so I almost always have spare full tanks around.
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I have a 40# as my main and three 20# as backups, but I used my backups for my heater and never refilled them.... just lack of attention on my part.
 
Blade-meister said:
Close call Shawn! I use 100# tank. No flow control safety features like the 20 # tanks have and it won't freeze up on me while forging. The big plus is that my propane company will fill it up when they come to fill up my house tank. They just wanted to inspect my forge regulator. It's so much cheaper than taking it somewhere to fill it. Glad you got the quenches in!
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Yeah... not here unfortunately. The cost of a delivery was through the roof. I could buy my own 100 pound tank and fill it 6 times for what they wanted for the initial setup. Then they want twice what it cost me to fill it.
 
ShawnF said:
Yeah... not here unfortunately. The cost of a delivery was through the roof. I could buy my own 100 pound tank and fill it 6 times for what they wanted for the initial setup. Then they want twice what it cost me to fill it.
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Dang that sucks! I think it costs me about $60 to fill mine, but would be twice that at the local hardware store. The other big problem I'd have too is that a 100# tank needs to be transported sitting vertical so the LP does leach up into the valve which will give you a bad day if you try to hook right up to it at home. There's no way for me to transport the 100# tank in the vertical position.

Do you find your new forge goes through propane quicker than your old one? Do you have freezing problems in the winter? I used to only get 2 hours of forging time out of my 20 # tank even when it was sitting in a bucket of warm water.
 
Blade-meister said:
Dang that sucks! I think it costs me about $60 to fill mine, but would be twice that at the local hardware store. The other big problem I'd have too is that a 100# tank needs to be transported sitting vertical so the LP does leach up into the valve which will give you a bad day if you try to hook right up to it at home. There's no way for me to transport the 100# tank in the vertical position.

Do you find your new forge goes through propane quicker than your old one? Do you have freezing problems in the winter? I used to only get 2 hours of forging time out of my 20 # tank even when it was sitting in a bucket of warm water.
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I have 2, 100 pound tanks for my fireplace on a dual regulator. I haul in to get it filled in the town I work when 1 empties. Was for years $50 but they went to $55 this year.
 
Maybe I'm remembering the amount wrong. I do know our local fill-up charges $17 for a 20 # tank fill. Hmmmm I love it, we frack like crazy in PA and you'd think our propane and natural gas prices would be the cheapest in the nation.
 
Blade-meister said:
Maybe I'm remembering the amount wrong. I do know our local fill-up charges $17 for a 20 # tank fill. Hmmmm I love it, we frack like crazy in PA and you'd think our propane and natural gas prices would be the cheapest in the nation.
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A 20 pound down town at my local is $10.60. I think the biggest issue with the delivery company is that it is so far away and they probably quoted me a price that I wouldn't think was worth it. They were right if that was their intent.
 
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