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Well, I didn't get around to heat treating until Friday, because I wanted to get a bunch of knife blades ready to do at the same time, to conserve energy. So here's the chisel:



and here are the knives I did:




The gray coating you see is anti scale compound. It protects the surface from the effects of oxygen at high temps.


Here it is after quenching. The steels I used for the chisel are shallow hardening, so require a fast quenchant. Traditionally, this was done in the urine of a red headed virgin, but it's hard to find virgins nowadays, so I use a quench oil designed for fast steels. It's almost as fast as water, but without the risk of cracking, which would be very disgusting this far along...




After tempering, which is done twice at 350 degrees for a couple hours, it's back to the grinder to clean up the grinds, trying to make everything symmetrical and straight:




I finished up on the grinder with 240 grit, then went to 400 grit by hand:

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

Then into the etching tank. I etch in ferric chloride. I like a fairly weak solution, because I think it looks nicer to do many slow etches, with light sanding in between, than to do a couple deep etches.



I etch for 10 minutes, and here's how it looks:




Then sand with 600 grit, etch for 10 more minutes, then buff with a fairly hard wheel and green chrome compound:






Then etch for another 10 minutes, then it goes into the neutralizing bath, which is just water and baking soda.

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

I think you might make more money by building custom guitar chisels for luthiers ! Amazing work Phillip .

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

After neutralizing, it's time to put it all together. I used slow set epoxy.






Viola!



Now here's some close-ups in taken in my lightbox:









And here's a high res version of that last pic. It's over 2 megabytes, so I'm going to link to it instead of embed it:

http://www.pattonblades.com/081912-16-b.JPG

And that's it, folks, except for final sharpening. Thanks again to all who've commented, and good luck to the contestants.

I've not been posting much in you'alls threads, but I have been following along, and I'm enjoying it. Good work!

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

You are a true Master Craftsman.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Superb!

Wow what piece of art!

Sent from my Droid

Wow! I wish I stood a chance of winning this. Of corse it would be worth more than all my edge tools combined. . .

_________________
Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE !!!

Beautifull work Phillip , This is a prize to work for !

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Beautiful!

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

'tis a masterpiece!

And I want it.

What are the dimensions of it? And the weight?

I've been slow getting started, but busy this past week cutting some rather difficult inlays. Should be moving along faster as soon as I get that into the soundboard. Then my only enemy is humidity. This drought has actually been quite handy for guitar building

What a cool prize for the winner. I might have to get serious about this challenge.

WOW!!!! I'm astounded by your workmanship Phillip! Awesome stuff!! Simply B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!!!!

If I don't win (which I think I have a very low probability of doing!), I will be contacting you to have you make me some chisels like this, and maybe a marking knife, and.....

Cheers,
Dave F.

_________________
Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

That's one of the nicest prizes I will never win!

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Beautiful chisel! I've sure enjoyed this thread.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Holy curse word batman! You may have just changed my mind on buying one of these from you.

_________________
ELEVATE || Next Level Lutherie
http://elevatelutherie.com
&
http://ensorguitars.com

Nice! But why's the front bevel curved?

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Thanks!
Because it's a brace carving chisel. It's much easier to carve scallops with a curved bevel. In my experience, anyway.

_________________
Regards,
Phillip Patton

http://www.pattonblades.com

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

https://hoosierbladesmith.wordpress.com

Absolutely fantastic work
I just love it - whoever ends up with this will treasure it Im sure....
You ever think of selling woodworking blades as you do with knives?
Cheers
charliewood

I bet we can keep Phil busy for a while. I bet most of us would want to do our own handle but the blade ... that blade is ssssswwwwweeeeeeeeeeeettt!

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I can't believe I am only reading this thread now. I think I would have tried a bit harder on my challenge build Holy cow this thing is an absolute beautiful work of art. Who ever wins this will be blessed and honored to take possession of such a thing.

I have a Damascus steel wedding ring and I had no idea how much work it takes to make such a beautiful pattern.

beautiful work.
i've always been interested in forging...

How could you try any harder? Your build is a work of art itself!

_________________
"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
Pablo Picasso

https://www.facebook.com/FenskeGuitars

Thanks, sometimes ya get lucky.

Joking aside it is interesting how when you have no understanding of something it amazes you even more. I mean this metal working stuff looks impossible to me. But then I hear people say guitar building seems impossible.

I just saw the movie 'The Hobbit' I bet they had all those swords hand crafted and they looked incredible.

Really nice damascus paring chisel.

I saw on your site that your an apprentice blade smith? Your work is as good as any journeyman blade smith I've seen. I have two knives from Jerry Fisk, and quite a few other custom knives, I thought I was cured from that disease till I started looking at what comes out of your forge. Your Camp Chopper is calling my name