Cold forging refers to the process of forging metal into desired shapes and hardness while at room temperature. Cold forging is the opposite of hot forging, which is done when metal is heated to a glowing red color and then hammered into the desired shapes and hardness. Cold forging is used for metals that have a low melting point and cannot hold up to excessive heat exposure.
Instructions
1. Wear your gloves and safety goggles and cut a piece of aluminum bar stock that fits into your forging blank. The forging blank should be in the form of a sword blade. Make sure that the end of the blade that will be placed into the handle is tapered rather than straight.
2. Hammer a piece of O1 steel into the forging blank, spreading the piece of steel into the blank. Because aluminum is a very pliable metal you should only have to hammer lightly to get the piece of aluminum bar stock to fill the forging blank.
3. Remove the formed aluminum from the forging blank. Hammer along the edges of the blade; this will assist you in creating the characteristic thin, sharp blade edges. Constantly flip and rotate the blade and hammer at alternating spots to keep the blade from becoming too flat in any one area. Because hammering the steel diminishes the size of the steel's grains, and flattens and lengthens the crystals within the metal, hammering makes the metal harder.
4. Hammer off rough, uneven edges using a blacksmith cutting hammer--a hammer with a chiseled, sharp blade at the head. Continue this step and the previous step until you have created a symmetrical, attractively-shaped blade.
5. Polish the surface and edges of the blade with metal-polishing cloth. Use a blade sharpener to get out small imperfections along the blade's edge, and to further sharpen the edge of the blade.
6. Place the tapered, un-sharpened end of the blade into the handle of the sword. Use a tack hammer and small tacks to tighten the handle around the blade and prevent it from slipping off the handle. Consider applying a thin film of multi-surface glue to hold the blade and handle together.
Tags: forging blank, Cold forging, aluminum stock, desired shapes, desired shapes hardness