The museum forge had a visit from a unique and talented family this summer. The Shibata family makes artisan foods on Saltspring, and the two boys, aged 10 and 12 are highly self-motivated creative students of craft who are interested in learning about traditional knife and sword making.
They traveled to the island and spent the day assisting the preparation of the forge and charcoal, watching the forging of a mountain kotanto from scrap steel, and even helping run the fuigo bellows and turn the waterstone wheel. Careful and detailed observers, the boys went home that night full of ideas and had their own modified simple brick forge up and running the very next morning! It was a lot of fun to have such eager and stylish students of craft at the forge.
Previous Works
Photos sent of some previous experience and self-taught work, done entirely by the boys aged 10 and 12.
Swords, family crest, laminar armour. Very similar to what I was trying around this age.
Knife components.
Assembled knife.
Taking a one-day knife making experience class in Japan.
Visit to the Museum Forge
Photos of the visit, sent from the family. The boys usually dress in traditional Japanese samue or jinbei work clothes with jikatabi boots, good style!
Lighting the forge after chopping and sorting charcoal.
An assistant to run the fuigo bellows.
A look at the blade after hizukuri (forging/bevelling) stage.
Using the hand powered water stone to put on the tagane-ha after yaki-ire.
Running with double the power.
Posing with the 13lb mukozuchi sledge hammer.
Good position, mukozuchi go-nen!
Nice shot of the fire, hard at work in the kajiba!
The Project
A unique outdoor knife forged from an old and rare piece of mining car rail steel. From chopping charcoal, to filing, to forging, to yaki-ire (hardening), to putting on the edge with a hand-powered water stone. A lot of progress was made on this blade in one day!
Century-old mining car rail sourced on Vancouver Island.
Part of the rail web, though deeply pitted, already had the correct starting proportions to inspire a knife.
After hizukuri (bevelling), the geometry is almost at finished dimensions by hammer work only, leaving the interesting texture of years in the forest along the spine.
The machi (notches) are filed in and the tang given traditional geometry.
Applying the clay for yaki-ire, it will delay the cooling effect and produce a hardened edge with a tough spine.
The blade looked good after hardening but while on the water wheel a small hairline crack was discovered near the tip which had to be cut off, the tip reforged and reshaped.
The size and shape of the blade after cutting off the cracked area and re-forging the tip.
Applying the clay for yaki-ire the second time.
After a second successful yaki-ire, the cut off portion of the tip below.
A comparison of the position and length before and after re-forging the tip.
The mountain kotanto forged from part of a century-old mining car rail, fittings forged from scrap copper, handle carved from local 70 year old pear tree. See more photos of the process and finished work: Pear Mountain Kotanto.
Follow Up Work
These photos were sent after the visit, their forge was up and running the very next morning! Keep it up!
Charcoal forge from found bricks, using air mattress pump for bellows.
Using clay to seal the air pipe into the higuchi (tuyere).
Built from found and natural materials.
A new forged blade.
Carefully crafted and repurposed components.
Fire texture on the blade.
Ray skin handle wrap.
