[TheForge] Re: Japanese Sen experimentation

[kent]

Awesome. I'll have to try this soon, as Japanese style stuff is near and dear to my heart. Truly inspirational.

BTW, I'm making a new saya for one of my friends at the dojo, using poplar wood. It's turning out very nice.

Kent

*snip*
Using a 1.5 X 1.5 angle iron I clamped in a vise, I
clamped a softened steel blade to the horizontal flat
of the angle iron so I could support the blade over
its length and used the ground file (sen) as a
scraper. It was amazing. With a little practice I
could take off curls of steel like shaving wood with a
good plane. I could even smell them ... like the smell
of steel curls coming off a lathe.

In half an hour, I had done what it would have taken
several hours to do with a file and the surface was
surprisingly smooth.

An excellent way to remove metal and shape a forged
blade without lots of grinding. I'm sold!



Frederick W. Faller
Shiloh Forge Ironware http://users.rcn.com/ffaller/SFI_web.htm
www.immerland.com