My First Forged Dagger

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This was a project on it's way to being a large integral Mediterranean Dirk out of 7/8" round W2 that I planned to take to Tai's place later this month and heat treat, well.....
it takes lots of power and control to forge this size bar by hand..... I got a bit reckless and tore the tang off the integral bolster and was left with the blade preform and bolster. so I cut off the bolster all together.

So....what to do with that shape? Dagger? Sure.
I have never done one and wanted to stick with the integral theme after all that work to make round flat! This is what I came up with.

 


dagger



dagger2

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Apr 11, 2010

Spirit Dagger

I am pleased with the results and now am considering making an enclosed wooden sheath for it.
   Hand forged out of 7/8" round W2 Carbon Steel with differential heat treatment using clay resulting in a nice organic Hamon. 
 Overall length is 10&7/16" and the blade is 6&1/8" to the handle. 
 As I said with an integral guard where I split off some metal from the tang and rolled it up to create the guard. It also features a tapered tang, some nice dark desert ironwood handles fixed with peened bronze pins and finished with cotton wrapping impregnated with pinion-rosin.

I feel that learned a lot in creating this piece. ne thing is that daggers are twice the work, but well worth the effort. I send thanks out to my indirect mentor Tai Goo for some guidance on this one and also to my indirect mentor Wayne Goddard for his helpful techniques outlined in his book on how to forge a dagger blade.
I would also like to thank knifemaker and fellow USN member Stephen Fowler for his recent posts that also gave me inspiration. He was also working on a dagger about the same time I started this one and it was interesting to view his video-posts on the USN about his dagger project and to see what his process was like.

I hope you enjoy the images. This one feels great in the hand.

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Apr 11, 2010

Don Carlos Andrade 

1824 Sunny Hill Ave. 

Los Osos, CA 93402

phone: 805.528.8837

Email: andradeartworks@gmail.com