{"id":1325,"date":"2012-02-12T23:05:57","date_gmt":"2012-02-12T23:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=1325"},"modified":"2012-02-12T23:11:57","modified_gmt":"2012-02-12T23:11:57","slug":"ants-miseretto-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=1325","title":{"rendered":"Ants Miseretto part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I’m forging the miseretto blade. \u00a0I started by upsetting the blade from the sides, in order to thicken it up a bit.
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\n<\/a>Above, I’m just beginning the process. \u00a0If you look closely, you might be able to make out how the center of the blade looks a little lower than the edges – the metal is beginning to mushroom a little as I drive the mass of the steel towards the center of the blade. \u00a0I repeat the process of heat and beat multiple times until the blade is thick enough, hammering both from the edges, top and bottom, and “on the diamond.” \u00a0Forging “on the diamond” (from the corners) will forming the diamond cross section of the blade, and also begin tapering the blade towards the tip. \u00a0Tapering it will also lengthen the blade, so I’ll have to cut off some eventually.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Here’s the miseretto\u00a0in the forge heating back up to forging temperature. \u00a0It’s really HOT<\/strong> in there.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>Above I’ve finished the forging, and carefully made sure everything is straight. \u00a0In this image I’m “normalizing” the dagger. \u00a0Normalizing is heating the steel up to its critical temperature ( a light orange, in the case of this 1080 carbon steel) and letting it air cool back to “black heat.” \u00a0This process will relieve the stresses I put into the steel by whacking it during forging, and also refine the grain size. \u00a0I’ll repeat this heat\/air cool cycle three times.<\/p>\n

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\nAnd, above, are top and side views of the miseretto after forging and normalizing, ready to begin grinding and filing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I’m forging the miseretto blade. \u00a0I started by upsetting the blade from the sides, in order to thicken it up a bit. Above, I’m just beginning the process. \u00a0If you look closely, you might be able to make out … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[5,27],"tags":[8,3,7,4,26],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6qLAy-ln","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1298,"url":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=1298","url_meta":{"origin":1325,"position":0},"title":"Ants Miseretto part 1","date":"February 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, now that I have several sheets of shibuichi in hand, I turned my attention to making a knife. \u00a0First (and this is always the most difficult part!) I had to decide on a design. \u00a0The subject I chose was ants, so I'm going to inlay tiny ants in 24\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Engraved Knife"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Ants_Miseretto_2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2604,"url":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=2604","url_meta":{"origin":1325,"position":1},"title":"Dried Sardine Scalpel and Reliquary – Part 2","date":"February 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Above, I've started to shape the shibuichi scales. \u00a0I'll be mainly using a my Foredom flex shaft grinder and small drum sanders. \u00a0You can see the central area where I've started the grinding. \u00a0Note that I've superglued the scales into position, and also used two pieces of 16 gauge copper\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Carving"","img":{"alt_text":"Dried_Anchovy_Scalpel_15","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Dried_Anchovy_Scalpel_15.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1408,"url":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=1408","url_meta":{"origin":1325,"position":2},"title":"Ants Miseretto part 5","date":"February 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Not much happening here, but the blade has soaked in vinegar all night to dissolve the scale created during the blade forging and hot rolling during the creation of the original steel bar. And, above, the blade after using a ScotchBrite\u2122 abrasive pad to remove the dark oxide left from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Engraved Knife"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Ants_Miseretto_29.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1345,"url":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=1345","url_meta":{"origin":1325,"position":3},"title":"Ants Miseretto part 3","date":"February 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Continuing on with the miseretto by grinding and filing. Above, I have begun grinding the flats on the blade. \u00a0It will be a thick diamond cross section, since the misericordia and stilettos were originally designed as a stabbing weapons rather than a cutting-type of knives. \u00a0I'm just going to establish\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Engraved Knife"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Ants_Miseretto_20.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1388,"url":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=1388","url_meta":{"origin":1325,"position":4},"title":"Ants Miseretto part 4","date":"February 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"OK, back to work - I've decided the area between the blue arrows (above) needs something to formalize the transition between the handle and the blade. I'll address the area by using a small sanding drum in my Foredom flex shaft grinder and add a waist on the top and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Engraved Knife"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Ants_Miseretto_27.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24,"url":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=24","url_meta":{"origin":1325,"position":5},"title":"Making the \u201cPuget Sound Dagger\u201d Day 4","date":"December 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's the knife with a furnace cement coating, before getting it red hot and quenching in warm oil to harden the steel. \u00a0The cement acts as insulation from the freezing action of the oil, and will result in a blade that has very hard edges, but a soft center. \u00a0This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Engraved Knife"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Puget_Sound_Dagger_4-1024x329.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1325"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1344,"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325\/revisions\/1344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}