The Nazel 4N air hammer, is capable of forging up to 7 inch square stock. It has a 350# head that hits about 100 beats per minute. Having such a large power hammer allows me work much larger stock faster.Â
All blades are then heat treated in house, personally by KC. Heat treatment is a very involved process for each individual batch of steel, so we perform extensive testing on each new batch in order to dial in the optimal heat treatment.
Every “run” of steel from the mill has slight variations in its makeup that make it unique. That’s why we run our test blades through numerous cycles at various temperatures and hold times. Each blade is then hardness tested using a certified and calibrated Rockwell Hardness Tester. This lets us determine which process yielded the optimal result, so we do this for every new batch of steel.
Many bladesmiths follow a standard heat treatment protocol from the steel manufacturer’s recommendation — that’s easy. We go beyond these minimalist recommendations by testing every batch to determine its unique attributes. We tweak the times and temperatures based on each batch of steel’s unique chemistry. We want to squeeze every last drop of performance the steel is capable of, giving our customers the absolute BEST product we can deliver.
How can you be sure you squeezed every bit of performance out of the chosen blade material without testing. Every blade is Rockwell test on a calibrated and certified rockwell tester. If a blade is questionable it is often destruction tested doesn’t matter if it’s a basic hunter or a multi-core Damascus viking sword.Â