05/29/2026
Getting ready to make mokume-gane.
To clean the quarters I washed them in some dish soap to remove any oils. Then I soaked them in acetone. To get them clean & dry, I decided just to light the acetone on fire and allow it to burn off.
Next, I have to stack the quarters to get them ready to forge weld. Most folks these days weld the stack before putting it in their forge. However, I don’t have a welder, so I’m doing it the old fashioned way (sort of). I’ve seen where smiths in years past would use wire to bind the stack together to go into the forge. I decided to use copper wire, instead of steel, because I figure if the copper welds into the stack, that’s just more copper in the mokume-gane, and you know, the more the merrier.
So now I have my quarters cleaned, stacked and bound in these copper “baskets”. Tomorrow I’ll put them in the forge and attempt to weld the stacks into little billet bricks that I can use to start building the guard for a knife project. Stay tuned to follow along.
