Studying at Western University starts with a knife-forging competition

Nelson called on Tuesday morning.

Lin Yuan was cleaning the coke ash from the bottom of the furnace in the forging workshop, while Daniel was cleaning the oxide scale from the anvil with a steel brush. When his phone vibrated on the workbench, he took off a heat-resistant glove and swiped to answer.

"Lin Yuan, this is Nelson." The voice on the other end of the phone was still that calm tone, with birdsong in the background, making it sound like we were outdoors. "Is now a convenient time to talk?"

"That's convenient. Please tell me."

"My order. I only gave you a general idea when we had dinner in Atlanta last time, but I've compiled the specific requirements over the past couple of days and wanted to confirm them with you."

Lin Yuan sat down on the stool and placed his gloves on his knees. "What type of knife do you want?"

"Boy Hunting Knife. Nine inches in blade length, approximately fourteen inches in total length, with a false edge extending three inches from the tip. This is my most frequently used knife type. After being a knifemaker for so many years, I've never found the one that feels most comfortable to use myself."

"What about the materials?"

"Your cloud-patterned steel. It's the same process you used to make the short cross-blades for Doug. I saw the photos Doug sent, and I really like the turquoise-gold color—but if you have a different formula that can produce a different effect, I can consider it. I'm not in a hurry; you can take your time."

Lin Yuan mentally reviewed the structural parameters of the Bowie hunting knife.

Nine inches in blade length, fourteen inches in total length, with a false edge extending three inches from the tip—this is a typical American Bowie knife design. The blade is long and slender, with an unsharpened false edge on the back of the blade near the tip. This reduces the weight of the tip, improves piercing ability, and visually creates a sharp line from the back of the blade to the tip.

This type of knife is very common in the American knife market; almost every knifemaker has made it. But precisely because it is so common, it is not easy to make one stand out.

"I can make the cloud-patterned steel frame," Lin Yuan said. "I can reproduce the formula for the cyan-gold color, so there's no need to try it again. As for the production time—if you're not in a hurry, it will take about three to four weeks."

"No rush. Just get in line." Nelson paused, then added, his tone more serious than before, "By the way, about the price, Doug told me how he paid. My budget isn't that high—under twenty thousand. Can you do it?"

Lin Yuan answered almost without hesitation. "I can do it."

"Okay. It's settled then. Let me know as soon as you've arranged the timeline." Nelson paused here, the birdsong in the background growing closer. "There's one more thing. David asked me to ask you, when will you be able to schedule his order?"

"Jason also has a camping knife, which I plan to make together with your Bowie hunting knife. The materials and processes for the three knives are similar, so starting them together will be much faster than making them separately. Once I have the rough blanks ready, I'll confirm the details with you all."

"Making in batches?" Nelson's tone held a hint of surprise. "Won't operating three knives simultaneously affect the quality?"

"No," Lin Yuan said. "The process for making the rough blanks of cloud-patterned steel is the same. The difference lies in the blade shape and the subsequent fittings. Making the rough blanks of the three blades in the same batch is more efficient and the quality is more consistent."

Using the same furnace temperature, the same number of forging passes, and the same heat treatment parameters results in better consistency in the finished products.

Nelson was silent for a moment on the other end of the phone, then chuckled.

"You're right. That's a habit of mine as a judge—I get nervous when I see contestants working with multiple knives at the same time, because most people's skills can't keep up with that pace. But you're different. Okay, I won't bother you anymore. I'll wait for your news."

After hanging up the phone, Lin Yuan put his phone on the worktable, took out his notebook from his pocket, and turned to the page where orders were recorded.

Below Nelson's name are the dimensions and budget limit of the Bowie hunting knife, while Jason's name is left blank, with only the words "camping knife" written on it.

He picked up his pen and added the information he had just confirmed with Nelson, then circled Jason's name to remind himself to call him sometime today.

Daniel walked over from the anvil, a steel brush in his hand, and glanced at the densely written words in Lin Yuan's notebook: "How many knife orders have you received?"

"Three. There's one more for my roommate, so that makes three." Lin Yuan closed his laptop, stood up from his stool, and put his heat-resistant gloves back on. "Nelson wants the Bowie hunting knife, Jason wants the camping knife, and Matt wants the heavy rapier from the game."

The first two are both short blades, so the workload isn't heavy; we can make them together.

"Do them together?" Daniel's tone, like Nelson's, carried a hint of uncertainty. "You're going to do three by yourself at the same time?"

"It's not about making three at the same time, but about making a batch of rough blanks and then processing them separately." Lin Yuan squatted down and adjusted the air vent of the forging furnace a little wider. Flames emerged from the gaps in the coke, turning from red to orange. "Making the rough blanks of cloud-patterned steel is the most time-consuming part—folding, forging, and shaping. Each round requires heating, forging, and then heating again."

However, if I make ten rough blanks at once, with the same number of heating cycles, the efficiency can be greatly improved. I can concentrate the work, which is much more efficient than making them one by one.

Daniel didn't ask any more questions.

He put the steel brush back on the tool rack, retreated to the office area, and began organizing the newly arrived boxes of sanding belts on the materials rack.

After Lin Yuan stoked the fire in the forge, he went to the material rack and began preparing the materials.

Nelson's Bowie hunting knife has a nine-inch blade, Jason's camping knife has a shorter blade, and Matt's God Leather Stitching Knife has a special size that cannot be mixed together, but the rough blanks of the first two short knives can be made entirely from the same batch of materials.

Lin Yuan stood in front of the materials rack, already having a complete batch plan in mind.

This time, instead of making them piece by piece, we first forged a large silver-iron alloy billet as a whole, then cut it into ten pieces, welded them with high-carbon steel to form steel-clad rough billets, and finally forged them into shape in batches.

He took down several pieces of 1085 high-carbon steel plates from the shelf, and then took two rolls of 15N20 nickel steel sheets, weighing them in his hands.

The industrial silver material was taken out from the bottom of the material cabinet and a thick slice of suitable size was cut out—this large piece was about three times the amount used when making short cross cutters for Doug.

First, the silver material and 15N20 are stacked alternately and then sent into the forging furnace.

The sensation of molten metal spreading along the temperature field, silver gradually merging into the nickel-steel matrix under hammering, forming a large, uniform silver-iron alloy.

This step took him nearly two hours, involving repeated heating, forging, and flipping until the cross-section of the entire billet was uniformly colored and free of silver segregation.

After the alloy billet cooled on the anvil, he used a cutting machine to cut it into ten equal-sized pieces.

Each piece is made of a silver-iron alloy core, and its size is just enough to make the inner core of a short knife.

Then he began preparing the outer shell.

The 1085 high-carbon steel plate was cut into twenty pieces, with each pair of pieces corresponding to a silver-iron alloy core material, sandwiched between the top and bottom.

The stacked structure, from the inside out, consists of: 1085, silver-iron alloy core, and 1085. After the three layers are aligned, they are fixed with a spot welding machine, and the initial structure of ten rough blanks is neatly stacked on the worktable.

Stacking, welding, and furnace feeding.

As the steel billet slowly heated up in the furnace, Lin Yuan took out his phone from his pocket, found Jason Knight's number in his contacts, and dialed it.

I answered the phone after it rang a few times.

Jason's voice was more casual than he remembered, with that lazy, drawn-out tone of a Texas accent.

"Lin Yuan? You finally called. Nelson said in the group chat that you accepted our order. I've been waiting for him to relay my order information, and I almost couldn't wait any longer and called you directly."

"Sorry, I was finishing up on Doug's knife the other day, so I only had time today." Lin Yuan leaned against the materials shelf, holding his phone in one hand and wiping dust off the steel plate with the other. "Nelson's Bowie hunting knife has been confirmed. Do you have any specific requirements for your camping knife?"

"Camping knife." Jason mumbled the word, "Tell me first, what does a camping knife look like in your head?"

Lin Yuan thought for a moment. "The blade should be four to five inches long, and the overall length should be nine to ten inches. The blade tip should be rounded and designed for multiple uses, suitable for processing food, shaving wood chips, and cutting rope. The handle should be made of a non-slip material, and it doesn't need to have too many complicated attachments."

Jason chuckled on the other end of the phone. "You're thinking about the same thing as me. But I have one extra request—leave a flat, unsharpened section of the blade near the tip, about an inch wide. Not a false edge, just a flat one."

When I'm camping, I often use the back of a knife to scrape a fire starter; if the back of the knife is fully sharpened, it's actually less effective.

"No problem. It's not difficult; just set aside some during the initial grinding."

"As for materials, I want the same cloud-patterned steel as Doug's. I like the lapis lazuli color effect, and Nelson chose that too—you can make the same color, that will save you the trouble of adjusting the formula."

"The color can be consistent. I will use the same batch of blanks to make them, so the color consistency will be very high."

"Okay. What's the price? Nelson said it's under 20,000, and mine is about the same. If you think it's too low, you can tell me, and I'll add more."

Lin Yuan leaned against the materials rack, watching the steel billet slowly turn red in the furnace. "Twenty thousand is enough. The craftsmanship and materials corresponding to this price are different from Doug's—Doug's was a custom-made one, using a higher proportion of special materials. Nelson and your order use the standard cloud-patterned steel process, so the price is naturally different."

"If you say it's the standard, then it's the standard. I trust you." Jason's tone was unwavering. "By the way, if you're doing mass production, how long will the lead time be?"

"Three to four weeks. I will let you know the specific time after I have arranged it."

Okay. I'll wait for your reply.

After hanging up the phone, Lin Yuan put his phone back in his pocket, walked to the forging furnace, and squatted down to check the temperature of the steel billet.

The material in the furnace had transitioned from dark red to cherry red, approaching the target temperature range. He used tongs to remove the steel billet and placed it on the anvil, gripping the apprentice forging hammer tightly in his right hand.

In the first round of forging, the silver-iron alloy core and the 1085 outer shell began to fuse.

He wasn't in a rush to speed things up; he didn't need to finish all ten rough blanks in one day, so he could slow down the pace.

The sensation of fused forging spreads along the contact surface of the hammer blows. The interface of the three layers gradually blurs under the hammer blows. The silver is evenly and steadily distributed, without localized agglomeration or edge tearing.

As he forged, he mentally recorded the process parameters for each step—heating time, hammering force, and the angle at which the billet was turned over—data that he would later write into his notebook as a standard reference for mass production.