The Tool's We Use — Iron Wolf Engineering

This is a great saw for making very clean cuts on handle scales. Unlike Western saws they are a pull (draw) cut configuration and with their teeth geometry provide very precise clean cuts.

To make sure our heat treat process works as intended we bought a set of these Japanese hardness testing files. Whilst not as accurate as a proper hardness testing machine they are a a hell of a lot cheaper and give us a result within 2-3 points of Hardness on the Rockwell Scale.

Axminster Trade series Pillar Drill

Having a decent drilling set-up for all materials is crucial to a lot of our work. The Axminster Trade series is a really serious bit of kit. We bought it as a bench mounted drill press but built a custom stand so it would fit into our workshop. The machine is a beast and so far there is no job too big or small this beauty cannot handle.

To properly heat treat a blade you need a combination of knowledge of the materials and the ability to bring the blade to a very precise temperature. Vecstar is a UK company that makes specialist furnaces and ovens for laboratories and specialist manufacturing processes. Each furnace is custom built to suit the customers needs. Our furnace has a controllable temperature range of about 450 - 1200 degrees C and is able to treat 8 blades of up to xx cm at a time.

The standard tool set for any smith has to have first on the list a Smiths hammer. We purchased these two hand made hammers from Victory tools in Norfolk. These are traditional blacksmiths producing blacksmiths tools by blacksmiths.

This is just any monkey / pipe wrench with a bar welded on so that when your twisting hot metal you have far more control over the process. This was a simple but very effective modification to a shop bought tool.