Forging a Herb Chopper from an Old Leaf Spring

In this video I forge a herb chopper from a leaf spring. I am told the spring is from an old van.
Forging a herb chopper is an excellent choice of project for someone with only a forge, anvil and basic tools. The grinding required is minimal and all grinding shown could have been done with a file and sandpaper.
It is fairly safe to assume that most leaf spring steel is hardenable, although, not all leaf springs are the same. If you try making a knife out of leaf spring, I recommend heat treating a sample piece before forging the knife to verify that you can harden it. It may be the case that it doesn't harden first time and that you will have to adjust your process to get a good result. In this case, I had to preheat my oil before quenching to get a hardened blade.
Thank you for watching!
If you would like to see more of my work, please visit my Instagram page;
/ winterbrookforge

[@brysonalden5414]

Nice project! To your excellent advice about working with leaf springs may I add that you should be prepared to find one or more project-ending cracks in your blade after grinding the scale off. Leaf springs sometimes had hard lives before being potentially transformed into blades, and the cracks can appear as if by magic. Evil, evil magic!

[@winterbrookforge]

That is certainly something to be aware of! All these things are why I personally tend to avoid them unless I’m making something that doesn’t require high performance and also benefits from the novelty factor that a leaf spring has. Thanks for your comment!

[@robbjohnson7072]

your skill is admirable, not only with hammer and anvil, but with the camera, step by step demonstrations, and fine details that are rarely included in other blacksmithing videos. I have learned from you, and I thank you. Please keep your videos coming

[@winterbrookforge]

Thank you very much for the kind words. I intend to create a new video shortly.