Forging Bevels: Hammer Control and the Counter-Bend

Bevels are where forging stops being blacksmithing and starts being bladesmithing — and where every new smith meets the same betrayal: you forge beautiful bevels into a straight blank, and the blade curls upward into a banana. This guide covers the hammer mechanics of clean bevels and the physics (and fix) of the curl, because it isn’t a mistake — it’s geometry, and geometry can be pre-paid.

Why Blades Banana (and the Counter-Bend Fix)

1. The problem: bevels stretch the edgehammering the bevel makes the EDGE longer - the spine stays put, so the blade sweeps upward
2. The fix: pre-curve toward the edgeforge the blank curved DOWN toward the edge first......so beveling pulls it straight

Already bananed? Corrective options: light blows on the spine at heat, or bumping the spine on the anvil - never hammer a cold or dull-red blade straight; work at forging heat.

Why the Banana Happens

Forging a bevel thins the steel toward the edge, and thinned steel has to go somewhere — it flows along the blade, making the edge side longer. The spine, still thick and un-hammered, keeps its length. One side of the blade longer than the other = a curve, always sweeping up toward the spine. More bevel = more curl. Every smith’s first blade does it; experienced smiths just spend the curl before it happens.

The Counter-Bend

Before starting bevels, forge the blank into a downward curve toward the edge — a deliberate reverse banana over the anvil horn or face edge. How much is steel- and bevel-height-dependent; for a typical 3–4″ blade, aim for a visibly wrong-looking droop. As the bevels go in, the stretching edge pulls the curve back out, and the blade arrives straight roughly when the bevels arrive finished. Under-guessed? A little more counter-curve at heat, keep going. It feels like witchcraft exactly once.

Hammer Mechanics for Clean Bevels

• Tilt the blade, not the hammer. Rest the blank on the anvil and twist your holding wrist to lift the spine 10–12° — the hammer falls flat while the steel meets it at the bevel angle. Trying to angle the hammer instead produces edge-of-face dents and wandering angles.

  

• Overlapping, moderate blows in passes — ricasso to tip, flip, repeat, keeping both sides even (uneven sides = the blade also curves sideways; the fix is more blows on the shy side, at heat). Think “rows of stitches,” not “big bites.”
• Watch the edge thickness constantly. Target is dime-thick (~0.030″) and no thinner — the quench punishes thin edges with cracks and wild warps (see cracked in the quench). Bevels finish at the grinder, not the anvil.

  

• Set the bevel’s start at the ricasso deliberately — a clean plunge-line area is mostly a grinding feature, but a tidy forged transition makes that grind vastly easier.

Corrections at Heat

Banana anyway? At bright heat: light blows along the spine (spreading it lengthens the short side), or bump the blade spine-down against the anvil. Sideways sweep? Even up the bevel work on the shy side. The cardinal rule of every correction: at forging heat only — “just one straightening tap” on a dull-red blade is a crack with extra steps. When forging’s done, head to normalizing, where the stress you just built gets erased before it can bite during heat treat.

Sources

• American Bladesmith Society — Forging Bevels
• BLADE Magazine — forge beveling technique
• BladeForums — blade bending while forging