Sukellos

I got a rare case of ambition this morning and forged a pair of tongs for handling socketed tanged tools. They should work for arrowheads as well. I know it's wrong but I used 3/8" (10mm) construction re-bar. I cut the pieces about 12" long (30 cm) and then drew the handles out on the anvil horn. (Hey, I said I felt ambitious!) I hope the pics tell the rest of the story

I made this one. Elsewhere in this section are two good videos on technique. I used a scrap piece of small (3/8" 10mm) angle and flattened it out. Then I necked it down about 2 cm from one end to about 1 cm width and peened the 2cm part out into a triangle. After that I rolled that into a cone on a pointed 10mm dia mandrel. After that I just cut it off about 2-3 cm from the necked down part and forged it out into a leaf. A bit of filing and grinding and, as the French say, VAYOLA! :rolleyes:

Good advice Iron Duck! I was mostly building the head for a handle I knew I could easily find.(ACE is the place!) Arizona is not the best place for handle hardwoods... or hardwoods... or wood! If I can develop a tool handle out of sandstone I'll be a wealthy man! :rolleyes: We have Pecan if you can get to it before someone chainsaws it into short pieces, but that requires a lot of looking.

A very nice video and nice work too! Here is a recent attempt of mine. The leaf-shaped point is 3.5 in. (8.9 cm) long and 3/4 in. (1.9 cm) wide at the widest point. The socket is more or less 3/8 in. (10mm) at the mouth.

I used soft brick for doors on my forge and they are cracking on me.

I haven't posted in a long time. Too many irons in the fire (groan!) I FINALLY got my larger forge up and running. I'll post some pics soon. One of my first projects in the new forge was this adze a friend asked for. My first try at forge welding with gas was okay, but not perfect. I used an old spanner handle, drew it down to about 1-1/4 inches wide, doubled it over twice and welded to make the boss for the handle hole. I punched and drifted the hole for the handle and put a slight curve in the blade. Not pro, but not too bad.

When we moved on to our cattle ranch in western/central Utah it hadn't been inhabited for decades. Among the tools we found in the barn were a scythe, a sickle and a corn knife. That was 50 + years ago and I have no idea what became of them. We also found a pair of spring handle sheep shears. I wish I had them now. I got rid of the weed-eater after it pitched a rock through a $4K window. I trim with a machete. When I lived in Panama my gardener showed me how to sharpen the back 3-4" of the machete blade to be used when trimming along concrete or into dirt. That allows you to keep the front of the blade sharp for regular cutting.

All who know me question whether or not I'm in my right mind...or if I ever had a right mind to be in. :wacko:

Me and my muzzle-loading partner just finished six "Zulu" type spears for a youth group historical re-creation. We were looking for cheap, fairly easy and tough enough to stand up to teenage boys lobbing them at bales of straw knowing that, being teenage boys they wouldn't stop at just bales of straw. :angry: As you can see, the blades are not sharp for obvious reasons. The heads are forged from mild steel scrap pieces, hence the lack of uniformity. Each leaf-shaped blade has a squarish rattail tang about 3/4 as long as the blade itself. We counter-clockwise twisted each tang about two complete turns so that they could be "screwed" into the hole drilled in the shaft. The shafts are just 1" dia. (25mm) wooden push broom handles from the local home improvement store. We fabbed the ferrules from 1" (25mm) i.d. EMT electrical conduit tubing from which we removed a triangle shaped piece in order to make the ferrule fit the taper on the broom handles. We re-welded the ferrules with a wire-feed welder and ground them smooth. The heads were mounted by forcing the ferrule onto the wooden shaft, drilling a 3/8" hole into the end of the shaft and coating the spearpoint tangs with JB WELD epoxy. Then the tangs were twisted into the holes and the epoxy allowed to set. My first attempt at uploading pics failed, but the next two worked (I think).

Yeah, welcome. Hey! I can forge a nail in under 18 heats! :unsure:

My great-grandfather. He was just a simple small-town country smith, but rightfully proud of his skill. He died when I was about 4 or 5 years old. All I remember of him is that he was very tall. He was in his late eighties, had cataracts and a hard time talking due to a stroke. He scared the h#ll out of me. I wish I could have known him when he was younger and I was older.

LOVE that one!

I was privileged to know DeLoy personally. I will never be half the smith he was.

My old man would say, "It's a rudder for a ducks rear-end. Helps the little duckie navigate."

A man walked into a bar and got 12 stitches in his forehead! -_-