Everything Else

Dear All, I am posting this link primarily for those IFI members who are in, as Thomas Powers puts it, a steel-wool relationship. I really understand this since my late wife was an accomplished spinner, weaver, and fiber author. My theory is that craft is attracted to craft. Someone who has a love of working with their hands will be attracted to someone with the same inclination. Here is a very interesting article about the things that have been found in a melting ice patch/glacier in Norway: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/58379#comments "By hammer and hand all arts do stand." GNM

As many of you know, nearly 50 years ago I was an infantryman in Viet Nam. Not a day goes by that I do not think of the young men who were not as fortunate as I was and never got to come home and grow old. This Memorial Day weekend, the first long weekend of the summer of a very strange year, please take a moment to think of the young men and women who never came home from all the wars. Here are a few thoughts for the occasion: "They will not grow old as we who are left grow old, Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them." -Laurence Binyon "America with…

I hope the tread's title doesn't alarm anybody but today wasn't a good one. We had to make the hardest decision a dog person can. I've talked about Abby, Deb's retired service dog, one of the if not THE best dog I've ever lived with. She's been getting old, hasn't gotten around to well in the last couple years, about 3 months we stopped letting her come up stairs to sleep with us. It was just to hard on her, especially coming down in the morning. She'd finally resigned herself to sleeping downstairs, I hated making her stay apart but it was hurting her too badly. She started throwing up her meals Friday, then didn't want to eat Saturday night and only ate a fe…

Well I sold off some more stuff this morning; posted it on craigslist yesterday afternoon and waded through the "Please help me scam you!" replies. (I mean selling some old rusty scrap and you want me to believe that you want to buy it with an area code from 2000 miles away? Pull the other one!) I did get a good hit right before I went to bed; but they wanted to pick it up at 7 am as they had a long holiday weekend planned. So up early and led them to the shop from the nearest interstate exit. He was interested in some of my smithing stuff too and so I sold him a forge and blower. is 12' long enough to make swords in? Actually they bought that to mak…

The Tree Project is going to the Gold Coast! There is a conference at the Gold Coast Conference Centre from Tuesday 22 September to Thursday 24 Centre for the Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Council (AFAC). AFAC have sponsored two Tree Project blacksmiths to come up to the conference, run a booth over three days, inform fire agencies about the project and what it gives to communities recovering from fire, and... Demo leaf making over one lunchtime of the conference. Now - whilst Doug (the leaf factory) and Cliff (ouch, I hit my thumb) do own anvils and forges, they are a wee bit too heavy to put on a plane from Melbourne. So - we need two portable forg…

Well that was a short spring; snow last week, Highs in the 90's degF everyday next week. At least the high winds tend to be a constant---gusts up to 50 mph yesterday

For those of you that don't know. Arctic Fire 2016 was a mutli-aceted presentation by some top bladesmiths. They recreated items from Grendel's Hoard while building a mythology around the build. I've slowly been editing and posting the videos of the presentations, demonstrations, and interviews regarding the project. Chapter 1: Panel Discussion (Group) Chapter 2: The Mother's Dagger (Peter Johnsson) Chapter 3: The Material Culture of the Spear Danes (Petr Florianek) Chapter 4: Hilting a Giant's Sword (Jake Powning) Chapter 5: Undertow, the Giant's Sword (Owen Bush) Chapter 6: Hrunting, The Sword that Failed (Dave Stephens) Chapter 7: Th…

I remember some 70 years ago while in elementary school, we would celebrate May Day by dancing around the May Pole. Seems that tradition has died out. Still we celebrate The Festival of Beltane.

I was notified that I had to clear out my forge etc from the woods behind the building I live in. Hopefully it's only temporary. Someone from the county was down there and basically destroyed things. The county is getting rid of homeless camps and I think that's what they thought it was. They knocked over my rail anvil cut my tarps and poured out all of my charcoal. I wonder what they made of it all? I'm sure they didn't know what it was and probably drug lab was their first thought after homeless camp, but that's not an excuse to destroy it if they're not certain. I guess it's somewhat of a blessing I've been too lazy to rebuild my forge or it would have been tamper…

Hi. Everyone, I am a newbie here, and a newbie in Pyrography. My grandpa was good at Pyrography, but he passed away when I am a little boy... He is my idol, and I want to be a man like him. So I start to learn Pyrography, and buy (commercial link removed) now. Hope I can succeed. My first thread, No idea if I post it in the wrong place. Is there anybody who is good at Pyrography? Would you mind to share your works? Thanks

"My best "survival knife" is the Swiss Arm Knife that sits in my pocket whenever I'm wearing pants" - Thomas Powers This thread is dedicated to the tools one carries on a daily. What do you carry and for what reasons?

Due to coronavirus, stores are closed, businesses shut down, jobs eliminated, and we are told to stay at home. How are you using your time? What is on your list of things to do or things your working on? We need ideas.

hello from Greece! heres a small music video with my Yamaha Tenere xt660z and sony a7iii camera. made at hills of north Greece with Thassos island for view. A great sunny day and an excellent point of view. enjoy the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8KMxoYaLrc

Two little boys, 3/4 Saan and 1/4 Nubian. Sandy is already planning on how to save them from the dinner table

I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems like more and more people selling things online are going the “He who speaks first looses” rout when it comes to pricing their items. They just say “make me an offer” which invites the prospective buyer to send a conservative offer to which the seller replies “no lowballs”. Instead of getting offended at a low offer, why not just list the item a little on the high side and let negotiating do its thing?

I've got a phone line that runs from my house 50 feet out to my shop. When my wife needs me, she picks up her cell phone and calls our home phone...................which I answer in the shop. When I need her, I call her cell-phone from the land-line phone in the shop. Makes a nice intercom system for us. But we are getting ready to disconnect from AT&T and forever give up our land-line. I still want some way for her to be able to contact me in the shop.............or me her in the house. My shop is a metal building and there's barely radio reception in there...............but absolutely no cell-phone reception. Does anyone here know of a fairly inexpensive har…

Hello everyone! A bit of an odd question here from a newbie, but I thought this was the best place to ask. With all the uncertainty of the times right now, my wife and I are fortunate to have safe jobs that we can both do remotely. However, there's many who aren't so fortunate. We're planning to donate half of the money we get from any stimulus to local charities, but we wanted to use whatever was left over to help support small businesses. I'm still new to blacksmithing. I've taken quite a few classes at this point and nearly have my own set up complete. I got into blacksmithing through woodworking and mostly plan to make tools, hooks, hinges, and fun stuff like tha…

This seems to best fit under miscellaneous and "Everything Else." On a lighter topic than how we are dealing with the current Covid-19 crisis I am wondering what sort of music people listen to when they are working in the shop, if you do listen to music. As background regarding my tastes in shop music I have a theory that a person's music tastes are formed when they are in early adolescence. What ever is popular then is what a person will tend towards throughout their life. Also, if there is music in the home about that time of a person's life. For me, I was at that impressionable age in the late '50s and early '60s when the folk music revival was popular. Also,…

This is a recent video but a good one. I dedicate this to those of you who can't think of something to do because it's cold. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74msCaRN3Qg&feature=youtu.be Frosty The Lucky.

I picked the short straw for my dental genetics: soft easily attacked teeth, missing several adult teeth genetically; diabetic, etc. Well I had an insulin reaction Monday morning and it looks like I broke a couple of my repaired/replacement teeth during the convulsions. So now I'm getting that classic gap toothed hillbilly look so many of my Ozark kinfolk have/had. Top it off with I don't have vacation time yet with my new job and I have usually had my dental work done across the border for affordability issues---now is not a good time to make an international trip! Looks like folks will be able to hear the banjos when I smile at them for a while...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Ulu79hZSs&list=FLdS8LPHMGZzVYuxyEAll90Q&index=5

Not sure where to put this, but since many people here will be handling steel handled by other people, or passing their work on, this seems relevant. The link contains some good information but turns political toward the end of the article. For that reason it has been removed. And a link to the non-peer reviewed study referenced. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v2 Click on the "download PDF" to view it in full. There hasn't yet been time for people to duplicate testing, so this test only gives an idea of how long COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 survives on surfaces, but it should help people continue work while minimizing the sp…

Just thought folks might appreciate this. ~5000lb 18L diesel, hydrolocked and bent a rod, as well as the crank. The rods and crank are forged. The crank is 47" long, and the main journals are just over 4.75" diameter. High quality steel, forged well, heat treated and shot-peened. Talk about some force to distort those pieces cold. Well, ~200°F operating oil temp anyway.

This week Wednesday had a high of 32 degF and today it's 68 degF; tomorrow will be colder---only 65 degF. I was hoping to burn up the wood pile and clean up the area before we got a new load; but the way it's going we will still have wood by the time we shut down the woodstove.

Ive taken a part time job giving historic tours through Williamsburg, VA.(using it to save for my forge) We go all through the town from W&M college where thomas Jefferson went to school to the peyton Randolph house which is considered the most haunted house in virginia and tell the unexplainable happenings... but I makes me curious. Do you all have any ghost stories of your area? Old abandoned legends, I feel ghost story telling is a dying art. I would love to hear anyones! Thank you!!