Bluefeather

Thanks Dunstan. Now I'm set to give it a go!

I've been putting knives together for a few years now, and just this month started forging my own blades. I've had no trouble selling knives by doubling or tripling cost of materials. I lose track of time easily when I'm in the shop, so trying to do an hourly wage would be silly for me. But when I have $75 in a blade, another $70 in scales (mammoth tooth), $25 for nickel silver bolsters and $5 for custom pins (I make them myself)That's $175 and I'll sell it for $350 pretty quick. Of course, there is much more time invested in forging a blade, and I'll price those knives higher. I also have a "friends and family discount" for those cousins and others who come out of the woodwork when they see something I've made that they like. It's 25% off, but I still make a tidy profit. I'm still learning the in's and out's of pricing. I'm probably underselling as well. Be sure to take good quality pictures of your work too, so that you can still "show it off" after it has gone to a new owner! Good Luck! John

Nice blade Dunstan! We just replaced our garage door a couple months back, and everything went to the curb but the chain. I held onto it thinking it might come in handy for something. Now I think I just want to copy you! Would you be willing to share how you did it? Thanks and nice work! John

Thanks Dunstan, I'm hooked, so I'll be hammering again soon!

My anvil is a 197# Hay-Budden that my grandfather used. Dad rescued it when we got into smithing last month. He's also got my other grandfathers anvil in his shed. The "freebies" are out there, just a matter of luck mostly.

Well here it is. I'm a new blacksmith (about 20 hrs of forge time) and a new knifemaker. This is my third blade made - first at the forge. The other two were stock removal carving knives of 440C. I'm taking a blacksmith class on tuesdays and having a blast! Most of the time so far has been learning the basics, but we were given the task of making something of interest to us. I have been browsing IFI for a time now, and have seen a great many really neat spike knives. Then I remembered that back in the days of my youth, my siblings and I would walk the derelict tracks near the house and gather "treasure" of spikes, clamps, plates and whatever odd and interesting bits of metal we could carry. So I dug out a few and decided to try my hand at forging a spike knife. This one had the HC for high carbon on the head. I brought it to non-magnetic and quenched it in veggie oil, then tempered the edge to a straw color. Does anyone have any suggestions for a better way to treat these? I've been thinking of trying to forge weld some O-1 and/or some old file metal to the next one and trying a damascus thing to add some strength to the blade. Suggestions or comments on that? Anyway, I like my little spike knife. I really had fun making it. I know it isn't perfect, but I'm going to test the heck out of it and see how the edge holds. So it won't be mirror shiney forever anyway! Thanks for looking and feel free to let me know your thoughts/suggestions/experiences with these! John

[ Thanks for the info! I'll try to clean it up a bit and see what else I can find. There are two additional handling holes right where you said they were. My wife was curious as to why I was so excited to get this anvil and my great grandfathers post vise. "Aren't they just tools?" She understood a geat deal more when I told her that for me, these are a direct connection to my Grandpa and great-Grandpa. These were tools used by them. I don't have anything else from them but these tools, and I can still use them and pass them along someday to my own kids. It's not just a hunk of iron. Or just an anvil. It is the history of my family. (And the anvil has an amazing ring!) Thanks again for the information!

My dad and I started taking blacksmith classes in early April, and have caught the bug BAD. Dad remembered that his dad, my grandpa, had an anvil, and after some talk with my uncle, they tracked it down. It was sitting behind a shed near the Iowa river. They got it loaded and Dad brought it up to me to use, along with my great-grandfather's post vice that is still in great shape. I took it to class and our instructor noted that it was a Hay-Budden. We didn't dwell on it long because there was iron to forge! But he said it was a good one. That lead me to do some research, but I still have a couple of questions. Underneath the makers logo are the numbers 1, 9, 7. I'm guessing this is #197. I took some pics of the serial # and it looks like either 55008 or 33008. Another odd thing. I have learned that H-B's have oval impressions in the bottoms. This one has a square hole that is about an inch x an inch. Can anyone help me ID a date of mfg and any other info? Thanks so much!