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! -_-

This is not per-se having to do with smithing, but there is a Survivalist/Prepper get together in Mesa Arizona on May 19th 2012 at the old Commemorative Air Force Museum at Falcon Field, corner of Greenfield and McKellips. These folks are not the "stowing ammo in caves in the wilderness for when the balloon goes up" nuts but are people who like to be prepared to help themselves and others in case of earthquake, flood, hurricane (ok, we don't get hurricanes in Arizona. But we do get tornados!) Or they just want to be prepared to wait out a long spell of little or no employment (sound familiar?) Anyway, blacksmithing sort of fits in with the independent nature of preppers. visit website at www.arizonasurvivalistshow.com Wait a minute... we did have a hurricane here once. Hurricane Nora hit while I was elk hunting! :unsure:

For me, forging is a hobby. If I do work for pay, then it becomes a "job" and is no longer as fun and relaxing. I'll build anything I can for a friend, church, scouts etc, pro bono. For the rest, when they ask, "How much would you charge to...?" I name a ridiculously high figure. Of course, they'll ask, "Why so much?" "Because I don't want to."

I'll have to go with answer #2. I don't have a waterjet, heck, this is Arizona, we don't have WATER. We do have a lot of stone arrowheads lying about but that doesn't stop me from knapping a few out myself "just to prove I can do it" as you say and because I'm only the third generation of my family to walk upright. ;)

No, they're made out of sheet metal. Probably about 16ga. It's scrap, of course. The tin cans are what I use to trace a circle onto the sheet metal. I cut out 4 or 5 discs for each rose blossom then I punch a 1/4" hole in the center of each disc. Each disc is cut into 4 or 5 sections with the cuts stopping short of the center hole, of course. I round off the sharp corners of each section and shape the petals using a small cross pein hammer and a metal ring over which I hammer the petals to cup them somewhat. The discs are stacked onto the stem which is 1/4" round rod with a boss welded on and forged to form the "receptacle" as it is called in horticulture. I rivet down the end of the stem to hold the sepals and petals in place and then use a propane or mapp gas torch to heat and shape the petals according to my fancy, using small tongs or needle nosed pliers. Here are the parts of a rose http://www.ehow.com/...ose-flower.html And this is the tutorial that I learned from courtesy of Mark Aspery, the BEST. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc24KB7u4oE&feature=related Watch parts 1 and 2 The vase was a piece of pipe, 1" or 1- 1/14? I used a guillotine fuller to neck down the base and did the rest over the anvil horn. The stem of the rose is arc welded in the small hole left inside of the base. My tiny forge won't hit weld heat so I arc weld on the stem collar too and then forge it out.

Just be sure to let your friends know how much you think of them to ALLOW them to handle your anvil for you. (Have you read TOM SAWYER?)

:)Makes sense, Phil

I think the old wheels were made by the same lads that made millstones and such. Eric Sloane pictured the tools used A Museum of Early American Tools. My personal experience is limited to making a few stone axe heads and metates (Stone corn mills). These are made by slowly pecking away at the stone with a hammerstone or a steel hammer that looks a lot like a welders chipping hammer. I've seen them make mortars "molcajetes" and corn grinders "metates" for the tourist trade in Mexico using pneumatic tools. You can speed the process up by using masonry drills and a pneumatic hammer such as the small ones that are used in automotive work. Most come with a set of chisels and pointy tools that will work. Get a large flat slab of sandstone from the hills (Arizona's major crop ) or a local purveyor of flagstones. Lay out the circle using a large compass, trammel points or a nail and string. Drill the center hole small. Later you will want to cut it out square to fit your axle. Some holes were cut large on purpose and wooden or metal wedges were used to "balance" the wheel. Work your way around the circumference line slowly, don't get too impatient. Once you have cut a fairly deep groove around your circumference line, flip the stone over and do the same on the other side. Each stone is different, but you will get a feel for when you can start breaking off the excess. Unless you have one HUGE lathe, you will have to remove any imperfections by the same "pecking" process. You will observe on many of the old original stones that they weren't always exactly "true" or balanced. Sorry I don't have more actual grindstone experience to share, but a rock is a rock. The Egyptians, Easter Islanders, and others shaped great monuments by the same basic processes. Good Luck!

Years ago I made a set of woodcarver's knives from an old AMES shovel. As far as I know, the guy is still using them. Having said that, I have to go with what a lot of the smith's have said. Start out with some simple projects in mild steel first, then try knife making. I infrequently do forging demo's. I have a sign I hang up in front of my setup. It says: ALL MALES BETWEEN THE AGES OF 10 AND 29 MUST READ THIS. Concerning the making of knives and swords: YES, I CAN! YES, I HAVE! NO, I WON'T. (Please don't ask!) It gets a lot of smiles and chuckles, mostly from the ladies.

Don't "sane" and "blacksmith" constitute an oxymoron?

What part of the Valley are you in? Bentiron is in Cave Creek, Dablacksmith is in Apache Junction and, though, I ain't much, I'm in Mesa.