Don A

You can't charge for your learning curve. If you feel like $50 is going rate for a pull like that, then practice until you can crank one out in an hour. Very nice work, by the way. Keep it up.

Jake, The best I've seen on these forums is by Mick Maxen. You need to get in touch with him. I think he might be on your side of the Pond: http://www.vikingdesign.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/maxen.html He is a member here at Iforge if I'm not mistaken. http://www.iforgeiron.com/user/14559-mick-maxen/ Don

Darren, Forgive me if I've asked this before, but a Coote with a DC treadmill motor is on my revolving, ever evolving, to-do list. I've stripped out a motor, but I haven't bought the grinder yet. That said, did you scavenge the variable speed from the treadmill, or did you buy a new unit? How complicated was it to get the motor running like you wanted it? Any thing you'd do different? Thanks, Don

Beautiful work.

Hey Sam, great work. How about a few details on how you pinched the blade at the bloster? I love to see an integral where the edge begins that close to the bolster. I've got a big W-1 rod laid back for an integral belduque, so any advice would be appreciated. Don

Are you sure it's 100% borax?

If you're looking to fail in tempering toward the brittle side, just forget to temper. Like Frank said, I can take a piece of file steel (or any any simple high carbon), heat it to critical and water quench it. If it survives the quench, it will snap/crack/shatter at the least attempt at flexing or even a light blow. Sometimes it will crack just sitting there unless you draw some temper right off.

Beautiful.

Great demo. Thanks.

I sometimes use a charcoal side-blast, and the only time I have trouble with ash build up is when I let the fire get lazy. If I get distracted away from the forge and just let it smolder, the ash will accumulate. If it's not too bad, I can stir the fire with a poker while blasting it hard with air and it will clear out pretty good. If I've let it go too long I'll just shovel it out except for a few good coals and build it back. I do like a clean fire.

Sam, Sorry I didn't respond to your post last April. I was in the heat of trying to finish that particular job and got distracted. I certainly appreciate the offer. But you are right about the busy part. My schedule and my good intentions don't work well together :wacko: I wil definitely try to take you up on a visit if things ever lighten up. I appreciate it, Don

That's a good looking rig. The only problem I see is that without a cut-out in the back of the barrel, you will be limited to short stock lengths. If you cut a pass-thru in the back it will solve this problem. Good job.

I started out with the lower unit of an upright vacuum as my blower. I used one of the cheap overhead light dimmers for control. I was told that it wouldn't work for long, but it was still going when I got my real blower (2 or 3 years at least). It wasn't pretty, but it did the trick.

That just looks cool. You do good work.

I was raised in Townsend at the end of Wears Valley Rd. My g-grandmother was one of the original Townsend/Wears Valley Headricks. My avitar is from her fathers headstone in the Myers Cemetary behind the visitors center. I live over the mountain in Seymour, Blount County now, about 30 minutes from the Valley. PM me and I'll give you my phone number. I'd love to see what you have going.

I got my last one from Dunlap: http://www.dunlapwoodcrafts.com/TomahawkHandles.php

Looks good. If you find it dulling quickly, a heat-treatment might be in order. If not, spud away!

Excellent! That's a complete tutorial in a single picture. The finished pieces look great as well. Don

You must have tough hands! Interesting... very nice.

When you are going square and you strike off 90° (flat), the sides will shift and you'll end up with a slanted parallelagram cross-section instead of true square. You need to watch it and correct it quickly. The worse it gets, the worse it gets. You can correct back to square by hitting it on the corner. Like a lot of things, the smaller the stock the more tedious this is to manage. Do about 100 of 'em and it'll begin to fall into place ;)

Looks fine. Work it over good and you'll know fo sure. I welded mine on a wide, flat base and welded my hardy shank to the end of the base. This way it sits fully on the face of the anvil and the hardy just stabilizes it. I just used a piece of 1" angle for the shank, since there's no downward force on the shank itself.

Thanks for the insight and information Frank. I want to be clear that I was not implying that there are not historic examples of integral pipe hawks. There are many, and many of them are finely done. However some of them are not. There are also cast brass examples, some with steel bits dovetailed in. There are some with iron heads and brass bowls. There are some excellent pieces (significant historic pieces) with the bowl brazed in. The ones I am most familiar with are Eastern 18th Century pieces. The gun barrel thing seems to have evolved in the West at a slightly later period. Again, there are some dandy surviving examples as well as some not-so-dandies. My point is this: because a craftsman chose to turn his bowl perfectly round and then spend several hours doing ornate filework on it and then braze it (or thread it) to the head such that the joint is virtually invisible... well, I wouldn't label him as "forge shy", a novice, or a slacker. For a presentation grade piece, any method is going to require some degree of stock removal.

Good move. Keep the wife happy and everybody's happy ;) Nice heart. They are certainly addictive.

This is one of Alan Longmire's pipehawks: http://contemporarymakers.blogspot.com/2010/06/alan-longmire-pipe-ax.html The bowl is either threaded or brazed in. I wouldn't accuse him of having a lack of ability or an unwillingness to work hard. That's kinda like saying a swordsmith is slacking because his blade, guard and pommel are not all integrally forge or that a riflemaker is lazy because his barrel and lock are two seperate pieces.

Remember that if the copper starts getting hard and brittle as you work it (work hardening), you can hit it with the torch 'til it's dull red and then quench it. It will be annealed and malleable again.