bigfish

bill- sounds like a pretty good deal and nice forge too! curly -yah troy only like two hours south,i do hope to go thomas- thats cool ya get 2 see your family as well thanks for the info guys every little bit helps -scott

phil- thanks for the link thomas- nm? quite a road trip.i hope to see you there! and thanks all for following up with the lowly apprentice :rolleyes:

150 $ is alot closer to my budget quad state? don't know it. half hour north of dayton is even closer yet more info please thomas thanks -scott

yah i thought it was a little high but from my limited experience it looks like its in great shape (gears in blower)not just the paint plus the extras coal,hood,hammer definitely wouldn't go any higher tho moot point anyway no money=no more toys but i guess i should ask what do you guys think its worth?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Champion-Blacksmith-Forge-and-Blower-Extras_W0QQitemZ330407464065QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item4cedd1cc81 just cruisin ebay wanted to give you guys the link on this wish i could afford it dayton only a couple hours from here ahhhhh someday :rolleyes:

finally got some more work in on my first spring steel knife fired the forge up this weekend and annealed it-sorta don't have a good substance to properly anneal @this time so i heated to cherry red and let air cool 3x it softened it up suprisingly well let her soak in vinegar 2 days and a little grindin lots of filing and this is what i've got. go easy guys this is my FIRST spring knife :rolleyes:

very nice! and better yet i'm sure the wife will be pleased :)

would love to go 2 bad i live a continent away :(

glad i can finally be of some assistance to someone here instead of being the one who asks questions all the time as far as the proper use of files i believe nakedanvil has a thread on here somewhere about it but i'll be darned if i can find it but the best i can recall you should have the handle in your left hand and only pull toward you hence the term "draw filing"going back and forth can damage your file and the piece you are working on by holding shavings in the file you should knock the shavings out frequently and there was also a reference to using soapstone on your files to keep the shavings from sticking to them.As far as the bevels go i will freely admit i am no expert but filing seems to give me the most uniform edge. hope this helps some :)

well finally got to do a little forgin this weekend managed to get one knife roughed in out of my leaf spring i started with a piece about one inch xthree and a half inches long xabout 1/2 inch thick the blade is about 5"x1 1/2 @widest point with the tang being about another 5 inches. tang is about 3/16thick x 3/4 wide with the spine tapering pretty even to the point. the other two blades are from my last round of forgin' both are spike knives so i guess letter openers but either way i'm pretty happy with the outcome. on the antler handled one i split the bone on my scrollsaw and used a dremel to hollow out the impression for the tang.the handguard is a piece of an old plow bottom cutoff w/a cutoff wheel then hammered flat also used a hot chisel to punch slit in for the tang. the wood handled one i used same scrollsaw to cut fingergrooves in some old native oak planks that came out of my grampas' barn and a lot of filing/sanding I used loctite 5 minute epoxy and brass pins 3/32 thick [barely peened]to attach scales

hey thanks guys its always good to hear some + input i have been using oil to quench everything so far should i be using brine on my spikes?

just finished a blade i have been working on for a while. I am very pleased with it made from a HC r/r spike it measures 11 1/2 inches long, blade 6 1/2, handle 5.Deer antler handle brass pins and polished to an almost mirror finish. I tried to stay away from the grinder and did most of the work w/a file and sand paper but the buffer w/a little emory compound went a long way. When tempering the edge got an almost perfect straw yellow and this blade actually holds a pretty good edge unlike a lot of my spike knives but recently aquired some leaf springs out of a big rig and we did some banging on some this weekend. Oh boy what a difference! we used twice as much coal and got half the work done not sure the carbon content but i'm told its pretty high.Can't wait to get a little further on them. Any and all comments appreciated. THANKS GUYS scott

thanks guys i hadn't thought of the hardy hole, gd idea :rolleyes:

50$ in the condition you describe does seem a bit high to me but then again i'm known to be pretty tight for 20 though prob. ok i'm sure you could fix the spring but i'm no expert. i have seen them go on auctions pretty cheap

but i don't know if i would call myself a blacksmith yet maybe just a guy who heats things up and beats the heck out of em' or blacksmith has a nice ring to it [pun intended]