Steve Shimanek

Make mine a 200#er.....excellent work!

Charcoal forge made from a discarded barbeque grill; adobe lining, hair dryer for a blower. Can cook your steak after you are done forging. PS this was a while back before i had some mentoring; I have and can make real tongs now and don't wear my welding gloves to hold stuff anymore. I moved into another place and converted the 2 car garage into my shop, and I have 2 propane forges these days as well. This forge was the first and cost about $10 to make.

I built a charcoal forge from a discarded barbeque grill lined with adobe and a hair dryer for a blower, had a cheap import anvil, engineer hammer and made a set of "tongs" by heating and bending a set of long handled needle nosed pliers circa 2006. Have come aways since then.

Tasty!

Spoons and fork done recently (resized photo)

deleted due to huge photo

That is beautiful!

That's nice work!

Looks like a straight and cross pein hammer that would be pretty handy to use; I doubt is has much collector value but as a shop hammer it is......priceless :D

Spoons, ladles, hammered copper bracelets, making the dimple in horseshoeing tongs......

Good used hammers are on Ebay all the time, some are very good bargains. Almost all of the hammers i have are vintage and were made in USA for the purpose.

If you have the floor space and access to an old metal spoked wheel (or make a new one) you could make a rotating table rack to hold them. (Now i have spring fuller envy:))

Aloha, welcome to the site!

Nicely done, you can tighten the widget with that too!

I like that crane/hanger, that thing is massive and the joinery is cool.

They also had a battery powered high temperature 2400 degree thermometer with k type thermocouple for $70 bucks on page 2, i'm going to get some stuff from them.

Thanks for mentioning Edward Martin. My mentor Ted Shanks hosted Master Martin for a week in Hawaii some years ago. Ted had laid tools out in preparation for his visit; when he arrived, he said in his brogue "That's a fine collection of tools ye have there, lad" and then proceeded to open a small case from which he took out his hammer and and chisel. Over the course of the week,starting with just the hammer and chisel, he made every other tool he needed for everything he made. He would hammer powerfully, make a masterpiece, then fling it on the ground, and begin something else. When Ted asked him if he wasn't even going to look at it, Master Martin replied, "Lad, I looked at it when I made it!"

Here are some of mine; i prefer the Champion rounding hammer for most work. It is the one on the left; there are also some Hellers. I like the older hammers; I might even have a hammer fetish :blink:

That looks really cool, what else are you going to do to it?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Iron-City-blacksmith-hammer-vintage-/160490840687?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item255dffe26f here's one on ebay now

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://chestofbooks.com/crafts/machinery/Shop-Practice-V2/images/Set-Hammer.png&imgrefurl=http://chestofbooks.com/crafts/machinery/Shop-Practice-V2/Forge-Shop-Common-Tools.html&usg=__iQsU08vwMTMUNtFixLJvkMu3j9c=&h=200&w=205&sz=2&hl=en&start=0&zoom=0&tbnid=LcSRrq9tDygdLM:&tbnh=102&tbnw=105&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dset%2Bhammer%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26rlz%3D1I7GGLL_en%26biw%3D1579%26bih%3D611%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C195&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=629&vpy=277&dur=10034&hovh=102&hovw=105&tx=73&ty=127&ei=33-wTJ2uOJCisQObzvj8Cw&oei=33-wTJ2uOJCisQObzvj8Cw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=29&ved=1t:429,r:22,s:0&biw=1579&bih=611 try that yeah it works huh guess I am literate (barely )

I tried to copy an image but i am not computer literate enough to figure out how to put it on here.......just google "set hammer". Basically it is a struck tool(you set it on your work and hit it with your smithing hammer) and is a basic smithing tool. I see them for sale on Ebay regularly, or you could modify one of those cheap Chinese squareheaded stonecarving hammers.

Looking good, next you can try to draw out your stem some more to give it a more tapered look. If you use a set hammer you can get a raised rib effect down the center, and a straight or curved chisel is good for veining.

The head looks great! I also echo some of the other comments and suggest you review the game laws in the area you want to hunt and the specifics for the species; the laws can vary a great deal. In many localities barbed heads are illegal; but the back end can bevel back at a more acute angle. Kind of hard to explain....a review of some of the commercially available shapes as well as the local game laws will "point" you in the right direction. Also, what kind of bow will you be hunting with? Traditional bows such as longbows get better penetration using a flat double edged "cut on contact" head vs. multi blades due to the lower velocities. Nice smithing!