Steve Shimanek

Condolences to the family; I hope we can learn more about how this occurred in the interest of shop safety. Buffer accident?

While building my house I had been trying to impress the importance of PPE on the guys working with me. Unfortunately while working on his uncle's u joints, banging away with a hammer minus the safety glasses i had provided to him, the bearing cap shattered and a small shard penetrated into the vitreous humor( the jelly stuff in the eye.) Paid to send him to Hawaii for eval but they weren't able to remove the piece and get his sight back. Now he is blind in that eye and he has a hard time with everything.

I have used that stuff for plumbing, it is basically an epoxy type compound. I personally would not use it on a habaki.

nice work, experience usually teaches us more efficient ways to do stuff.

Consider your two bits snipped off.

NCO swords generally had the metal handles…..my internet is not great here so the pics don't d/l…. can't add any more at the moment.

Nice knife and sheath, as mentioned above these were not sold as "scalping knives" though they may have been used as such. As a war veteran and of native descent i am not very happy with the description as a "scalping knife" so you may want to consider that in the future.

is this for a folding knife?

Guy said it had been taken apart and cleaned, worked like new, I call BS. Better off it sold before you got there. Keep looking and don't let the "story" sell you.

Welcome Colin. My advice to you before you begin making KSO's (knife shaped objects.) is to learn the basics of good hammer control, how to taper steel, turn round into square and back again, turn square into round and back again, learn to upset and forge back to shape. Then think about KSO's as everything you learn doing the above will help you along the path. Learn how to make your own tongs and other tools. Good luck, Steve

I have a Journeyman 125 as my main anvil and for what i do it is reasonable. Paid about $400 for it if i remember right. Face is a little soft but minimize the bad hits and you're ok:)

well the guy that uses that thing must be a better welder than me to be able to run a good bead one handed!

I am considering buying a Miller multiprocess machine for my retirement business of semi pro blacksmithing and fab work especially to do my own iron work for the house i am building. The Miller Multimatic 200 looks like a good machine for my purposes.

where ya at, what you got? Tailgate section is the best place to post your items.

you can countersink the rivet hole which will allow the rivet to be flush with the back of the plate, or dish the plate to achieve the same effect.

FWIW my blacksmith sensei used to anneal by soaking for about 45 minutes, then putting the stock into a vermiculite tub and letting it cool before doing any necessary grinding. To complete the tool, a soak at the orange temp for an appropriate time and an air quench followed by appropriate oven temper worked our well,….. your mileage may vary.

I used a lot of duplex nails as a form carpenter…now that i am in American Samoa i can't find them, but they are great when you need to nail something together that you want to take apart later. And apparently they make great stock for mini swords! Looks like fun.

centipedes and mice, see the post re: gloves for explanation re: centipedes….gahhhh!

On Kauai we had gloves for those necessary occasions such as MIG or TIG welding; my teacher got hit once but several times by a big ol centipede that was hanging out in the glove. My job afterwards was to make sure there were no critters hanging out in his gloves. I am sure that he appreciated it!

sky is the limit as to use/remanufacture…..it looks like a keeper!

that is totally awesome!

I think 6 inches should be good, but what if you get a power hammer in the future?

There is a metal shop at UH Manoa where they have forges, anvils, etc if you are enrolled or can get to know some of the students. Chris Greywolf would be a good guy to get to know, tell him Steve sent you. Also, if you can get over to Kauai, my teacher Ted Shanks is there and he is an awesome human being and blacksmith.

The parts finally came in many months after the order was paid for. They claim that the cylinder is a special order item.

The parts were paid for.....Thanks for the replies.