VaughnT

Or you could just make some more and take pictures of them...... Sounds like you came up with something neat!

Really brilliant design. I love how you adapted everything to fit your new purpose! Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Congrats on the sale, Tony! How'd you tweak the design? Bend the corners back on down?

I don't have a problem with VR being used to give people an impression of the craft. As I see it, the VR gives them the barest flavor of what it's like, helping to weed out the weak. Not too long ago, I was approached by a young fellow that heard I was a blacksmith. He said he needed help with his forge welds because he couldn't get them to stick. Of course, he was interested in making knives and axes. After a few minutes talking, I quickly deduced that he didn't know thing one about the craft. Even though he said he was interested in making the things and had tried, he didn't know what normalizing meant. How is it that you can be interested in a subject and not spend an hour or so reading about it? Normalizing is one of the three main terms you always see whenever blades are being discussed, yet this chap didn't have a clue. Long story short, I got the impression that he wanted to come to my shop so I could hold his hand through the entire process, but wasn't willing to do anything on his own. With the internet right there, research is easy to do. If a young buck isn't willing to do the research, especially after seeing their own forge welds fail consistently.... I'm really not that interested in having them over to the shop. Let the VR weed them out.

Glad to help. Here's three more I finished last night. They're small 5.25" versions, but perfectly sized for keys, candles and general clutter-catching!

It's never too late! I keep a wire wheel on my 6" craftsman bench grinder and use it all the time to remove scale from finished work. The thing is a lifesaver and it really improves the look of the piece. On something like that hook, it'd be short work to clean it up on the grinder and then hit it with some black paint and clear coat like Torbjorn does in his videos. It'll look good and fit in with the office environment.

Perfect. You win the internet today!

Thirty minutes on forging a kukri in the jungle! One of these days, I'm going to get me an anvil like that! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-6HLaN33QI

I was thinking the same thing; always found the use of a soup can to be a bit sad when you consider it's a blacksmith's shop and working iron should be relatively easy for them. I'm just as guilty, but it's one of those things you don't think about until you see someone doing differently. It's those little details that make these videos worth while.

The subtitles make it worth watching! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAq_fL855l0 Got to love a little brandy! And who could forget this wonderful treatise on the greatness that the blacksmithing trade brought to the world???? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVAJdhzN-Ak&t=38s

The iron demands tribute and you will pay it whether you like it or not. If you're not ready to be burned, cut, poked, prodded, bruised and otherwise reminded of your frailty, there's no place for you in the smithy. Drive is a crucial ingredient. If you're not motivated to read, research and watch videos on your own time, there's not much a smith can do with you when you walk into the shop. If you're expecting to have your hand held and be spoon fed... prepare for disappointment! There's more to the world than swords, knives and axes. You need to learn how to walk before you can run. Be humble and acknowledge your limitations.

Probably my favorite "how to make a flint striker" video. This guy is straight out of Central Casting! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCmWV0pcO3Y

The best 30 minutes I've spent in quite some time. Inspirational, and there's no doubt Habermann has a passion for the craft! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMNuWPvLLyI&t=937s

Sheet metal work on a serious budget! A lot of lessons to be learned in this video! Next time someone tells you they don't have the tools to make a forge or work metal, point them to this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scdb18Mp4ac

Russian Horse Head Flint Striker.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH74uWqHroc

Love seeing all the pieces decorating the shop, showing the blacksmith's pride. If you have to work in a basement..... make it one heck of a basement! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyXRiUn7HgU

I wondered what you'd think about that Aquairon vid.....

Great Idea. I love hunting the internet for good smithing videos and will be sure to add what I've found.....

Without a transcript, not speaking the language, I think it'd be hard to say if this is a traditional French style, or simply something the French smith came up with. For the application, I don't think welding the eye shut is entirely necessary.

Once again, a careful hunt of the internet results in an absolute gem of a video. Nineteen minutes of educational entertainment. You don't have to understand French so long as you understand 'blacksmith'. I particularly liked his eye-turning tool and will definitely look to make a variant for myself. I don't do a lot of hinge work, but it's always nice to have a tool hanging on the wall. For me, the best part was seeing the size of the starting stock and how he worked it down. The thing I like most about blacksmithing is forging in the deep recesses and creating an amazing topographical variance.

Tony -- Cold, cold, cold. The only time you should get the metal hot is when you first start out and want to set the hardness in the steel so the bowl will ring properly. Heat the blank to a nice orange and then quench it in water. While it's mild steel, it does have carbon in it and will harden a itty bitty bit. All the hammering you do after that, giving it the nice texture, will further work-harden the steel making it as resonant as it can possibly be. A lot of the curve will happen naturally as you hammer the inside of the dish. You can magnify this by holding the steel up off the anvil at an angle and hitting down into the void rather than hitting square on the piece that's supported by the anvil. Start in the middle and slowly circle outwards with your ballpeen. Try different radii on the peen end to get different sizes of divots in the steel. I prefer a squished ball rather than perfectly round, but sometimes you need round or even pointed a little bit to get into a tight curve. Everything's really up to you and what you're trying to achieve. A stump will certainly help and I'm a huge fan of my Dad's invention -- the Steel Puck of Awesomeness. While we're still fighting on the name, it's been a real boon to my dish-making endeavors. I like it far better than a wood stump because it doesn't smoke like a demon when working hot steel in it and I don't have to worry about it being in the way or checking at an inopportune place. I throw the SPoA on my anvil, and it stays put even without a hardy stem. I have cold-worked bowls that were .125" thick without any problems. Two brand new SPoA fresh off the lathe: SPoA rather scratched after working her first dish to shape. She's a workhorse and I wonder how many bowls I'll need to make before she wears out!

The texturing jig.... some beads were laid down first, but I wasn't too keen on how they were doing. So, I went after the thing with the pointed end of a chipping hammer and did some more with my center punch. I'm still not 100% satisfied with the look I get, but running the steel through a few times, altering direction every pass, gives a nice random texture. Before welding up the jig, I was doing each pendant individually and that took a lot of time!

More rune pendants for the keyring! I never get tired of making these things!