cracker72

Lovely! I bet they remove material aggressively. I make a lot of bowl carving adzes for customers from hammer heads. I would love to make them from scratch but the price most folk are prepared to pay for these things prohibits.

Hey Bliss, I had the same thing happen to me for the first time a few months ago. I work with "mystery" spring all the time but this one piece would just split and crack as I was drawing it out. I threw it out the door and grabbed another - no problem. That's as far as the investigation went.

Hey Don, I was a mechanic for near 20 years, always lived in the country and done all my own everything! Left the oil and grease behind three year ago to make rustic garden furniture. It really took off and customers started to ask for the matching ironwork which I couldn't provide, so I decided to start making it. Then I decided to start making green woodworking tools, froes, draw knives, twybills, and it's turned into 50% of my business. As someone has already said - don't send out any work that you would not be 100% delighted to pay money for as this is how the business grows. Good luck lad!

I'm in the uk so I don't know if the C content of our spikes is different to yours. I've managed to get a pretty hard edge quenching at orange in veg oil. A helpful test would be to draw out a bit of spike and try quenching at different colors. Try and snap each piece you quench to test hardness and examine the grain quality. You need at least 40 points of C to heat treat successfully.

Why not make socket chisels?

Yeah sounds right. I use loads of the stuff but at least I don't have to pay or it! Coal is very expensive in the UK!

I also use charcoal, but I make it myself. I find softwood makes the best. The charcoal seems to retain the resinous quality of the wood and therefore won't go to fines so easy. Lighter hardwoods are trouble, but I still use them I've just built the forge to suit the fuel. I've got a 12" round fire pot, 4" deep, with a very low hood and shielded sides and a hair dryer motor blowing into a 3/4" pipe to the bottom of the pot, plenty powerful enough. Sparks like crazy but it's contained so not a problem.

It's a good'un. Nice rebound and undamaged. Will post pics.

Thanks for that. I bought a 2cwt last night for £80.

Anyone know anything about this make of anvil? Any good?

I make stuff like this with my twybill, definitely a paring tool.

Hey Jake, thanks! I'll post up some pics of my woodwork when I photograph some of the recent stuff. I posted that tool of yours on another forum and here's the response - "Can you give us some context? I would guess it was for cutting mortises in timber frame buildings and judging by the shape of the up and down tang bits by the eye where the handle fits through I would say it was pretty old. Having said that I have not seen anything quite like that in the old framing pictures just can't think why else you would want such a long thin axe. Another possibility (now I think of it more likely) is a stone cutters axe, if it had an equal extension on the other end with a point it would be a very familiar pick axe and smaller more refined axes of that type were used for dressing stone." I didn't know they did coke there! I buy a couple pound of beef shin now and then :-). I've got a steady supply of timber off cuts from my main business which I turn into charcoal for the forge. I really get through it, but hey, I don't have to spend any money! The BBQ sound good, thanks.

Thanks Mark. No twisting really, slices across the grain lovely. I like that! I'm near Bow, Mid Devon.

Know what it is? It's a tool used to clean up mortices made by drilling holes in a line. Here's a manufactured one. And here's the one I knocked up in a couple hours from OCS. I make a lot of cleft gates, cut many mortices, and this new tool has been fantastic. The knife edge is used to clean up the mortice sides and the hook has a chisel edge to level the mortice floor and hook out the waste.

Wow! That's a thing of beauty, and looks like a good user too.

here's the other one I made.

Here's a post I made from another forum discussing the same thing.

what about finding the correct quench temp on unknown steels? Quench spring steels too hot and the grain size gets really coarse, and I doubt any tempering would reduce it. hmmm... must do some experiments

Interesting stuff. The drawknife I use frequently and all the others I've owned have not had rockers, but I can see how useful that would be. This is really making me think now!

I can see now how that would be of benefit. I was using the tool yesterday, removing the waste from half lapped joints and found that very gentle leverage when working 90 degrees to the grain removed the waste much easier. Thanks for the info. I'll include that feature in my next slick.

Hey, that's interesting. So when the blade is flat on the table there should be a curve away toward the middle of the blade?

Ha! Yes. When I started I didn't think I'd get very far. If I'd know I would have used a nicer piece of steel. It's good to hang on a nail though!

Hmmm...I only quenched the tip. As I said, I now think it's scale I've hammered in as the socket was heating that much quicker while forming. We'll see. I'm making another today.

It's 2" wide. I've just had a look at the cracks under a bright lamp and I think it's actually scale that I've managed to hammer into the steel.