Jmercier

I'm in the planning stages of building a double chamber bellows for use with a portable demonstration forge for a historical re-enactment group and I have a few questions for any of you out there who have made bellows before or who use them regularly. I've read up on everything that I can find about creating one, and I know that historically they seem to average between 5 to 6 feet long and 30 to 36 inches wide. I also know of the recommendation to have 2/3rds of the leather/canvas on the top chamber and 1/3rd below rather than a 50/50 split to make a more efficient bellows, but what I cant find is, what's the smallest dimension that you can get and still be effective for a coal forge for demos? I'm looking at 4feet long by 24 inches wide as about the largest size that I think I could really lug around / set up / travel with effectively, but I'm not sure if shrinking the bellows to that dimension will result in not enough airflow for a coal fire. Is there anyone who has experience with bellows that could give their recommendations? I know that at Bellows he has the dimensions 30" wide by 40" which seems that it should be similar internal air capacity as 24" wide by 48" long , but it's still in practice a decent bit less for the latter than the former. Would a 4 foot x 2 foot bellows work?

Dang, that's wicked awesome... I do more knives than anything (which unfortunately means i don't really do a whole lot of anything right now, too little free time) and I can say that's far nicer than anything I've made in my first 10 so far.

O1 will crack if you hammer it too cold, it's pretty forgiving about temp other than that. Heat treating it, you want to normalize a few times and then soak at 1500 for 15 mins or more to get everything in solution before you quench to harden, then draw the temper back to your desired toughness ASAP to prevent post quench cracking from martensite stress

I wasn't able to make it up yesterday, but I'll be up for the spring meet for sure. Bob Menard is a great guy, He, Owen, Fred Mikkelsen, Marc Goodbout and the rest of the board of directors do a fantastic job, we're fortunate to have such a great bunch of blacksmiths in the area., for your first cage twist that's pretty darned good! my first one got mangled, first by accident, and then by intent after i got frustrated =D

Ooohh, ok now that's just pretty. I want to make some =) That step by step by step picture is just awesome.

There's also a trick to etching cable damascus. True it will etch better after it's been hardened, but also the way you etch needs to be different than most other damascus. What i do is i etch for ~20 minutes in feCl, take the blade out, scrub it down real fast with fine steel wool to remove the black oxide, then etch for another 20, then take it out and scrub it down again real fast, and repeat this untill i get the contrasting texture that I want. Usually an hour and a half or so. Cleaning off the oxide will allow the FeCl to etch faster in areas where the oxide would slow the etching down without the cleaning

I tend to wear a glove just on my tong hand. Particularly because I mostly use gas forges, and the blast infront of the forge makes getting items in and out without a glove much more of a pain (sometimes literally) You'll never find me with gloves near one of my grinders or buffers or anything that spins.

400 grit sandpaper... and the natural oils in the rosewood *shrug* there's no actual finish on the handle, this wood was so dense and oily that I'm not sure any finish like linseed oil or anything would even take. All i can think is that the wood oxidizes dark like that. The block of wood was almost black when i found it in my shelf, when i cut it in half it was that gorgeous swirly red-brown with streaks of black, and it was that color the whole time when i was shaping it, but now that it's finished and sanded fine... well *shrug* you can see it's almost black again.

I finished one ! Sometimes I work so slow that I swear my work must be going backwards... This is my 9th finished knife to date, and the first one I've made to keep for myself so that I actually have something to show someone when I say that I make knives as a hobby. This is some of Aldo Bruno's nice 1084 forged sometime last fall, but not finished until now. 7 inch overall length, rosewood handle, which unfortunately darkened up a whole lot with finishing so doesn't show the great figure of the wood any longer. The sheath was made by Chris Kravitt of Treestump Leather This pre-finished photo shows the figure, but it didn't finish that light, but much darker.

Now that I got confirmation last Wednesday that the knife was successfully received by its new owner, I can post some pictures of the knife that I made for the xmas exchange over at the bladeforums.com . Unfortunately, while I've got quite a few in progress pictures (which I haven't yet uploaded), I only snapped 3 quick and not very good at all photos of the knife when it was finished. This is the 8th knife that I've actually finished. Sure I've got two dozen more in various stages of completion, from rough forged, to just needing to finish the handle, but that's, as far as finished products go, just number 8 for me. I've only been doing this since the very end of October 2006. 4 finished knives a year is a snail's pace, but it's what my free time allows. I almost feel like Sam Salvati sometimes because of the pile of forged but unfinished stuff in my shop =) (Just teasing ya Sam) It's forged 1084, and incidentally is also the blade that I forged out when I taught my first ever class in smithing, a class in basic bladesmithing for the New England Blacksmiths, at the end of October. Overall length is 9.5 inches with a 4.5 inch blade. The bolster is mild steel, and the handle itself is bear bone, home stabilized. This is a 'left handed' knife, the recipient being left handed. The bone has a ridge on one side that makes it fit the left hand perfectly and naturally, but which makes it uncomfortable to hold right handed. The clip on the point is also on the opposite side of the 'typical' clip point, being left handed instead. The finish was just a hand rubbed 320 grit satin finish. It came out a bit back heavy because there was a lot of space in the bone and thus it took a lot of epoxy. The balance point is just behind the bolster.

Do NOT get the grizzley unless you're not going to be using it much. The coote is the best value for the buck, and the KMG is the best there is. A Bader B3 is very nice too, but my preference is for the KMG. I've been using a Coote for 2 years now, and it's a work horse, and versitile. Avoid the griz at all costs if you can. If you buy a coote, you'll have it a decade from now even if you upgrade to a KMG / Bader, and it'll still work great. People i know with griz grinders have the motors blow out (they dont use TEFC motors, so the grinding dust kills the motor) cant hollow grind because the motor itself is in the way, and there's only one speed, stupidly fast, and no way to step it down with puleys.

If you got the steel hot enough that you even think you might have burnt it then you had it way too hot for forging a blade out of. 5160 will weld at 2300 (at least that's what my pyrometer reads) and that's lower than burning, but way higher than you should forge it at.

a stiddy should be pretty precise from my understanding, and most people i know that DO make them use a CNC and mill to produce them. If you go to the bladeforums.com and the knifemakers area i believe that greatlakeswaterjet makes them. It really depends exactly what the person who's asking is looking for.

Nickel and carbon steel weld together just fine, I do it quite a bit when making damascus. Pure nickle is used a lot in mosaic damascuses and the like to make a high contrast and striking pattern. I do most of my damascus welding with a friend's hydrolic forging press, and use a propane forge when doing it, around 2300 F by the pyrometer.

You need to weld the whole length of your billet, otherwise you dont have anythign to forge except a bunch of loosely wound wires, and nothing to shape into a blade.

Yes, you can set the weld in cable by twisting it tight with it at heat. All it takes to weld steel together is heat and pressure, and twisting the cable tight with a monkey wrench / pipe wrench creates a lot of pressure. This is my prefered way to set the weld, then i'll draw out the billet after.

It works just fine. Dont trust the oven thermometer though. You dont need to modify the toaster oven at all. I would however stick a firebrick in the oven to help even out the temperature when tempering so, because the electric elements will cycle and cause a lot of varience. http://www.tharkis.com/images/shop/oven.jpg I stick a firebrick in mine, and an accurate oven thermometer. Pre-heat it to what my tempering temperature is (usually around 400) and then put my knives in it after hardening to draw back the temper. The piece of twisted steel you see in there right now in that old picture was just something that i used to keep blades from laying with the bevel flat.

I weld it initially ... in a vise, twisting it down on itself with a pipe wrench at a welding heat, this does most of the initial weld. Then i use the flat of my anvil and jsut follow the strands, turning continually.

A lot of the cutting ability of a chisel is the geometry of the chisel and the hardness of what you're cutting. Annealed mild steel can be cut by a mild steel chisel just fine, but dont expect to cut any tool steel with it. In addition, non-magnetic is still too low of a temperature for even tool steels. Non magnetic, or the curie point, is 1414, you need to reach the fully austenitic state before quenching your steel to get fully hard. AC1 (where austenite starts to form) at the lowest temperature is around 1333, but AC2 / Acm where the steel is fully austenitic is higher than that for almost every steel. The exception is the eutectoid steel (.83 carbon) where the Acm point is the lowest of any steel, and non-magnetic is a sufficient test, but this is the only steel this works effectively with. The addition of further alloying elements will increase the soak time at Acm that you need in order to reach fully austenitic to fully harden a steel. O1 for example needs a soak time of around 15 minutes for all the elements to go fully into solution. You will end up with fine pearlite mixed in with austenite if you just go to non magnetic, and you will never get fully hardened. Martensite, the crystaline form of steel that makes steel hard, can ONLY be formed from austenite, so if you don't get fully austenitic, you cant get fully hardened.

his isn't quite a blacksmithing project, but there was a lot of smithing involved in finishing it. I finished a project I started a week ago, a historically accurate reproduction of a Scottish targe from around the time of the battle of Culloden (1746) forged out everything for it except for the brass nails, but back then they'd have just bought brass nails from someone else who makes them anyways too. Forged the shield boss and the buckle for the back from brass bar and sheet stock. The only real historically inaccurate thing I did was that I used a T nut (which I didn't forge and thread myself) under the center boss rather than a lump of soft lead... the lead is historically accurate for the center spike to screw into, but I'd rather not deal with toxic metals =) Stats, 20 inches in diameter, 7.5 lbs total weight, deer hide back, 5oz leather front, around 700 brass nails, 1/2 inch oak core. 9 inch spike, design is my own based on components from various historical targes in museums. The handle on the back is leather wrapped around a forged out metal handle, and handle and straps are held on without screw just like historic examples. This was my first time doing any leather work of any sort, so it's not the best, but I think it came out well. and the back I've got a bunch of deer hide left to make more, because I had to purchase a whole hide just for this one project. I'm going to be adding a step-by-step of my creation of the targe with pictures to my website sometime in the near future. I took over 75 pictures of the progress along the way.

I'll see if i can dig the piece out from my garage. I lose tools seconds after i put them down in there, so it may be a while till i can find it =D

cold rolled is typically a better steel, and usually 'new' 1018 plain carbon steel, whereas hot rolled is cheaper and usually just a structural grade such as A36, which is just a minimum tensile strength. with A36 you dont always know what you're getting and could get some very hard / non homogonized steel that forges poorly relative to 1018, or you could get just fine stuff, you never really know for sure. The latest load of a36 hot rolled 1"x3/8" that I got is MUCH harder working than any of the cold rolled in my shop (which is all 1018) and i even have a piece that i polished and etched that you can clearly see a hex bolt head in the steel (higher chromium content, etched out brighter than the surrounding steel) so you know that it's got some higher carbon spots than other spots, which makes it much riskier to use water to cool a piece while working it etc because you may crack it. Either works fine for forging, cold rolled is usually more expensive but better controlled, hot rolled cheaper, but you dont always know what you're getting.

It's hard to exactly tell how the top was welded on, its' not steel, it's solid wrought iron the whole way up, and never had a steel face. It's too old to have had one. It's certainly possible that the top was one piece and folded over the sides, but it's not really easy to tell if that's the case or if it was welded in multiple slabs / layers. You can tell the horns were built up from slabs from the voids from where the forge welds were bad, and you can even tell the post was welded up the same way in one spot, but the face was much more refined and finished, so i cant see the seams. Hrm, maybe I should bring it into my living room, get a good clean and nice looking stump to mount it in, and sit it near my pellet stove =D Being single and with my own house, i can do what i want with it lol.

To get back on topic, this is my rare anvil Temporary Stake Anvil page best guestimates i've been able to get from people who know rare anvils is likely 16th century french, probably armorer's pattern. Used to have engraved faces on the side but they're mostly worn flat. The person who was able to give me the best info on it deals with auctions and said he could probably get several grand for it at auction. Myself? including shipping I paid under 200 for it. I dont use it, it stays in a corner of my shop looking pretty. Just because you get a good price on something doesnt also mean you should use it too =P Some things shouldnt be used for fear of deteriorating their condition when they're a true rarity.

forge welding can be very frustrating, and very rewarding at the same time. The project I was working on this weekend is a good example of both. Made some nice damascus, using a forging press, and got a nice billet. Took the billet home to my own workshop and got to work on it. I folded it over a chunk of 1095 to weld as a bit in the middle of a tomahawk head... and got a really xxxxx weld at the back of the hawk, ruining a good piece of damascus and many hours of work. Tried to get it to weld in the bad spot after that but ended up just mushing the metal in and not sticking anything together. I'll finish up and keep this reject for myself, because it'll probably hold up to light use, but I wouldnt let it out of my shop now. Forge welding can be a real pain, and a real joy.