Ed Steinkirchner

I really like to make useful items out of odds and ends around the shop, especially the trim from cutting off on the hardy. That's where most of my small tools come from. If I didn't know better I would say you couldn't make a 8.5 inch knife out of 1.5 inches of spring That's why forging has an advantage over stock removal in my opinion. Great knife and can't wait to see more. Ed Steinkirchner

I've seen many hot and cold bluing/blackening formulas, but all that I tried have not worked out. Well i guess my question is, what blackens steel without tarnishing/discoloring copper, brass, nickel silver, or aluminum. I ask because, short of letting it blacken with age, i cant get iron to blacken without changing the color of the inlayed wire. I've tried cold bluing but that does not work, i have tried tannic acid, and though it blackened the steel, is sanded off too easy. The spray with diluted acid, let rust, brush, and boil method is the only one that has shown any promise so far. I've seen it done,I just do not know HOW its done. Any help is greatly appreciated. Ed Steinkirchner

not sure what a UL certification is, but odds are, no matter how safe it really is, it is "unsafe" for not having it. Also it is grounded and all the wear points have thick rubber covers, not just tape, because the last thing i need is to get the blankity-blank shocked out of me when i'm trying to drill a hole. and my dad doesn't mind, and it's in his garage! anyway, I was thinking about making another for the forge-end of the bench, but hot metal and plastic-coated wire dont get along well. But i will if i find some used couduit or metal-clad wire. afterall, I have all the parts, I just have to realize that is what they were made for. Ed Steinkirchner

what can you make out of 2 bicycle seat adjusters, a cheap lamp from the goodwill, a locking collar from some free weights, a piece of curtain rod, and about 10$ in hardware? an adjustable lamp for the shop! thats what. when i saw the bicycle part in the burn pile after my brother scrapped a bunch of bikes, i knew it would be good for something. so I grabbed the other 3 of them and threw them it the shop until I thought of something good for them. finally, when I was working on the lathe, i got sick of the inadiquate light in the shop and bought an 8$ floor lamp from the goodwill and sat it behind the lathe. but it kept falling over, so I tried to think of a way to get light without cluttering up the floor of the shop, and this is what i thought of. now the lamp stood about 5.5 feet tall stock, and the bracket pushes it out from the beam about 6 inches, so it is almost to the opposite wall of the shop! the shop is 7 feet by about 25 feet, we added it to the garage so it is a wierd shape. not bad for a grand total of about 20 bucks. also it is at about 7 feet over head, so a person like me don't even need to duck under it. Ed Steinkirchner

well, I forgot to mention that these springs are about 60+ years old, though ive been successful water-quenching leaf spring that is more modern as well, though new springs are better oil quenched in my opinion. for the normalizing i take to critical, then barely non-magnetic, then just below non-magnetic, air cooling until i can hold it in between.then bring to critical and quench the blade while agitating. finally polish, temper, re-polish, temper again and let cool. well, the actual last step is to take a propane torch to the bade-to-socket transition to make sure that it won't break off in use. the inside of the socket is true enough that i can lathe-turn a handle to fit pretty close. I might take step by step pictures of the next one and show all of the steps in the making of one. but that won't be until semester break in 2 weeks. i will say that this is one of the best ive used and the best i can make right now, if you ignore the crooked seam on the socket. I hope to make a set in 1/4" intervals down to 3/4" and up to 2 inch then in 1/8" intervals to 1/4", for a grand total of about 10 chisels. a pretty good set, for me at least. Ed Steinkirchner

decided that i needed a real set of wood chisels and wanted a set that would hold up and not snap off at the transition between blade and handle when hit with a hammer/mallet. so here are the first of a growing set. they will be approxamately 1 foot long, and proportioned as 4" handle,4" socket, 4" blade. the handle is apple wood and the ferrule is just a piece of a bicycle tubing, while the blade is forged from leaf spring, triple normalized, quenched in water, and double tempered to a purple/brown. the handled one is 1.25" wide and the smaller one is 1". bothe sockets are about an inch in diameter. more to come Ed Steinkirchner

forgot my sig “Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools speak because they have to say something.” -Plato- "good is the enemy of great" one of the chefs(instructors) said that and it just kind of stuck

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. Jimi Hendrix

the way ive seen the most is sandwich construction. i could describe it but i'll just post a site Moderator note: url that was posted is no longer available. Source says link has been removed. We suggest posting information here when possible to prevent lost information like in this case

real nice, the sheath is nice as well. did you make the axe? is that belt loop historical? either way, consider it stolen. how did you make the slot for the tang? once again, very nice and we hope to see more soon!

these 2 are the most used and time tested of the blades I've made so far. the seax is 5 years old now and the khukri has been in use almost 2 years in march, if the embedded dates on my files are correct. the khukri is approx. 20 inches overall and the seax is about 9 inches. both have scabbards with carving, but the seax doesn't have a belt loop like the khukri. i have chopped a lot of brush (and "discovered" many steel marker bars)in the 2 summers I've had it and the seax has opened many cans in its day, both with little ill effect. the picture sizes are a little inconsistent, its a little annoying so sorry for that Ed Steinkirchner

one thing that i found (at touchstone) is a bar in the pritchel that hangs down and ends in a thinned scroll, this actually kills the ring pretty efectively. and you get all those stumped people at demos. I personally don't like the magnets because of all the stuff thek catch and eventually they magnetize the anvil. Just for clarification, here is a quick drawing of what i meant Ed Steinkirchner

The only pics that i have of the block on this computer are of the wooden mold and one of the finished one in the shop. is weighed 88 lbs rough cast(which is when i got it) and is closer to square than rectangular in CS. it isn't for heavy forging, especially the half rounds, since they're kind of thin between each other. I'm just going to make anvil swages for swaging actual dimensions. i use it a lot for sheet metal, curving gouges, and other such things. i use the rivet head divots and the bowls on the sides the most. the big 2 inch round is not esed much because i messed up and cut the end backwards. the shovel mold is very nice to have and i didn't realize it until i tried making one without one. i don't have a pic of the cone but it is 13 inches tall and 4 inches at the base, and probably weighs 25 lbs. strangely enough, the small dimension of the swage block is exactly the same as my anvil face(4 inches)and 6 inches the tall way. I'm not sure as to the overall length. kind of a long reply, but i hope it answered some questions. Ed Steinkirchner

for info on inlaying a blade, look on ben Potter's Site Ben Potter this is the only inlay tutorial i've found that is any good. i am pretty interested in inlay myself, so i found this tutorial and thought it was pretty helpful. one thing i havn't figured out is how to blacken steel without tarnishing the copper, brass, or nickle silver. Ed Steinkirchner

i really needed a lead ladle to consolidate all of my lead scrap, so i made this in a little over an hour so it is fairly rough, but i needed to cast some pewter and a soup can wasn't handy nor would it have been a permanent solution to the problem. the burns on the handle were from when i lent it to the school art class for pewter casting(not always recommended), and a few were my fault But anyway, the bowl it riveted in 2 places to the handle(rivets are coat hanger), and the wood is jambed on the tang. the shank had the end flattened for the rivets and the handle end pointed and barbed, and jambed in a hole in the handle, which is a piece of old 2X4. There is a staple on the other end of the handle for hanging it on the bench. now I need to make a bigger one! Edward Steinkirchner

i made this spatula in a trade to a friend of mine at the foundry. he had cast a BIG skillet and needed a long spatula for it and asked if i could make him one, it just so happened that i was planning on asking if he could cast me a swage block if i made the pattern for it. so for this spatula i not only got the swage block cast but also got a cone mandrelcast as well. even though, i really hated to let it go. oh well, i can make another one! maybe. anyway, the handle is forged from 1/2" square bar and it's about 2 feet long, (i say "about" because i didn't remember to measure it) and the blade is riveted on in three places with some 3/16" copper wire. the end of the blade is thinned to make getting under items easier, and on one side of the handle is my full name (that was fun to stamp). on the opposite is Joel T. (his name), that one is pretty easy. Ed Steinkirchner

i have to agree that looks like a hay-budden to me, definately not an arm and hammer IMO. that 204 stamped on it is the weight i believe, that would make it 228 lbs I think. very nice anvil and in pretty good shape, alot betterthan one I started on. good find!

it is almost finished and the tung oil is drying on it as i type this. but here are some pictures from the last post up to now. the layout, done with a triangular copper awl(because that's AWL I had laying around!) the wood about 90 percent carved the antler and wood both carved and almost finished i am not going to checker the parts that I had originally intended to, the knife doesn't need it, and i don't really feel like forging a chisel for that(even though i will at some point anyway). regardless, i am very happy with it so far and it will be finished soon (probably). Ed Steinkirchner

very nice as usual, i know there are times when a tool like that comes in handy. i have one i made for mine forwhen i couldnt find big enough bar to forge a normal hardy from. but it didnt look near this nice. i used it the most for times when i used the hardy hole for heading. i think its time to update mine some. i have to stop reading your posts of ill never get my to do list finished! Ed Steinkirchner

forged this back in early january, I had the thing started for a year or 2 now, because I just didnt want to do all that hammering! so finally i took the time to do it, luckily my dad was there to strike, made it go a lot easier. it is a piece of steel that started out 1.5 inches round. the anvil is a vulcan arm and hammer and by my best gustimate it weighs 250+ pounds. the hardy hole is ABOUT 1.25 inches square, a little bigger one way. that is my 2lb? cross peen next to it. Ed Steinkirchner

i've needed a shovel at the forge for quite a while now, so i made one. ive never seen one with a wooden handle before so i decided to make a socketed shovel. The handle is mullberry, because i had a branch from spring just leanin outside the shop. The 3 rivets are just some annealed, copper telegraph wire. I like how it turned out, and more importantly it works just fine at shoveling coal. i have pics of a fancy one i made at touchstone, that i'll post tomorrow maybe. Ed Steinkirchner

ive read that pitch was used to secure the heads, but also that wax would sometimes be used so that the arrowheads would release from the shaft when the enemy tried to pull it out. i would think resin or pitch was used. although if you want to use them nowadays, i'd use epoxy, super glue, or even gorilla glue. the place i would look is primitivearcher.com i would think it would be something easy to make and use, since arrows needed to be made in volumes and fairly cheaply. Ed Steinkirchner

ive used copper rivets on most of my utencils and have had no problems. they need to be at least 1/8 inch i think. i use some old telegraph wire i have(approx. 3/16 inch). if the part of the handle that mounts to the blade is broad enough, it works fine. i use three on everything(1 center, 1 each side). they never rust, and give really nice contrast to the steel. this shows what i mean, this is a large spatula, almost 2 feet long overall! hope it helps Ed Steinkiechner

i agree on riveting the pommel on, ive dine this on a fev blades and they didn't need any adhedives at all, but you gotta remember to countersink the hole in the pommel so it can be filed flush when done. the first successful knife i made was made like this and its going on 5 years old now with no issues. only thing else i can mention is that you should clean up the face of your anvil so it takes less work to clean things later. just my 2 cents on the matter. its a great start, keep it up and keep posting pictures. Ed Steinkirchner

you can also find a used or broken hand held power drill that chucks down small and rip out the chuck and shaft assembly out, and chuck that in the drill press, i saw where some one did that before. I had the same problem and I found a chuck that didn't have the post, just female threads on the chuck, and turned an adapter to screw into it and chuck in the drill press. i have another one that my dad wants me to adapt for the drill press in the garage. The small chucks are very nice to have, as you can use them in any drill that will hold the shank (3/8 inch on the one i made),the drill press, cordless drills, etc. Ed Steinkirchner