Willis

I've got one of those old army forges and I absolutely love it. You can take it down or put it togeather in 10 minutes or less. It makes a great travelling forge if your asked to do demos. I hang my most used tongs in the four carrying handles when its in use.

It looks good to me. With the long end it could be used in the smokehouse or shop to hang heavy items.

The bottom anvil belonged to my great grandfather and has been tentavely IDed as an HB of 250lbs. There are no marking that I can make out but it does have a weldseam about half way up from the bottom of the foot. Which I understand was late HB? The top smaller anvil has been 90% IDed as an Alsop dating back to the 1700's. I IDed the anvil from the anvil gallery on Anvilfire.com. The stats they give for the Alsop 95lb anvil match mine exactly. However, there are no markings that I can make out so I will not claim 100% ID. I acquired it in a trade about three weeks ago from a fellow smith that was not intrested in the historical aspect of his find. Any and all information relating to these two anvils would be most appreciated and yes, I do use both of them.

The hardest thing to learn IMHO is knowing when to stop working on the project. Like chyancarrek says you have to learn when to let go, call it done and move on. If its a comishned job you can always ask the client if their satisified. Beleive me, they will tell you if their not happy with the result.

The spark test is probably the one you want to use to check out your saw blades. First get a piece of mild steeel and a piece of tool steel, run them across a grinding wheel paying particular attention to the spark formation of each type of steel. Then do the same with a scrap piece of one of your saw blades. Which ever saw blade makes sparks like the tool steel is the best for making knives.

Write your paper on the history of blacksmithing This is indeed a very addicting hobby.

I made one of my hot cuts from an old steel wood splitting wedge to fit the hardy hole and another one from a piece of discarded road grader blade to fit my vise. Drewed is right, just dont cut all the way thru to the hardy and you should be fine. Cut 3/4 of the way thru then bend back and forth until it breaks. No damage to the hardy that way.

I like your work. Neo tribal has always facinated me.

I use seasoned oak chunks a lot. If its a job that will take a little time I use an oak/coal combination. It stretches my coal supply and gives me a nice hot fire. If you have access to osage orange sometimes called mock orange or horse apple use that. It has one of the highest rated BTU outputs of any wood in the states.

I also pick up a lot of files at flea markets and junk shops. I look specificaly for Nicholson or Black Diamond. I believe Nicholson bought out Black Diamond in the 50' or 60's as I sometimes find both names on the same file. I have over 50+ files on hand including my swiss files. I use an old yard rake head for a tool rack. The kind with the long teeth. For file handles I use dried corn cobbs. The cobb provides a relatively soft but nonslip grip and is a great insulator for hot filing. I just hang my files in the spaces between the rake tines. This keeps them seperated and I can tell at a glance if a file is out of place or missing. If you want you can stabalize the cobb by soaking overnight in a 50/50 mix of acetone and polyurathane varnish then stabb them onto a finishing nail drive into an out of the way spot and let dry for 3-4 days. Once stabalized you can use the cobb just like wood. I've even made knife handles out of them and a fried actually turned a ball point pen out of one. I've done enough filing to realize that it can be an art form all on its own as evadenced by the many fine blades that I've seen by folks on here.

Actually my little brother has been on our county police force for 13 years and has been a captain the last 8 years or so and is a golfing buddy of the sheriff and since my wife and I live on 7 acres out in the woods on the back part of the county anyway we have no neighbor problems to speak of. Just plain blessed I reckon..

I'll get on the forging ASAP. Right now I'm doing a lot of steak turners for a friend. He's running for sherif and all the steak turners are donated and raffeled off to help with his campaign.

Hope this helps. This is the anvil I'm talking about. It belonged to my Great grandfather as described above.

Hope the anvil pict loaded. Acquired this from a cousin, no charge. Great grandpa used it to make grapple anchors for his shrimp boats out of St Marks Florida. Apperance is dead ringer for Hay-Budden but can find no markings. A good friend-Jeff Mohr- says its probably 250-275lb, turn of the century cast base. Weld line noticable 1/2" from top of face 33 inches total length x 13 inches high. Face is 5" wide, step is 2" wide horn is 10 1/2" face and heel make up the remaining length Hardy hole is1 1/4" sq pritchel hole is 3/4" Two apparent square tong holes are present in front and rear of base but are offset. Front hole is 1 1/4"x1"x1 1/2" deep. Bottom of base to top of hole is 5" Rear hole is 5/8"x5/8" sq x 1 1/2 " deep and top of hole is 2" from bottom of base. My great grand pa died in 1970 at the age of 93. Jeff says the anvil was well cared for and would make a good shop anvil as is. It now resides in my shop and is my go-to anvil.

Does anyone know when the ricasso first appeared on American knives or for that matter anywhere? The best I'm able to do with my books is somewhere around 1830-1840.

Dont forget a good 4 1/2 inch angle grinder. I have three of them one with a cut off blade, one with a grinding wheel and one with a cup wire brush. I use these, my drill press and my 72" belt sander more than any other power tools I have.I have three grinders just because I'm lazy and dont want to spend the time changing wheels or blades each time.:)

Nice set. They would make a nice set for anyones camping gear.

Nice looking skinner. I prefer making skinners over any other kind of blade and I really like the bloodwood.

I'm with cheftjcook and thomas powers here. I either spend an afternoon looking thru my books or talking to friends and family to see if they want anything special. Around where I live most folks usually want one of three things, a meat turner for the grill, an oyster knife or some type of railroad spike knife. Simple and easy and keeps me busy while I think up a long term project to learn on or complete.

I made my hot cut hardy from an old log splitting wedge. I also made another one to fit in my vise from a piece off the edge of a road grader blade. Both work just fine for my small needs.

Like the candle stick. As for the philosophy. Unless I'm mistaken the philosophy of our forefather smiths was to make everything look factory made. It was a mark of pride in work and excellence not to leave hammer marks, scale or anything else that even remotely smacked of 'hand forged'. The average person back then wanted to be considered wealthy enough to show that they could afford factory made or imported goods and not something made by a local guy who needed the work and was trying to feed a family. Nowadays the philosophy has changed and everyone wants something in their house that looks handmade. As in 'look at us, we can afford to hire a craftsman to make this especially for us', even though the craftsman probably had a dozen of the same items in his/her shop for sale. SO the question is, do we change our philosophy to fit the times, or do we stay true to the time honored traditional philosophy of our forefather smiths and spend as much time with file and sandpaper and removing every imperfection in our work we can find as we did forging the item in the first place? Bearing in mind that some of us are trying to make a living by black-smithing and must give the customer what they want. Its very hard to be philosophic when you are behind in your bills and your kids are hungry. Just another look at a very interesting subject.

Staged or not, it is typical of some folks I know. I'm a black powder shooter and ya'll wouldnt believe some of the things I've seen or heard tell about.

I use a 40oz cross peen for 90% of my work and a 24oz cross peen for finesse. I picked up both at a flea market and neither has a name that I can find. I have modified the handles a little to make them comfortable for my personal use.

Neat idea. I like the concept. It wouldn't take much to rig up a simple pedal system to or in place of the hand hold.There is a translate to English button on the site, of course a little is lost in the translation but overall its quite understandable.

I have heard it said that a lot of potentilly good blacksmiths were ruined when they made their first knife:) I do like your work though.