ThomasPowers

Used to pull stuff like nails out of a big bin in old fashioned hardware stores. I've been asked to forge them before.

HW; I'm just not willing to bet my house and shop that some yahoo won't sue. Did you read about the small winery that got sued for using lead foil to cover the top of the bottle. No one was harmed, they were included in the suit to shift it to where the Lawyers lived---the laywer's secretary filed the suit! They only hat to pay over $30K as part of the settlement... I also personally would not be able to represent them as being food safe. I certainly would not make such a suggestion on an open forum; just in case it later came back and bit me!

De really will have to watch out when spring comes and the beavers come out looking for wood!

Sure it should work and be a decent alloy for one too. Might make a great "art" hatchet or axe. I assume that you are good at forge welding? If you can get a slice custom cut you may want to have it so the base is a bit wider---easier to make a good eye from, then curve in to make the web section almost square---less hammering to get to twisting cross section. Lastly give a bit more on the top to have more steel to forge into the blade.

Having it dry pretty much slows down any effect till it becomes negligible. So what would be a destroyed dive knife often stored wet in 10 years probably wouldn't be noticeable out here in the desert in 80 years. I think having them better bonded together probably makes it worse too!

Well my 515# Fisher in mint condition came from an OH fleamarket about 10 years ago for 60 cents a pound... it wasn't actually there; but I talked with folks and got a lead on it and picked it up the same day.

I have folded a rasp over and welded it up into a nice light kindling hatchet, no added bit needed. I also do a bunch of snakes and draw out the tail long and skinny and punch a bunch of bottle caps and thread them on to make rattler's that sound pretty much like the real thing---you can tell who has experience by the folks in the crowd that suddenly turn and focus on the sound.

Great the "ad" selected to go with this topic is "Tungsten Forever" wedding rings! I wonder if anyone ever checks...

Great I know quite a few folks hurting themselves and others in their 20's, 30's and 40's (and had to sit in the ER with a couple if the older ones on a holiday!) Safety---it's not just for the young!

Irontwister---that's not a collection it's "a harem of anvils"...

Emerson what would get you started fastest would be to spend a Saturday afternoon with a smith who knows what he's doing. Not knowing your location I can't suggest someone to you. If you are near central NM I would be happy for you to stop by one of my open forge sessions. (or to put it bluntly: I suggest you go to your user cp and edit the location to put in your general area.)

DO NOT USE GUN BLUING! poisonous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RR track generally *is* the steel you would add to a mild steel axe for the bit. Be a bit backwards to weld a lower carbon bit into a higher carbon body...

Japanese swords are traditionally around a shallow hardening 1050 steel; trying their same heat treat with other alloys can be a cracking good time so to speak...

The problem is that those curved pieces generally don't flatten to flat. Due to stretching during construction they will end up wrinkled. If they are really trashed you might think of cutting sections out to flatten pretty flat and use as inlay on a piece.

Can you expand the center holes REAL LARGE---like air frame members or steam punk stuff? That can drop the weight a bunch. Can you rivet on the support pieces from Al? You can get a quite shiny surface by buffing with a sisal buff and black compound, the better the surface you start with the faster it goes. WARNING: Buffers are machines that stay up all night thinking up ways to *MAIM* their users so BE SAFE! (I believe that more knifemakers have ended up in the ER through buffers than any other tool in the shop!) WARNING II: Even as an untempered mild steel or Al display only piece it is not a toy and you can quite easily hurt yourself or others goofing around with it---even with a very dull edge. So take care; hurting your friends is counter productive, (hurting yourself is just stupid!)

I would *NOT* pay 1/2 of the current $250 on it and that even doesn't meet the reserve!

Guard crudely forged from rusty barbwire twist welded together? Crude bloomery steel pommel grip from well chewed rawhide dog toy Scabbard from old barn wood with biological hazard sign carved into it?

The Book of Biff Archive #168 – Sword

The things some people will do just to get their friends and neighbors to do their wood cutting... (I've been taking down a dead cottonwood by hand---bowsaw and every time I'm 25' up on the ladder and thinking about cutting a corner or two I think of the GWB and Frosty and try to figure a safe way to do it. 1 More main trunk to go!)

My 93# A&H has seen a lot more hours of hammering than my 515# Fisher; as it's my demo anvil and at a demo I get to hammer all day and my shop anvil just gets scraps of time between the "honey-do's". Nice to have an anvil with a thin heel for some jobs too!

If da Vinci is just too Johny-come-lately for you Theophilus discusses making them in his 1120 A.D. "Divers Arts as I recall, including hardening them by greasing them and wrapping them in goatskin and then covering it all with well kneaded clay and heating---a case hardening techinique!

Kickbacks---we do them differently down here!

Not generally a good alloy for knives; stick with ball bearings for knifemaking! However, armour makers in the SCA love them for stakes I recently shipped a large priority mail flat rate box of assorted ones to a fellow to make stakes from. (I built a wooden box that just fit inside the post office box and put a label on it as well as the cardboard box)

WD-40 is not much of an oil though it makes a good crud cutter for old oxidized oils. I would suggest replacing the WD-40 with a light oil before too long.