Joseph Tinsley

Thanks, i want to make more of these and try to sell them at the local craft fair along with some other items. I need to practice a little more to get them looking a little better.

love the blade shape, it just seems right

forged this for a teacher who took an interest in my work.

somone is a very sick,sick individual.

not really, its off of a push mower. so its pretty thin width wise. the length is about about from the tip of my fingers to my elbow.

my first arrow head i made a few weeks ago. i cant find my others pics, must of deleted them 4.bmp

found a old lawnmower blade and decided to make a saex. it is still a work in progress. this is the initial forging. i have to date annealed it and draw filed the edge. just a few tweeks left to do then i will try to tackle hardening/tempering. hopfully i dont mess this one up i love the way it chops and the way it balences, in general i love this blade......which most likely means im gonna mess it up . i need to post a newer picture if i could find my camera.

do you do classes or demonstrations?

well it took several days. this was before i had a blower, i saw a drawing of african smiths in a old geography book that used reeds and blew threw them to provide air which gave me the idea of using my lungs. of course in the picture there were four guys doing this. needless to say it took me a while. but once i got it thin enugh i just let it sit in the campfire until it got hot enugh to work. it actually isnt a bad blade for rebar-material. it chops pretty nicely. the temper (which i did later when i got an actual forge)didnt turn out bad for the junk steel it is. actually that whole batch of re-bar hardens ok. must have got lucky.

this is from a while back. its the first one i ever forged using my very (at the time) primative setup of a rock for an anvil, a claw hammer, a casmpfire and my lungs as my forge and air supply. w.bmp

Thanks Rich. i have been doing blacksmithing (in a actual forge, not just a campfire and a air gun like i was doing. of course even the one i have now is very primative) for about a year off and on. nothing official or serious. the last few months though i have dabbled in blademaking and i fell in love with it. i try to get in as much time as i can between full time college and full time work. so the stuff i am posting has been stuff i did over a few months. however, i have made alot of blades that i never finished or are WIPs, or i have gave them away and diddent get pictures it makes me very proud to have somone express such an intrest in my work. especially with all of the great smiths out there. thank you, you made my day. lol that sounded cheesy -joe

not too happy with the way the handle turned out but the person i traded to loved it so i guess its all good. got some sheet metal for armour. feel fre to comment.

thanks. the handle is a scrap pice of harwood flooring i had laying around. to drift it i used a old punch and the horn on my anvil.

i belive this would be catorgarized as a dirk. questions, commments, and critcism welcome

my first attempt at splitting and drifting, so i figured i would go all they way and make a spike hawk. questions, comments, and critiscism welcome. 1.bmp 2.bmp

sweet, thanks for the info. ill see if i cant make it there. i looked where yall are...yall are all the way up above Baltimore....i live at the very southern tip of the state, lol. eh, i will still try

i knife i made for when i go for walkis in my woods. made a crude sheath for this. the steel is from a 70-something VW Bug sway bar.

i was thinking of trying a sheath that would allow me to keep it sideways on the small of my back maybe. but i am not experianced with leather work so i will probably never get around to it.

Thanks everybody, i am in St. Marys county, Maryland. i would love to hear from other blade or blacksmiths in my area. As for the desighn, the ones i have seen were in military gear catalogs so i belive it is for self defense.

thanks, i actually burned that into the handle, i dont know how to carve that well so i just heated up a piece of rod and burned it in.

a little push knife i whipped up real quick

made this for a friend of mines birthday. gave it to him yesterday and he loved it. Blade is 8 inches