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I Forge Iron

Marek Mrva

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  • Website URL
    http://www.umeleckovac.sk

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Slovakia
  • Interests
    blacksmithing, sport, guitar, art, blacksmithing

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  1. Thanks Beth you are very kind. The panel is etched with HCL. It didn´t turned out as well as i planed it. Shoul try H2SO4 nex time. Thomas: I never tought of a skull while designing it. :)
  2. Hello there my fist big commission, a gate and a cash box for the front hall of a church, is installed so here are the pictures for all of you wonderful guys and gals of this forum. Recently there has been added a stained glass mosaic behind the upper part so i will post pictures with it once i take them. The small thing is where you donate money to the church or pay for papers that are there to take. The money falls through the wall and can be collected from the other side. After this great job i am once again with out work :) Enjoy
  3. Thank you kindly Ric and Naz for the links, you are very helpful.
  4. Hello there guys, My girlfriend just passed some tender or exams or whatever and is going on erasmus to Monteral from aprox february to june next year. When my dad heard about it, he offered me a free flying ticket, that he can have. He has been flying regularly on business trips and has like million customer points. So i was thinking myself why not to take advantage of such opportunity. I have no formal smithing education, and no mentor. 99 percent of what i know about blacksmiths trade is from internet, books and my own "learning the hard way". I really, really want to be professional blacksmith, I simply LOVE the work, the feel of holding a shining yellow metal, the heat, the smell of coal, and you know what i am talking about. So i started a business year ago, but i don´t have enough commissions, in fact i am doing quite bad right now. Which means that if i go off for a couple of months on a learning trip i will not hurt my business to much. The question is: Are you, or do you know any man/woman in Montreal who runs a shop that can use some extra help for a couple of months? My condition is simply that a good deal of forging be there to experience. I am only asking for enough money to cower my basic needs like food and place to sleep. That may still be quite some money, but if you can provide me with at least the most basic accommodation i am going to be a really cheep work force. I don´t plan to bring home money (no that i object ) and i have none to take there. My simplified CV: I am 26 years old. I have been studying financial mathematics for four years before i left the collage. This proves, i hope, at least two things: that i am not as dumb as a bucket, and i am a fool into blacksmithing. After i left a school i took a job in welding shop, because it was closest to smithing i could get. Been working there for some 5 years up to this day. But it is a small shop, just me and my boss, and lately we are having like a quarter of work we could use. Big advantage of the fact that there were only two of us was that i learned to do all kinds of things.Basically everything you need to know to produce welded constructions like gates or railings except welding and spray painting. Those two are the domain of my boss. I can weld with mig and electrode, but i would not call my self a pro. Having lots of no-work periods gave me time to start learning the forging for some two years now. I will let my work do the talk instead of me in this manner. Check the gallery on my web if you are interested. My English should prove to be little to no obstacle. I hope so, but i have never been to Canada, so i can´t be sure. I can read blackmithing books in English with no problem what so ever. Additional skills include: -drawing (i would call myself a beginer, but not a novice, in portrait drawing) -design (forged items being my specialty) :) -all kinds of computer software like sketchup. -I have been doing lot of video editing in the past (something that can be useefull to advertise on the internet) -mathematics :) -guitar playing :) :) :) -and i am physically in good shape. So if you know about somebody that might be eventually interested, please let them know. Also comment and suggest, even just to say that i am a fool and this is not possible for what ever reason. I know that there are obstacles like working visa, but i will look into them deeper after i have something solid to hold on. Sorry for the long post, but as a satisfaction i can say it took me much longer to write it that for you to read it. :)
  5. Ok guys, here are the results. I basically did exactly what you have told me. 1-polish the thing with files and sandpaper 2-boil for some 30 min in water with dishwashing detergent to degrease 3-let sit overnight in plastig bag tent with opened bottles of water, nitric acid and hidrochlorid acid 4-boil for 5 minutes 5-brush with soft brass wire brush 6-repeat steps 3,4 and 5 Customer is pleased with its look and i am pleased because i learned a new finish and pleased a customer. You have been most helpfull. Thank you all very much, especially to MattBower for instructions. Here are some pictures. I am still bad at capturing metal on photography.
  6. Thanks all of you. Rust bluing sounds like just what i need. I will definitely test the idea. Only problem might be the rust solution. I am not very keen on purchasing a 10 dollar item over the ocean and here in Slovakia surely it will be hard to find as well. But i am sure i will find some recipe on the internet to make something on my own if i cannot buy one.
  7. Hello I am making a rapier hilt and want it to have a black finish like this: http://www.sword-buyers-guide.com/rapier-sword.html My question is: can i make the finish similar to the picture, with relatively low color deviation by heating the whole hilt in a coke forge to black heat (note that the hilt is roughly 6 inch long made of 1/4 inch round stock of mild steel) and dipping into motor oil? Hilt is all one piece. Never done this type of finish before. And what about rust, should i use a wax finish atop of it? Thank you.
  8. Looks beautiful to me, i don´t mind the center being welded. Good job.
  9. 2Tim215 ofcourse i don´t mind, that is the reason we post our work here. Hope it will be useful to you.
  10. Here is a piece that i donated to the raffle at our church ball. I tough it would be a good advertising but nothing big has happend. I didn´t make the wooden part, it was a cooperation with my friend. Another good friend of mine has won it hope you like it
  11. Thank you very much, you are all encouraging. Bigfootnampa you are right about the arms. When i am making a human shape i split a bar into three sections for head and arms and always struggle with not enough material for arms to be big enough. Next time i have to try a different approach. God bless you all.
  12. I had some time so i made this piece. It is 60 cm (23,5 inch) tall. Trying to sell it now. Please post all the criticism that comes to your mind.
  13. Thank you all for you kind words, be sure to criticize that i am more aware of areas to improve. Beth: Saint George was a request from my friend who wanted to give a special gift to his friend George on his 50-th birthday.
  14. Hello everyone! I have been lurking this forum for quite a while and finally decided to share whit you my little forging experience. I am still a in my smithing beggining, being forging for about two years and not full time. I work as self employed help force in metalwork shop, that is how i got to working with metal, and meanwhile i have done few small blacsmithing jobs. I would love to be a full time blacsmith but currenty things are not looking very good for me due to very slow bussiness in metalworks right now. I have no blacksmithing education and learned most from books, internet and my own projects . I write here mainly in hope for some encouragement in struggle to build a prosperous blacksmithing bussiness. Anyway here are pictures of my work. Hope you enjoy it. Thank you. Marek Mrva
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