Nolano

I have a 130lb hay budden, it's a good anvil, but the face is a little soft. Could just be mine, but be careful not to ding it.

I recommend reading some of the links MattBower added, especially the sword forum link. That should give you a decent grounding in what alloy contents do to steel.

Machinery's Handbook and many other books list common scraps and what they are often made of, but it gives them in SAE numbers and tool steel designations, and they wont mean anything to you unless you have a basic understanding of alloy properties.

I just bought a Grizzly. It has a few downsides, but I dont regret it at all. It is by far the best tool you will get for the price, it is very solid and very powerful. If you can afford to spend more on one, though, by all means go for it. I've heard good things about the KMG and the Bades.

what did you do to rebuild your forge to make it work welding?

Gave it a firepot. It was flat bottomed before, it works about a hundred times better now.

My dad's response to me showing him this(he's a plumber, as mentioned):

"You want to make this too? All I have to do is make a call and I can get you as much as you could ever want."

My local steel supplier sells a fair amount of 1045 and 4140 polished shafts. They also have an entire bin full of drops(Generally a foot or less) that nobody but me buys so they give it to me at $.75 a pound. I've gotten $30 lengths of 4140 for about $7. There's also some re sulphurized 1144 in that bin though so caution is required as it's very difficult to distinguish 1144 from 4140 with just a file. If you have access to any kind of machining equipment though, it's night and day as 1144 machines MUCH better than 4140.
So try a place that sells shafting. I'm making several hammers of 4140, its a great, strong, deep hardening material, although it's not the easiest thing to forge.

Also, check any form of automotive scrap yard. I've gotten some LARGE diameter torsion springs from them that I've made hammers of. 1" 3/8 diameter with a flared hex head on the end. It's so strong that I left it normalized and the face is still undented from forging work.

My dad is a plumber, I need to tell him about this.

-snip-
I am not getting any younger ya know and there simply isn't anyone interested in learning "the old school ways" of things in my area that will stick with it. The first burn or grinder bump and they are history and that also is a low down shame. These things happen..when you dance with the Devil you are going to get burned every now and then..all part of the art. So you suck it up and continue to march.
-snip-

This may be one of the only times I've really, really wished I lived in Nevada. =P

Get a good book. The Complete Bladesmith has a good guide for beginning in that, and The Pattern Welded blade has an even more complete guide. Using those as a guide(And after finally rebuilding my forge) I finally successfully welded a billet this last weekend.

It's a stock removal blade, I simply left it at the hardness the blade was at, which is rated at 63-65. I was concerned as well, but I did a few tests with the material and despite the high hardness it is rather tough, possibly due to it's very high chrome and vanadium content. I wouldn't use it for a longer blade, but this one has a roughly 3.5" blade and so won't see too much stress. But you may be right, we'll see. If I made another knife from these I may draw back the temper a bit, this stuff was a bear just to sand and grind to shape.

Beautiful work man.....are the leaves held on by making two leaves on a common stem and then wrapped around the stem of the rose?

Yeah, thats how I did this one. It's a little loose, I'm thinking of holding them on with a dab of solder.

they are very pretty nolano - i have never worked in brass, but i have in copper and i really like it. how is brass to work? something else you can try is hammering the edges more of each petal so they get very thin and slightly grooved, it also makes the edges easier to shape subtley. thanks for posting the pics - i bet your friend loved hers!

She did, but it was my first brass project and she lusts after my newer and admittedly slightly better ones.
Brass isn't really much different than copper. I think you need to anneal it more because it can be a little crack happy if you're not careful. The other thing is unfortunately most brass rod stock is free machining brass, which is awful for cold working. Cartridge brass is your best bet, although some others have good forming capabilities, but it's a little hard to say because I haven't found really solid info on that. That first one was a piece of 3/16 brazing rod.

I've started working with brass and copper to make flowers. I learned to make them out of iron first and these were my first brass and copper projects.


A brass hairstick I made for my friend on her birthday (My first item made of brass)



And another one from copper I made to see how adding leaves would work out.

I first got into blacksmithing and bladesmithing when I was 14 or 15. I obsessed with it quite a bit for a few years but never really got very far. I kind of took a break for several years. I'm 20 now and working at it again.

We had a wet saw blade break at work recently. I took the blade home with me and made a knife from it.


Kind of a bad picture, but oh well. Cocobolo handle, brass rivets and guards, high speed steel blade, hardened to 65 rockwell.

I also have a question though. I'm getting a belt grinder next week, and there are way too many kinds of belts. Can anyone steer me in the right direction?

Hear that? its the sound of my jaw hitting the floor.

My metal supplier says that for anything on the coast, they use 303, because it wouldn't rust even if you left it in hot saltwater for a year(maybe not literally, but its pretty darn stainless). Other than its stainless-ness, it doesnt have much to recommend it.

I would agree with Glenn on this one. For things I make for other people, I never settle for slapdash or other corner cutting that I would on my own projects.

I have some torsion bar stock that would make excellent 3/4 or 7/8 tools, but its just a little too small for the 1" hardy in my anvil. I think I'll try to find a piece of square tubing to adapt it. Its extremely hard, tough stuff. Its pretty hard even normalized.

Very nice. What is the grip made of?

5 foot lengths, as my only transport for bringing it home is a small Honda or Toyota, and 10ft lengths just dont work. I calculated it, and if I'm careful, I an get perfect lengths for everything I like to make out of 5 foot pieces.

I'm gonna repeat what a lot of the others said, and say you've improved a lot since I last looked at your work. Keep it up.

Yeah, that link doesnt work. This one does, though:
http://www.feine-klingen.de/PDFs/verhoeven.pdf
It will probably open in a PDF viewer, where you have to click "save a copy" or something similar.

Wirebrushing usually works pretty well for me. If you can, find one of those big bristle butchers wire brushes, those really take the scale off. Also, when hot wirebrushing, try dipping the wires in water. It works better for me.

Heating to fast is an excellent way to mess up a weld, I've found. I keep the air blast low to keep the scale down. Good work, I probably couldn't have done what you described.

Forge welding is made out to be harder than it is. Just like any other blacksmithing operation, you need lots of practice to get it down well. I'm alright at welding, but bad at a drop the tongs weld, which is what you are describing. Practice, and have a way to fix things if they go wrong.

Definitely sounds like flux. Alternatively, you might not be getting the steel hot enough. If you melt the brass before the steel is hot enough, it wont flow.