matt87

Careers exist... just not many. Where are you exactly? What aspect of blacksmithing?

You sure it had a horn? Is there a scar? It may perhaps have never had one...

A skill which is very useful:
1) Scroll to top of page
2) Click 'search' (third from the right)
3) Enter search criteria (e.g. blacksmith NJ)
4) Hit [return]
5) Find it

I find this very useful, you might do so too MatWeb - The Online Materials Information Resource

/me votes this becomes a sticky

Saw this today while trawling fleabay. Looks to me like a little post vice which someone hacked into a crude little table vice thing.

Find Miniture Blacksmiths Vice.(end time 11-Nov-07 22:04:07 GMT)

I was wondering if it would be possible/easy to turn this into something closer to what it was originally. I don't have arc welding capabilities but I would take it to a garage near me and have them do the work.

I did a bit of research on maille-making a couple years ago. See if your library has a copy of Ffoulkes' "The Armourer's Craft". Think it's from 1912, and is somewhat like the armourer's Bealer.

Teh conclusion I came to is this:

- Butted is fine for some situations. Still takes a long time though. Not authentic though; if you can seperate the rings with a pair of needlenose pliers then what chance will there be with a fulll sword swing, even a non-live edge?
- Welding already has been mentioned. You might be able to spot-weld rings, as already mentioned, but forge welding would be a) more authentic more difficult.
- Rivetting/bradding is the way that most maille was constructed 'back in the day.' Still lots of effort. Ffoulkes says that some rings were solid and speculates that they may have been stamped/punched from sheet iron, but IIRC most these days think they are forge welded wire.

Ffoulkes could not, apparently, see the point in solid rings mixed with welded/punched, since a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. However, I think that it was a matter of time saving; you can heat a wire ring to welding heat fairly quickly without the problems associated with heating lots of rings just to weld one, and it was a lot of fiddly work to rivet or brad a ring. With, say, Euro 4-to-1 pattern you would only have to rivet/brad 1 ring for every 5; you make up a bucket of welded rings and link 'em with brads!

Another big problem is finding plain mild steel or iron wire. Mind you, drawing wire down by hand would be good practise

As far as jigs, look up coiling mandrels on maill-making sites. Save you a lot of time!

No blacksmiths that I know of in my family, though my mum's mum's dad was a scrap metal dealer.

My dad is self employed and part of what he does involves building bespoke furniture. His dad was a tradional French Polisher (a cabinet maker who uses French polish, he weren't French! ). His dad before him was the same too. When my grandad died, most of his tools wre piled into the garden shed. Some were chucked. A few were given to my dad. Most are still in my nan's shed though I think; noone wanted to do much with them when he died because of the emotion involved. One day I'd love to work with some of his tools, some of which were his father's.

I believe pottery supply companies carry haematite and such.

Now now Ian don't lose your temper over it! After all, you are a man of mettle...

Update on Ironbridge WI:

I happened upon this (well actually my girlfriend did ) while searching for something else. Turns out it's pure iron rather than wrought. Pure Iron - The Core Element

Steel... mild, medium or high?

What type? Single-action? Great (double-action)? Chinese box?

There are a few articles on building great bellows on the net, but IIRC they are mainly 3 foot by 5 foot. Think there is a blueprint or two also. Sugest you use heavy canvas or similar rather than leather; that stuff gets expensive!

Cool! I'd love to come along, but it's a few thousand miles out of my way

I'm a second-year archaeology student at the moment. I want to take an MA in Exerimental archaeology once I'm done and do some work with living museums and such. I'm into a fairly broad period, from the early iron age to the upper mediaeval. One of the reasons I forge on charcoal! :D

Welcome, JAFO! Which period do you guys portray?

Depends if it turns out any good. Once I get my delivery of stock and start making more stuff, I'll be giving away a fair amount of my products to friends and the archaeology dept. at my uni.

That is probably the most beautiful knife I've ever seen!

I'd suggest black leather for a sheath.

Beer? Now that sounds like my kind of super quench!

Wouldn't highly carbonated drinks produce a nice colour case hardening finish? :D

I have a feeling that most modern factory made heads are tempered all over, so the poll would be hard too. Be careful!

Do you use the axe as a hot cut by any chance?

As I recall from some (minor) research I did last year, helve (power) hammers were developed to work blooms faster and easier, and larger blooms too. Ditto powered bellows. Working a bloom into a workable piece of stock is quite a long and difficult process, as you found out, which explains why they invented power tools several centuries ago to help with it! :D

To clarify a little, I live in the UK, not the US. Thanks for your advice Frosty, especially the safety aspect; I was aware of the possible dangers, but many people read this site. I was brainstorming, for want of a better word.

Perhaps a safer idea would be a thermopile. Build enough junctions and you might be able to run a forge blower, or maybe some lights or somesuch. Don't know how much power might be available, but the Russians made kerosene lamp powered valve radios post WW2.

A Stirling engine might be another possibility. Throttling would not be all that easy I think (or likely very fast response time), so using it to run a dynamo powering an electric forge blower (via a regulator perhaps).

On page 21 of Basic Blacksmithing (Davies and Heer) they suggest a thin mixture of earth and water as a suitable alternative to oil for quenching. Never tried this, but it would certianly not be flammable, environmentally friendly and free (apart from the water perhaps)...

I've been toying with this idea for a while: using the residual heat from my forge to make steam, to power a forge blower! Not something practical right now, since my forge has to be fairly portable or disposable right now (rented house). Also it would need a semi-complex throttle/injector system. If I were to use a flash boiler (say, buried just under the surface of the refractory) it would work almost as soon as I lit it. Throttling could be incorporated into the injector mechanism too with a flash boiler.

You could use a power hack/band saw. There are two power hacksaws on Vintage Projects (plan on making one eventually), if you don't have one. Bet it's useful for cutting stock!