metalmangeler

Pretty low layer count. I think it looks really nice.

This is a farriers anvil. If it is not to costly it should work pretty well, though not as well as a blacksmith anvil unless you are going shoeing.

I am very impressed with the work you are posting. Keep it up and I may have to stop making a living and devote myself to learning more about pattern welding. :)

Hello again Theo; Here is one that delaminated. I think it was from working the steel to cold. This was one of my early knives so I did not have the knowledge of how to etch the steel for contrast. The delamination is not in the head as you were wondering about, but as you can see at the transition to the blade. I think the twist got it started. You should be able to forge the head without this problem if you do it hot. Also you do not need to have the blade exposed to high heat to work the head so that might help with the decarbonization issue. The less heats you use to forge the head the better as you get less scale, (it all has to be done hot so it stays together though) this will make the PW more visable, the problem is that you will not be grinding the head clean so the PW does not show up as it can on a nice clean blade.

I have been thinking about these last couple posts, and I am wondering a couple things. How fast is the carbon migrating to the lower carbon steel, or more to the point what is really being removed when we grind off the can? Would it be better to use high carbon to make the can and not remove? The other thing I am wondering is about using the pure nickel in the blade does this not leave some soft spots or are they so small that it is not noticed? Thank you Steve and Rich for taking your time to put this together for us. Mark

I am in the camp of, it helps with keeping or adding heat. I doubt tha you will ever see someone heat a peice of steel to red by hand hammering without doing the hit turn.

Hi Theo: I have made some rams head knives. They are kind of fun and I think quicker than regular handles. There seemed to be sales resistance at least that is how it seemed to me. I have improved my knife making so maybe they would work better for me now.

I need to save up some money, come see you, and buy one of these.

they look really nice.

Thank you Harold. :)

I thought that I posted that I ordered 25# from RJ LEAYY, but I don't see my post. Maybe I forgot to post after I typed it or something. Anyhow for those intersted good price, and they will ship in flat rate boxes. S Reynolds I do not know why someone did not feel the need to take a shot at me. These are small 3/16 x 1/2 rivets. I need a lot of them and it does not make econmical sence to make my own. I make my hinge pins and am pretty set up to make specialty rivets if that is what I need. I personally know of no one who would need say 1000 of these who is trying to make a living who would be hand making there own.

Thanks guys.

Thanks guys. I am not sure what I will do at this point. the blacksmith bolt is considerably more per rivet, when ordering per 1000. And I don't know how many are in a pound which is the Pieh tool mesure to sell by. I may go with Pieh I used to buy a lot of stuff from her father and that seemed to work out pretty well. Thanks again. Mark

Hi guys, in the past I have been able to get these rivets from JC rivets. now they will not ship to me other than by UPS which about doubles the cost to Alaska because they ship here only by air. Can someone give me a name of a good sorce that might ship via US Mail? Thank you.

Hi Lyle, sometimes the obvious escapes us all. There are customers who feel that this is not acceptable, you just have to let them go get some cheap junk for a box store. The screws they sell at Blacksmith Depot help as well. I still have not got into the jewelry stuff you 2 showed us when you were here, but I plan to as I will be doing a women's show this spring. Cheryl and Esther went part way up the butte Sunday but only to the bench. Really icy and they had not been doing much lately.

very nice

I heard a story once that I think was true, unfortunately I do not remember the source. Anyhow a school decided to do an experiment I think in the art department. they tooks a gruop of students and told them they would be graded only on the quality of their work. As you would expect they were extra careful, doing fairly good work, but not much of it at all. They took another group of students and told them that they would be graded on quanitity of work formost and quality would be secondary. They naturaly produced much more with their finishing peices much nicer than the ones produced by the quallity students. I try to work this way in much of what I do, getting something done is much better than only having a better idea that I never try or never finish because it is not perfect. I have a lot of tongs that some here would not want to let anyone see in their shop, it is only a tool I use to produe the products I sell. I understand the idea that your tools may reflect on the work you will do for your clients. (I just do not believe it is nessisarily true when we are talking about beautifull tools.) I do believe the tools need to work right to produce good results for my clients. One thing that I think could improve your tongs is to make sure the item you hold in them is in line with the center of the riengs. This is only a generallity as there are times when you do not want it so. Anyhow you made some tongs now just make 50 or so more and I bet they start to look pretty good.

I have spent most of my tool making on tools I did not have, or could not get. I might need to make a few like this. I really like it.

I agree it does look very nice. What is the handle made from?

Thanks guys. Ciladog posted a pretty cool video about a year ago on making sheep heads, I think he knows how they sell and such. Of course the location will dictate which variety sells best, and such.

Thanks for the compliments Frosty. I will be at the gun show instead of our meeting later this month trying to sell some of these things. Seems with the time you get into one of these the price gets bumped up there and practical people shy away. They are kind of addictive to make though. The last few days I have been working on orders for iron work so I have not had time for knives. I am hopeing to get some bills paid though. :)

I see 2 things that may be some what of a secret for some current smiths. One is special tooling. Timothy mentioned it, I have some things I don't bother to explain to people coming by the shop. The other possible secret is how long it takes to make some object, people don't mind paying you $5 per hour to work for them. If you find out how to do something so quickly they would never believe it then sometimes it is just as well if they don't know how long it took to make it. I do not lie I just don't say that it can be made in 2 minuets or whatever. You may remember that Grant commented on selling things based on percived value. He was telling his customers that he was selling tongs to them based on what they thought it would take them to make them themselves. He showed his methods toward the end of his life, but I still do not think that most really understood how effeicent he really was, they were still thinking I can pay Grant $30 bucks for a pair of tongs or I can spend an hour or 2 makeing them myself. They were not thinking Grant made these tongs in say 5 min.and I am paying $30 bucks for them. I do not know how quickly he made them, but I am sure it was much quicker than the average customer realized. I am not being critical of how he did this I think it was really the way it should have been handled. He was not cheating anyone,but if they saw him make say 50 pair of tongs in a day they may have felt that he was taking advantage of them. People forget the investment that is there and the years it took to get to that level and they only think ($ per hour) if they have that oppertunity rather than think ($ per product) I see things made on the other end of the spectrum as well, where someone says I took say 150 hours to make this therefore I need to get $$$$$ for it. Sometimes I am wondering how they could have been that slow. So the how long it took secret is usually a secret of the production smith.

Thanks guys. I expect that I will get some money I like these kind of jobs where if the customer does not want it someone will.

"some of the most useful" Sounds pretty open minded to me.

A customer wanted some sheep head cabinet pulls. Just need to wax them now.