Matt Bower

I second the suggestion to sell the copper scrap and buy Si bronze with the proceeds.

Yeah,half inch is pointless unless you want the thing to double as a ballistic shield
The diameter you have in mind will also make for a big forge by most hobbyists' standards, even with all the insulation. That's fine if you need it, but it wastes gas if you don't.

BTW - it probably wouldn't work that great for 1095. But I've had two auto coil springs tested and neither was 1095. Both were very close to 5160.

Grant is right. That will probably work pretty well.

Is it just me, or is that a tiny little leg vise in the first set of pics?!

Little bits of shell won't hurt anything. Whole shells might pop if they're full of trapped air.

"How did a blacksmith amass 3.5 million dollars? "

A few smiths, particularly ones who run high end architectural shops, make very good livings. But Nebraska isn't the place to get rich doing that. In this gentleman's case the explanation is more likely that he lived frugally, lived a long time, probably worked a long time, and invested wisely. He also had few expenses (wife/kids). All that, combined with the miracle of compound interest, can go a very long way.

If you've got access to sawyers' anvils, what about sawyers' hammers?

I think you mean one cubic foot to burn forty to sixty thousand BTUs, Warren?

That sounds a little fishy to me. What's the book? Does it explain the basis of that conclusion?

That's right, the "turbolator" is stationary and causes the incoming air to swirl.

Can't tell you whether those are available in the UK, but I would bet they are.

Well that's a much nicer compressor than I'm using, but it sounds like mine could still do the job. Maybe I will put my name on the list.

Well hi there, welder19. Fancy seein' you here. I'm matt22191 on BYMC.

You know, I never really paid a lot of attention to that burner thread. You're basically pumping air through the SS tube and siphoning oil with the copper tube, right? So it's basically a Daggoth burner, except that the pre-fabbed fitting makes it a bit less complicated to make, right? How big is your compressor? Mine can only produce about 5 SCFM. Would it be able to keep up?

Yes, I do try to round those transitions -- but I'm still chicken.

I'm sorry; I'm really not trying to start a semantic argument. There's just this ubiquitous fascination among bladesmiths with soft steel -- soft backs, soft tangs, soft everything -- and it bothers me, because it's based on frankly confused ideas about the advantages of soft vs. hard steel. I know that a lot of great makers have gotten away with dead soft tangs for a long time, so I'm not about to claim that it won't work. But all it really proves is that dead soft is usually good enough, not that it's ideal. A dead soft tang will bend under a load that would cause a hardened and tempered tang to flex elastically and snap right back. Since it seems that most tangs are rarely stressed enough to bend, this usually isn't a problem. But I'm not at all persuaded that a tang that bends easily is ideal.

That said, I do tend to shy away from hardening tangs -- but not for reasons of toughness or strengh. I'm just a big chicken. I worry about stress risers in the ricasso/tang transition. I should probably get over that.

You're confusing toughness with strength. The low-carbon filler materials used in most electrodes are tough, but that only means they can bend a long way before they break. High carbon steel is much stronger; it will handle a much greater load before it breaks, or before it bends permanently. Just compare the tensile strength numbers: typical stick/MIG electrodes have tensile strengths of 60,000 psi, or 70,000 for the 70xx series electrodes. Even your medium carbon spring steels have tensile strengths well over 100,000 psi.

See Kevin Cashen's post #59 here, and the subsequent discussion: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=440355&highlight=curve+discussion&page=3

What do you want it to do? Rigidize the ceramic wool, or reflect radiant heat? (Lots of stuff can do the former. The latter is harder. ITC-100 does both.)

I started with charcoal and it works well. (You do know that it's the original blacksmith's fuel, don't you?) I switched to propane because my living circumstances weren't conducive to making my own charcoal, and it gets expensive to buy. I also got tired of wasting time hunting for wood and processing it into charcoal, when I'd rather have spent that time forging.

But yeah, if you don't mind the smoke it's possible to forge in a wood fire and let it convert to charcoal on the fly.

Ah, here it is: Steam hammer, Westinghouse works Might not be 50 tons, but it's somewhere between 20 and 50. Huge, in any event.

There's another one shot at the same time, in which a dozen or so guys maneuver (using a crane) and forge a truly HUGE chunk of steel under what must be at least a 50 ton hammer. Absolutely no safety gear in evidence, and I can only imagine the radiant heat coming off that steel. It's very impressive, but also very scary.

I thought about that, too. I might still go ahead and buy one if making it proves too difficult. But generally speaking, making tools is fun. (Except tongs. I don't really enjoy making tongs.)

That occurred to me, but for the time being I'd rather buy my handles. I only have so much time and storage space, and right now I prefer to devote most of it to metal. I bought a hickory hawk handle for $4 today, which, considering the opportunity cost of my labor, is cheaper than I could make one. (Of course the same math might also dictate that I should buy my hawk heads but we have to draw the line somewhere, don't we?)

Well, I suppose that would be the easy way. ;)

Howdy folks. First post here, but some of y'all know me from PaleoPlanet, Don Fogg's, Primal Fires, The Outpost, etc.

I recently wrapped and welded my first tomahawk blank out of wrought iron and 1095. (I know 1095 may be a little high in carbon for this purpose, but it was handy. I'll be sure to temper it well.) I did this on the fly and everything was improvised, including my mandrel. As a result, the eye is a little off in both shape and size. I figure I'll correct those problems with a drift -- which brings me to my question.

I've started forging the drift out of a 1"x1" square demolition hammer bit made of S-5. The problem is that I'm not sure where to stop; I don't know what dimensions I should be shooting for at the widest part of the drift. I'd like to make this drift work for commonly available hawk handles. Can anyone help me out? I realize it may be kind of a difficult question to answer because we're not talking about a regular shape that's easy to measure, but I'd appreciate any input.