Kendall P

I am tempering any blade at the moment to further my understanding of how to correctly temper and what works best for the steel im working with.

Thankyou for your advice sir, It's certainly not that im trying to impatiently swat away solid advice, after the first broke i took a day to do more research, but thought it might help to pop a quick question down in the ifi forums, mostly because ill get back some interesting answers that build toward my understanding. I respect and admire many of the regs who take the time to help others when they ask questions and understand completely when they feel that a quick answer wont help. "Learn by doing" as they say, sometimes its just nice to be told roughly what i need to be doing :P The letter opener turned out really nice, tempered up a treat and the handle was my first pinned handle. ill post a quick pic to follow. Have an awsome day!

THANKYOU SOOOOOO MUCH - somtimes its so difficult to get a quick answer here without being told to go re-read the entire forums or playing the 20 question game. Apologies to everyone who got very angry by my blunt question, just looking for some quick info to point me in the right direction.

Recentally ive been making very fine small letter openers out of some old files ive had, the steel is good high carbon tool, and im able to de-magnatise and quench in oil, but tempering is proving a bugger (ive tempered over a fire useing the colour changes to guide me and lost some nice blades in the process when they have snapped in the stress tests), ive heard that useing an oven can make for a very accurate stress free temper, what time and temp would i need to bake these quenched blades to get a nice temper? I dont need super exact science or the ask a question to my question, its small couple mill thick 1/4 inch wide tool steel thats oil quenched looking for a nice even temper in the oven, can anyone throw me up some nice temps and times so that the knives come out nice and cooked? thank you for your patience and time! Paul K

Why not just cut to the basics of the question. If you are makeing a living doing it, you are a professional. If you arent makeing a living doing it your either semi retired / retired / hobbyist / amature. Being a blacksmith in my mind ment you where a tradesman that used their skills in blacksmithing to make money. I understand why people want to call themselves a blacksmith if it`s something they enjoy doing or know allot about, but if you are getting down to brass tac s about it - A blacksmith was a tradesman with a unique set of skills that was employed to utilise them.

Im not sure what files ive got - but if i spot a lennox - ill give it a quick whirl and see if i run into the same problems and let you know!

Thankyou very much! - the first one - was my first attempt at makeing a true high carbon steel - tempered knife - I made a tonne of mistakes - the seccond two where a bit more evolved from learning from the previous one`s mistakes - I still see allot of ways in which i can improove - both with design and the technical process of heat treating. Im glad you like the profiles - Im quite taken with makeing a few more of the 2nd one`s profile if i get any commercial interest in it.

YES! - who are you on dev art??

Thankyou sir, for the advice and kind words!

Just found a nice red deer antler and with 2 old files i made these - Im still learning (2nd month) and i know they arent great - but id like to share for some feed back. and pointers please!

I don't think it is a bad thing to have critique about knife makeing in the knife makeing forum. This is not endorsing people to be rude or unnessarilly negative, knife makeing is a long process and something which the craftsman puts allot of himself/herself into - It's understandable if they are a little highly strung about their work`s reception - However i think it is good that high standards and quality finishes are expected and encouraged by more experianced craftsmen. If this is done politely, it teachs the beginner to strive to improve their skill to reach these high standards. Just my 2 cents.

I can understand people collecting them for exhibits - or finding rare ones - but i dont understand the obsession with buying as many as possible meerly to leave them in your backyard -open to the elements. My anvil was relatively cheap - but it is to me by far the most precious tool in my shop - when im not useing it, I keep a little wax'd blanket over it`s face and put it to bed. Ive considered annointing it with sacred oils and praying to the machine gods, but only once or twice. Maybe i should start a charity for abused anvils? - a bunch of us could take a van round places like this and "rescue" them - we could then re-home them to nice vetted smithys seeking to adopt a beautifull anvil.

Oh wow - "Brute de Forge" - I love it , never encountered that name - If i had the brains / time id love to do a book on these little knifes - seems like everyone has a story to them.

Lol - apparently all knifes look better with cheese :P

beautifull knife sir, very talented.

Im still very very green at knife makeing - this is my first attempt at a blacksmiths knife - also i beleve known as a viking woman`s knife? - Thought i would share it with you fine folks

That is a beautifull knife - and really nice "first try"

Laughed allot. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm yes - LIQUID GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD

Yeah - the other bench has 4 double outlets - the bench that side is for more low tech activites.

Ha ha thankyou Ted, very kind of you to say, - I seem to have got the tool junkie bug already, although people arent makeing it easier for me to walk the straight path when they visit the shop in the last few weeks alone ive had free tools given... and i couldnt possibly turn down free tools...

Just a few doodles on some napkins im afraid - i mostly stood on site with a tape measure and set out the dimensions with stakes. - the shape is a bit unusual as it's angled to fit the peice of land we had spare.

Im sure after 6 months of forgeing it will look allot messier.

Like a schematic>? -or didnt you see the bottom picture of the inside layout?

Apparrently you dont need it for a "small" job like this.

So after moving home to a place with a dreaded lack of sheds - I've had to hang up my hammers and put away my anvil in storage untill i could figure out a way of getting them back out for use. I decided to build a dedicated workshop for myself useing some of my unused backyard and attempting to labour on as much of the build to reduce the cost. Its not a huge set up - but it works well for me at roughly 180 square feet. During the build i decided to do a photo journal of the set up and i thought that would be nice to share with you folks. - Unfortunatly i forgot to take a photo of the space before i leveled it off - suffice to say a few tonnes of earth and vegitation where removed before the ground was leveled and the foundations dug. Anyway here goes. 1) Clearing - no pics - took about 4 weeks - removed some patio - 1 tonne of gravel - couple tonnes of earth - 2 trees - leveled of by hand with a lump hammer and a set level. doesnt look like much - but that ^ was 7 tonnes of concrete we mixed and poured on site. couldnt get a lorry in so it took all day between 2 of us. thankyou for your time.