John Martin

Are you gonna do anything for a handle on those quentin??? BTW, we tempered both of those at 370 for 40 minutes.

Yeah, quentin handle got burned in the fire while we were talking. lol, i gave it six months, he took one swing. lol.

Lol, thanks. I'll call you later, I have off this week, and we should do some forging, like maybe have you come over on friday??? I got A FULL weld on this one, just didn't mess with the edges.

Thanks donnie, any questions or things to do or not to do?

Well, I still need to wirebrush the head and then beeswax it. I've rough cut the handle and will sand and re-stain and re-burn tomorrow if I have time. It's a leaf spring, welded together. Somebody please lemme know how to post dimensions for a hatchet. Blade Length: 5" (Sharp part)Bit Height: 2" Blade Height: 1.5" Eye Length: 2" Width: 1.25" Handle: 13" From top of the hatchet to the bottom Hand made wedge. Head weight: 1lb 4oz Overall weight about 1lb 9oz. Light hatchet, but this thing is a worker. My brother put it through it's courses today. Lol. It's also a real nice throwing ax??? I can always get it to stick. Annealed Twiced. Then hardened 1.5" up from the start of the blade. Tempered at 470F for 30minutes and then 510 for 45minutes. This was a rush job, the whole thing, got up at 6am, got it down by noon. We were going to our land at 1, and I wanted to have it down by then. I think it's a good job for being rushed and for this being my first hatchet ever. The welding was pretty easy on this one, I've heard a lot of people having problems when welding it around apipe or drift or whatever, I didn't have much trouble. Yes, I didn't weld the edges real good, but it was a quickie. my brother used an exacto knife to put those things in the handle think there like lotr runes?? Be as harsh as you all want!!! Best regards, John

I still need to get cable. Lol, were are some places that I can look or call for GOOD cable that doesn't have a synthetic or rope core??

Grat job John keep it up. HT details??

Black Maple Forge, do a search for threads started by me, and for the thread title do "Charcoal Making Report"

Nice knife man ,really like it, way better than my first attempt. :)

Sweet, how much grinding/sanding did you end up doing?

What's micarta???

Check your PM box.

That's what I'm planning on, wrapped in cord. Just parts of it.

This one isn't great, but it's my first one, they are a lot better now. Lol.

What everyone's been waiting for, the pictures. I had to re-size them as they were 1600x1200px. And 1.9mb a pop.

It's a 12" bowie. I re-did it at about 370F today for an hour. It's not going to break if you're worried about that Matt. It's been through a lot of stress in the first two days of it's creation. It's a primitive bowie that was made for abuse. That's why the whole thing is so darn thick. I made two more yesterday as well. '

Same here mike. I think it's easier. But permanent. :)

Sorry keykeeper, I don't remember, it was a long time ago that I was on there. But the tongs had one jaw that was flat and when against the back of the RR spike's head, and then the other jaw was split and it held the sqaure stock of the rr spike.

Go to FredlyFX I made mine based off of his. It hold the spike by the head very securely. Works great.

Well, my blacksmithing friend came over yesterday, we get out to the shop, and pretty much just start messing around with metal. Seeing how far we make a piece of 3/4" piece sq stock, 12" long go. And he's like I'm gonna make a machette. So he starts on that, burns it up while talking to me. Hehe:) So he starts on another one. Well, me wanting to make my first knife ever, take a piece of leaf spring and stick it in the fire. Take my hot cut and cut a 45 degree angle from the beginning of the stock. I then procede to forge the bevels in. Then forge my hilt or handle. Fix up a few things here and there, cut it off from the parent stock. Now I fine tune my forging even more, anneal it, and stick it my coal container to cool down. That took place from about 7-8 pm to about 1 in the morning last night. Today, we get out there today at about 8am. He starts on his bowie, a smaller one. I polish my bevels with sand paper, and started the edge for the bowie with a file. Heated it to about 1450F. Guessing, I have an approx color chart. It was non-magnetic how's that??? Quench in motor oil. Polish the bevels again, and finish my edge to about 2/3 of the way, not sharp yet. Temper in an oven at 300F for 30minutes. Polished the bevels for the last time, sharpened it and beeswaxed the part of the blade that isn't the bevel,edge,shiny part, and the handle. Let it cool down completely. Do a few tests with it. Was able to "chop" logs for our fireplace. Cut straight through a water-bottle. Ended up putting a rope handle on it. Took it out to our land today, while we worked on a bridge over a creek, my dad, me, and quentin. We put our bowies through a lot of abuse, mine is still sharp, very sharp. lol. He cut himself pretty bad while de-barking a piece of wood, while we were waiting for my dad to come by with more concrete so that we could finish setting some posts. Took me about 9 hours from start to finish for my bowie. Will get pictures tomorrow. 7" Blade 5" Handle Overall: 12" long Blade's widest point, about 2" I'm gonna say it weighs about a pound. Bevels start at the middle of the blade go from 1/4" down to edge. Rest of it is 1/4" thick. It's a worker.

Nice knife Alan. Really like it.

Keep it up Larry!! Good job, I love hose scroll tongs.

Is that your's John? If so, when'd you get that monster?

Nice setup larry, you could just take four things of flats and weld it to the sides of that rectangle. It'd make it more stable and save you $$$

Lol. Thanks Peyton. Thanks Glenn for re-wording my title. Lol :)