BigCotton89

That looks great. I especially like the guard. Now that I've found a practically endless supply of rr spikes that are free and safe to get I'm always looking for creative ideas for them.

Nice. I like the burlap handles.

Nice. I agree with Steve though. It would look much better forge welded. But believe me, I feel your pain on not getting hot enough. The methane forges we use get so close that it's kills a little piece of you when it just won't get there.

good to know. Thanks Rich

Honestly I was just messin around in the shop to see what I could come up with and this is what came out of it. It's 1084 with a hububalli handle on it. I know it has some scale on the sides there but I like the look and even the wire brush on the angle grinder couldn't take it off so it might hold a while. either way I left the scale on some of my first items out of the forge and when it finally fell off I just re oiled it and had another interesting finishes. This one is just for me anyway so whats it matter.

Howdy folks. I'm from down in Laurinburg NC. Just starting out as well so I can't give much in the way of advice but I'm always happy to lend a helping hand. And for anyone in the far west of the state, I'm a full time student at Western Carolina University so if anyone out that way needs a hand I am happy to help.

I'm no expert like some of the folks on here but I just drew out the last maybe 10th of my tang to a roughly round end that was a bit longer than I needed and threaded the tang it's self. worked excellently for me. I drilled an tapped my pommel filled it with a dab of JB weld and screwed it on tight lined it up with the blade and let it sit for a few days. The knife hasn't been done for that long but I chop through some thick wood with it and really abuse it to test it's durability. It's held up very well so far.

great work man. I especially like the larger rams head knife and the claw on the bottom of the 1080 knife.

Not real happy with the final results but it'll do. I think I'll try and remake this one and implement the things I've learned not to do and be a bit more careful with the belt sander on that leather and red cedar handle. It's only sanded to 400 grit and finished with a few coats of boiled linseed oil. it's comfortable to hold and it keeps an edge fairly well and chops like a champ but it sure aint too pretty. Maybe I'll be able to make it better next time.

What I think I might do is make a spring swage type deal that just sits closed and does the top and bottom at once so basically if I decided to make it for 1/2" round stock it would be a roughly smaller than 1/2" opening so that the stock holds it open a little bit then I can hammer it till it's closed and that should do it. I might make a "multi-swage" to make the ends of my tang uniform for threading and get my rebar swage and maybe one more if I can come up with one.... Sorry to hijack your thread like this, I just felt inspired.

Just felt I should share this. It throws real nice http://i.imgur.com/EFLrA78.jpg

I like the swages idea. the only reason I was thinking rolling mill was so I could do a lot at the time but I guess for the price difference it would be smarter to make a set of spring swages or something of the sort.

good to know Wayne. My only issue is distance. I'm a broke college student with no money for gas so maybe one day I'll make it out there but for now I'm stuck within 30 miles of Cullowhee.

Mark you're on up there aren't ya

Howdy y'all. I've been a member here on I forge iron for just short of one year now and have some how never made it to this section. Well I am currently a student at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee North Carolina and I am renting a space in a blacksmiths shop up here so I don't really get a lot done or very fast, so if you follow any of my post please bare with me on that. I am from Laurinburg NC out in the middle of nowhere and have a little brake rotor coal forge home setup that I have not had the chance to perfect as of yet and I am working on a waste oil forge at the moment. Any way... That's me and I'd love to meet some other smiths from the area so If y'all see this and find that you are in my general area, send me a message. Later folks!

I finally got some work done on forge. budget and tool issues have had me inactive on it for a while. I changed the design slightly but I think It'll still work. At this point I am close to finishing and will hopefully be able to post some more pics and a video of it running but only time will tell. wish me luck guys.

I'm not sure what medium we were using I think it was a fine silicon carbide. but it gave it a realistic stone look and feel

glad to here it worked out well for you man. I just have to get a good compression method for the leather and glue up and shape. I'll probably do that tomorrow.

I finally finished my spear aside from a few finishing touches. Got it set in a hardwood handle with a rope wrap at the top and at the balance point for a grip. I also sandblasted the spear head and got a very realistic stone look and texture so all in all I'm pretty happy with it. I decided to spice it up a bit by putting an Ozark mountain turkey feather in the top wrap purely for aesthetics and I'm pretty happy with it. I do realize now that the spear head it's self is a little small but it still looks good and I was just making it to make it so I wasn't going to make it bigger and redo all of that hand filing. It is what it is.

This knife has bout got my mind ruined. I like it so much that I want to make them but the rebar just isn't suitable. I like this design so much that I am contemplating trying to build a rolling mill to reshape round stock to look like rebar so I can make some of these knives. Great work.

Ok so I got the leather roughed up today and I just want to say this. Mainly because it'll assure that it is tagged nicely for anyone that will search for Stacked leather handles.... Ok, so I needed to rough up the smooth side of the leather to help the glue bond for my stacked leather handle and I was thinking of a rasp but I went to the construction management department methods and materials lab and they gave me this bad boy. http://www.mcfeelys.com/images/items/DW-DW3311-lrg.jpg and let me tell you it ripped through like it won't nothin. And it's ergonomically shaped to fit your finger whether by intention or not. It's great.

Well I know you can get curly maple in many shapes and sizes from woodcraft but the whole stabilizing part is a little more difficult. I don't know much about the process but I know it's basically impregnating wood with epoxy resin or something like that but you might be able to make something like this to do it yourself. http://www.knifeart.com/thevbycurmwi.html and as for the stabilizing medium, woodcraft has many of them by the gallons. I hop this was in some way helpful http://www.woodcraft.com/search2/search.aspx?query=wood%20stabizer http://www.woodcraft.com/family/2005149/maple-curly.aspx good luck with any attempts at this. I might be trying soon.

What is your method for the knapped steel look. I did something similar for my spear head but I like the results of yours.

All hand done by cheap walmart needle files. for one of the most simple looks it was a pain to do. I just need to decide now what kind of shaft to put it on. Any suggestions?