Charles McDonald

Hello all!
Here are a few new tools I forged recently. The tongs are made from 5/8 coil spring, the touchmark is w-1 and the nail header I made from a piece of an old spud wrench. The rivet-type tongs I should have made longer as I aimed to have an integrated tong clip, but I made a misjudgment...  I had fun ( As I always do ) making these and please let me know what you guys think...

Awesome looking hammers! They all look like great tools that will last a lifetime!  :) 
Cheers and welcome to IFI

Jerome:
I just forged square taper to where I wanted it, annealed it, filed flat the business end and drew on the shape I wanted with a marker. After that I basically just used a small triangle needle file in between each corner and then rounded the corners off. I attached a photo of my touchmark... This one I used a flex shaft tool for, but you can use a Dremmel if you have one. I used different sized burrs like this one ( http://www.riogrande.com/Product/Dentsply-Maillefer-Round-Burs/342071?pos=5 ) Probably not the best choice, but its what I had and it made pretty short work of annealed W-1. After that I just cleaned up with a file a bit. I hope this helps you and good luck with it!

Beauties! Well done work!

So far my favorite is either upsetting from 1/2 round or just using 3/4 round and drawing out by hand.   B) 

 

Ive made quite a lot of tools so far and Ill never stop making them ( it's addictive ). I havent been blacksmithing that long, but the first day I made a tool and put it to use on something I turned around and sold was perhaps one of the happiest days Ive had yet!
Here are a few examples of the things Ive made. 
 

Great idea and it looks like it works quite well!

Incredible work! 
:o

Nice  :)

:) Nicely done! 

Great work Tom!

Awesome! This is inspiring to me since Ive been meaning to make some more anvil tools and I have about 5 breaker bits laying around :D

Can't figure out how you would mar a hammer handle slipping through two piece of smooth steel pipe like my rack uses. Can you explicate?

Well you have a point there with the pipe but i figure something shallow like round bar looped etc. For me at least knowing my nature It would be an issue...

You make awesome tools!

I have limited space in my shop so I played it simple with a wall mounted hammer rack that fit between studs. I went with wood and I think I'll continue to do so because I'm a nut about marring up my hammer handles on a metal rack...

Great looking punch, and a wonderful photo as well! Thanks for sharing :-)

Very clean!

This is great thank you very much for this! :)

I never buy premade handles, but rather I buy the wood at a local hardwood store ( I can get about 10 handles for 10 bucks). I rip my handles on a table saw and hand finish them with a rasp and sandpaper . Pretty much all of my hammer handles are Ash and its done pretty well for me, save for one handle splitting out, but that was my own fault. I do prefer Hickory though, its just not as easy to find around here.

This is really great Brian! Thank you for sharing this!
Yesterday I made my first attempt at this and I can definitely improve in many areas, but nevertheless I had a lot of fun and learned good things from it. The next few tries will only yield better results :D

Waldgeist, first of all you have yourself a beautiful workshop. I am hoping to build one by the looks about the same and in construction. What size is it?

Nice shop Waldgeist and well laid out. Sure you'll need a larger one, no matter how large you build it you'll need a larger one. It's a law of blacksmithing nature you know.

Scavnger, thank you very much! It's only 8'x10'

Frosty, thank you as well! Yeah Im always finding something more I want out of my work area ha ha!
For me right now though its a matter of heat in that little shed with the forge going. Also I would like space to work the anvil comfortably on both sides. Basic things I hadnt thought through starting out... That little world of my own leaves me oblivious to the world sometimes. It's great :)

Awesome looking shop! Thank you for sharing all the photos :)

Thank you very much Daniel, and yes I did upgrade to a Nimba Centurion. A great deal came my way and I couldnt pass up buying one :)

I poured most of my money into tools and left myself pretty poor to build anything major, and since I’m renting I thought the landlord would handle a "Garden shed" a little better than something serious. Here are some photos of the little work area I built.
I built this pretty simple using framing lumber, plywood etc. The roofing you can get discounted if you find ripped bundles at Lowes or Home Depot and the windows I made myself as well from a free large single pain window I picked you north of me. I didn’t run this by my landlord before building it and so I just built it in a way that’s easy to take down and mend materials (save for the roofing)
The whole thing cost me about 500 bucks after being nickel and dimed to death on a few things. Much cheaper than buying a shed premade as to my knowing.

It’s cramped at times, and quite hot running that forge in the middle of summer, but I’ve learned to love it for what it is...

Dodge I appreciate you taking the time to leave this information! Thank you, and thanks as well to Ciladog!

:)