Gundog48

Thanks for taking your time to answer, really helpful! The colour is a little off as half the shot is in the dark garage and the other in sunlight, the steel was definitely hot enough, although a little too hot sometimes. I'll try to draw out more on the horn, I don't like working on the horn too much, it's less stable and the noise just doesn't sound right. I would make a hold down, but I was told that the anvil was designed so it would tip when necessary to prevent the horn from breaking. Tongs is definitely something I should work on, although I jump between so many different things it's not always practical. I'll definitely make a holdfast, it'd be a lot more flexible than a chain I think. I've hear a lot about the 'thumb up, thumb down' argument. I usually agree with thumb down in principle, but I seem to get more control with thumb up. I'll make an effort of keeping my thumb down (it's not something I really think about, I just do it) and see how it goes! I think I understand what you mean about hot cutting. I'll make a few tong rings and give that a go, normally I don't have a problem, but in this case I had to protect some parts by keeping them off the anvil. I'm going to make a hot cut hardie too which could help with things like this. I completely overlooked deformation of the eye in the vice, thanks for pointing that out. I mean to make a drift so I can slit and drift my own holes as I'd like to do more axes in the future. This is my first time using the vice, the only issue I have with it is that it twists a lot where the bracket that you screw down joins with the clip that goes around the vice. It's like the 'pin' that goes through needs to be tighter, I've already had to repair that as it was really twisted and damaged, any ideas there? Thanks very much for your advice!

I posted a video here a while ago of me forging my first tomahawk. I got loads of excellent advice on thins all the way from basic hammer control to more specific forging techniques. It really helped me learn and just editing the video helps me notice things I do wrong that you can't notice until you 'see yourself' doing it, which is why recording myself is so beneficial for me with no one there to watch. Also, explaining what I have to do makes me think more about what I'm doing, and knowing that other blacksmiths will be watching helps me maintain a higher standard where I may normally do something stupid. I hope you can enjoy the video for what it is, but if you could do me a favour again and point out my mistakes and give me ideas for improvement, it would be most appreciated! Please be as harsh or as frank as is necessary, I haven't been forging long so I expect I've made a huge number of mistakes which I'd like to learn to correct, being honest helps me! http://youtu.be/eQ15D_D7X4U

Our school does a work experience week where we are supposed to go off and arrange placements to get first hand experience in the sort of career we want to peruse. I'm sure they'd rather stick me in an accountant's office somewhere in front of a computer but that's not what I want from my career! I'm looking for someone who wouldn't mind me around for a week between the 24th – 28th June in the South East. I'm perfectly happy with sitting and watching you work which would be really helpful for me, just to watch the technique and learn what the day-to-day runnings of a forge is like. If you'd like to get me striking, even better! I've been forging for about 6 months now and have done some decent work, although nothing really worthy of note, and what I have done tends to be focused on the 'dark side' of blacksmithing, namely knives, axes and other blades! I have a forge at home so I could do 'homework' after each session if you don't mind taking part in that. So if you're looking for someone to be a shop gofer for a week, or you don't mind me watching you work, I'd be thrilled to come along and lend a hand and hopefully learn a lot along the way! Thanks, Jake

Thanks, I've been meaning to follow that properly but haven't got round to it, I'll be sure to check it out! I needed to do this in a couple of days for an event, but now it's done I may file out the marks and bring it all to a polish, then put a proper handle on it too!

A couple more pics as promised.

This is my second knife, forged from 5160, tempered brown. It's 12" long and is designed as a general purpose survival knife, it'll cut through bamboo and shrubs like a machete and splits small logs like a hatchet. I left the clip edge blunt so it could be used to split really long logs so the clip could be used as a target for a baton. I left all but the edge as a forge finish partly for aesthetics, but mostly because it takes ages to get a good polish by hand! I'll try to get some better pictures soon!

I set up shop about 6 months ago and have just about got it where I want it. I'm 17 and stuck in a suburban house and as you can imagine, funds and space are limited. It took a lot of effort to reclaim the garage which was previously filled with junk, you couldn't get a yard in without having to walk over stuff, the floor wasn't visible and it looked like something from Hoarders. I cleared it out as best I could, I still have to have a lot of stuff I don't personally use stored in there, but it's generally under control. To get this to work, most things have to be portable, so it can be stowed away and quickly deployed when I'm doing forge work. This is what I'm dealing with, the garage on my front drive: So my brake drum forge is on wheels, it sits just outside the door so all the smoke goes into the air. I've got my eye out for a crank blower to attach to the side to make it even easier. As it is, I have to bring out a box I made up with a bus demister fan in it, attatch the hose then lug a 24V battery charger to power it, then run an extension cable. It blows 700CFM on full blast though, it doesn't lack for guts! I'll try to get a picture of it set up next time I'm in the shop. This is my welding bench. It's way to tall. It's a aluminium frame with a wooden top. Really solid. That there on the bench is the work in progress of my belt grinder. Don't worry, those welds are all being redone, gasless MIG really isn't good enough for this stuff. Just got to do that and fit the pillow blocks and drive train. Under the bench here I've made room for a tool table. Again, I'm gonna wheel it out near the anvil when I'm forging and tuck it here when I'm not. It'll give my hammers a better place to go, a place for my small punches and chisels and prevent me dumping stuff on my workbench when I'm forging. This is the main workbench. Built out of timber. Really solid, drawers are from an old unit. I may cover the whole thing with steel sheet so I can put hot stuff on there, and so it can be cleaned easily, this stains badly. Working on the placement of the vises. The container at the end is full of veggie oil for quenching, it's really not ideal, but it works well enough for what I do. On the bench is a bracket I made, my first ornamental project, with an anvil sign I cut that I'm going to hang outside. This is just a quick tool rack I made out of scrap wood and a bit of steel sheet. It'll serve until I've built the tool table. A final picture. The anvil is dragged further from the wall and it's nice and close to where the forge is when it's out. I wish I could show you what it looked like before I requisitioned it. There was just nothing, no tools, no bench, just tons of junk that we threw in there. There's still a lot to do, and I'd be glad for your advice as to how to improve. As a student, I don't get a lot of time, nor money, so I usually have to make do with what I can scrounge, make or find cheap. Lots of rooting through scrapyards! I've only moved to the garage about 3 months ago, which is when I started clearing it out and making it my own. Most of it was built at the weekends. Saturdays I forge, Sundays I either do cold work or fix up the shop. But I got a lot of it done during the school holidays. I think it's reasonably good demo of what you can do with limited space in a suburban area! Also, working on the front drive an a relatively busy street you get a lot of people asking questions and by answering them, you make yourself more sure of what exactly it is that you're doing, and if you're going the right way about it!

I believe he's talking about a heat treat oven, not really a 'forge'. Usually electric with electronic temperature control for heat treating accurately which also allows for ramp up control (time taken for it to get to the desired temperature) and soak time. These are used for normalising,annealing, hardening and sometimes tempering. Something like this: http://www.britishblades.com/forums/showthread.php?99898-Vertical-heat-treat-oven

I had a request to forge a spearhead like the one pictured. We decided it was best to do the socket and head in one piece rather than separately as the one pictured seems to be and that we'd experiment with different finishes on the socket. I've done a lot of research and practice on the spearhead, but there is one thing that completely eludes me- the bar. I've no idea how I would forge the bars into the socket, any ideas?

Yeah, the guide recommends taking it down to 3/8 then spreading the very edge further, not sure if that's a good idea in my case, I think I'll do it as is. The cut goes quite deep, it was 1/2" before drawing it out, so it should be longer now, so there is bound to be a solid enough weld, but I plan to have many passes at it anyway, get it nicely joined and neat.

Last weekend I started work on an a bearded axe based on James Austin's DVD. It has been a rather difficult for me as I work alone, so turning a 2"x4" bar into an axe is very difficult. I've been doing almost all the work with a 7lb sledge which I'm forced to use one-handed which still works surprisingly well. The bulk of it has been done by striking tools as in the video. Jim was incredibly helpful, both by providing such a fantastic DVD at such good value, and by offering some advice on how best to achieve what I want. I was concerned with the fact that he split the axe to receive the cutting bit after drawing it out to 3/16" which is possible with oxyacetylene, but incredibly difficult on the forge. He suggested I make the cut before drawing it out, then reopening it once drawn which has worked brilliantly, I just have to be careful not to get to welding heat. I've cheated a bit by slitting and drifting as opposed to splitting and welding. I did this to simplify it as this is my first axe (and second blade at all) so I wanted to get the hang of shaping the blade before I got fancy, plus I don't have the top and bottom tools to do it properly. I'm going to make a mandrel once I've finished this to make it possible to do something similar next time. This is where I am so far, I was hoping for a bit of guidance as to how to improve. My current plan is to draw out the throat to thin the material near the eye, finish drawing out the beard using fullers, refine the shape of the blade and beard, draw out the edge, weld the cutting bit, taper down to point, straighten throat and reopen the eye fully. Any glaring problems you see that I can fix now? I don't really like the aesthetic of the slit and drift eye as it makes it impossible to get a really nice curve, but it'll have to do for this one! Currently collecting materials for a small powerhammer, that'll make my life so much easier for things like this!

I've almost finished building the frame for my belt grinder using the NWG plans, it's coming along very well. Right now, the only attachment I really need is the flat platen. However, I can see where using a contact wheel would be very beneficial. I've been doing a lot of research with little results, I'm struggling to find out exactly what makes a contact wheel different (and so much more expensive) than a normal bearing roller. The surface is always coated with a material, is this to add grip to the wheel? I'm trying to find less expensive and easier to source parts, but I can't come up with a viable replacement as I don't know the specific characteristics that a contact wheel requires compared to a normal roller. The thing is, I'm fortunate enough to be able to source free roller bearings with a standard smooth surface with a 90mm diameter and 60mm wide (About 3.1/2" and 2.3/8"), so as you can imagine, I want to make use of them where I can. I'm using them as platen rollers and the tracking roller, but I imagine the contact wheel requires something special. On a related note, does anyone know a good source of 3-step pulleys that could be reused or a good supplier in the UK? Thanks, Jake

I have been using a coal/coke forge for some time, I don't have any real problems with it, but I see the potential benefits of a gas forge. I've been doing quite a bit of research, but I was wondering what you could tell me about them in general. I like bladesmithing, so I normally forge knives both long and small, heavy axes, and I want to move on to swords. Would you say that a gas forge is more suitable for this? I've noticed that they are generally longer which would be very useful as I have trouble heating up the whole blade for a HT on my forge. I also quite like the quick startup and general cleanness of a gas forge, namely clinker. My workshop is a garage, not very big at all. I have the most outrageous setup right now, a very heavy forge on wheels which I wheel outside, then connect a blower which is a 24V bus demister fan which is powered by a large vehicle battery charger which allows me to control the airflow. At best, this will be lighter and easier to move outside, but I am considering the possibility of using it inside. I've seen many use one indoors without a chimney, but surely that would pose a problem with carbon monoxide? If I put the forge right next to my garage door, would that do the job, or would you say to go for a full chimney? Coke is a real pain, sourcing it, storing it in my small garage, and burning it isn't perfect either. On the other hand, I can get LPG from a local petrol station pretty cheap, and it would only take up the space of the bottle. Now, this question may sound ridiculous, but how many hours to the gallon do you get with an average sized gas forge? Would you say it's cheaper than running a solid fuel forge? Also, what sort of air supply do I need to be using, and what pressure should the gas be? I was hoping to change the blower assembly to something smaller and quieter, what sort of CFM would I be wanting, or is it more a case of static pressure? Sorry for the vast number of questions, I do try to do my own research, but some questions are best answered by people with experience with gas forging. If you know of a good resource then please point me in the right direction, most of my research are from Dr Jim Hrisoulas' books and from searching the Internet.

The patent system is horribly broken. Obviously in some cases, patents are necessary to preserve a unique innovation that someone has spent a lot of time and money developing. However, it seem as though patents are mostly used to keep the top on top in big business as they seem willing to hand out patents for silly things. For example, Apple has a patent for mobile devices with 'rounded corners' as well as just about every design feature. So when a competitor such as Samsung released a better device, they just sued them and had it's sale banned. It discourages development or advancement as it eliminates competition. Not to mention the disgusting things that happen in the drugs industry that cost lives, companies patent medicines, charge an extortionate price that only the rich or desperate can afford, and deny the manufacturing of similar drugs which could be produces at less than a tenth of the price. And in a case like this, patenting a process. What if someone patented the process of hardening ferrous metals by quenching? It's not a process that cost the developer a lot of money in research, yet no one else can use this process which eliminates all competition for that person. There are many cases where patents are necessary to protect investments, but far more which are used to prevent competition and keep prices up which stops the development of technology.

I've been looking out for a double horned anvil for some time, and have finally found one for sale near me. What can you tell me about this one? Looks like it's seen some use, as expected, but looks in good condition. What would your opinion be on this, and can you tell me anything about the maker? It looks like there are some markings, but the pictures are a little small. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290797145769?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 Thanks!

We were all new once, some still are! If you have to determination and passion to learn, try, fail, try again, fail until you finally get there, then you have everything you need. You have a lot of misconceptions, these are easily remedied through research. First things first, you need to learn some basic blacksmithing skills, going onto blades before learning the fundamentals of moving steel is a recipe for disaster. Read Basic Blacksmithing, which is available free on the net, just Google it. After a couple of months at least doing this (you should really give it longer, but impatience ), you can consider moving on to knives. Get The Complete Bladesmith and read it cover to cover, it includes everything from forge design, types of steel and the actual process of forging blades. It will tell you that you need more tools than you do, all you need is a forge, a lump of steel as an anvil, a hammer and an angle grinder, plus some files and sandpaper for finishing. Flap disks speed up removal, you can look into a belt grinder once you've really gotten into things, I don't have one, it's really not necessary. I also work in a garage and can fit everything in there easily. Its up to you where you go from here, I wouldn't suggest moving onto swords until after a good year of knifemaking. But really it's up to you, personally I've started swordsmithing far too early, and failed, but you learn things through practical work so that you can better understand what's written on paper. When you move onto blades, expect to fail, if you don't, you'll get frustrated and give up before you've given it a proper chance. Just move nice and slow, learn why you do what you do, make every hammer blow count, that's how you learn. I spent the best part of a a week on a blade that cracked when I heat treated it, you have to live with these things and put it down to experience. In terms of building a forge, look at some examples on here. A 55 Forge will get you going (plans on here) and you can move on to a brake drum forge when you need to step your game up, then look at building a proper forge.

This one is designed to feed it towards you, as much for practicality's sake as safety. I've had some feedback from others about this, who have pointed out many problems. It'll be a complete redesign I think. I won't be building this for at least a year, so I'm in no hurry- I'd rather get it right!

jmann, what he's saying is that it'll be your family picking up the slack, not his. Sure, it's your choice if you want to risk your life doing something that need not be dangerous, but if you were killed by an explosion, you wouldn't know anything about it. Your family, however, have to live with what happened, arrange your funeral and know that you were killed doing something that shouldn't have been dangerous. The reason he put it from his perspective is because when you write it directly addressed to you as I just have, it sounds absolutely horrible. But the truth is, it is. It's harsh having something you're enthusiastic about set back by others for reasons you don't value. Don't think you have to give up. Get a professional welder to fix it up and reinforce with bolts where possible. You don't have to stop just because you don't have the skills to do what is a very, very advanced skill. You don't have to get yourself killed either. People don't say things like this for no reason, they're trying to help. I don't know what you're trying to prove, but from here you're just throwing their concern back in their faces with a two-fingered gesture and disregarding it out of ego, stubbornness or an unwillingness to give up what you have worked on. I hope it is the latter, because that way you can get it properly fixed up and carry on work. It's hard to convince people otherwise when stubbornness or ego gets in the way. Take their advice, we don't want to see you injured any more than you or your family do. /morbid post

Thanks Wayne, I'll be getting a copy of that soon. No need to reinvent the wheel, although this section will likely change from the design based on what I have to work with!

After playing around with the idea of getting a power hammer or press, I've decided that a far more sensible idea would be to make a rolling mill, as it would be quieter and smaller than the alternatives, and would actually do what I need it to better. I'll mainly be drawing out and tapering knives and swords which this should be most useful in doing. I've only just started working out how I'll achieve this, so I drew my idea of the top roller today. Drawing something properly makes it easier to understand how you'll do something practically. I was having problems with many parts of the top roller design, but doing this has cleared much of it up. I'll be using half shaft for my rollers, which if I'm lucky, will be 4140 which would be ideal for rollers, if not, mild steel would do it just fine anyway! I'll be able to get access to a lathe after talking to my tech teacher at school, there's no way I'd be able to do this without. I'll be taking the half shaft down to 3/4" at the ends to form the shaft, and boring out a 3/4" hole in some 1.1/4" 660 bronze rod for the bearing. Doing this answered many problems, but threw up some more, so I'd like to ask these questions: The Shear Pin, I put the shear pin in to prevent damage to the rest of the drive train if it got stuck, any idea what materal or size it should be? It needs to take the strain of normal operation, but break if it jams The drive train- obviously it needs to be geared down, what is the... cheapest way of doing this? I was thinking of using a very small sprocket on the motor shaft and a much bigger one on the top roller (I'll need to do the RPM calculations) Would this principle work? Bearing- I have joined the bronze to an aluminum block with pins, is there another way of joining it? All I really have is a MIG welder. Do you think my current setup is up to it? And will the aluminum block be hard enough. Aluminum is more available to me and easier to work with. The Screw Jack- I need to do a lot of research on this, but quite frankly I have no idea how it works. I've never used one before, nor do I know how they work. Could someone explain the basics, or how I would operate it to perform a taper, for example? The Design- Please point out any other problems in my design, I'm a student that has never manufactured anything this heavy before, please point out any problems you see, it's probably riddled! I noticed my mistake with the bearing blocks, I'll be mounting them horizontally instead so they don't get in the way of the bottom roller. As you can see, my drawing is awful, and my handwriting much worse than that! Hopefully you can get the idea of what I'm getting at.

You're really selling Hereford to me now, I'd definitely like to go, but am unsure as to what happens after. Is it the case of contacting smiths and offering to do work, then being kept around for paid work if they want to keep you? It's a real shame the apprenticeship tradition has all but gone, I'd say it is was a really good way to teach from master blacksmith to apprentice, but I guess the time and money involves makes it impractical these days.

I wouldn't mind it if there was a clear goal at the end of it, I'd just hate to spend those years in education to be in the same situation when I finish! My plan is to get more active with the blacksmithing community, start attending forge-ins, events with BABA, it's difficult to make it work while in full time education, but hopefully I'll make myself known a little and perhaps meet someone wanting to take on an apprentice. I wouldn't mind moving to the work either, I'm not the biggest fan of where I live, so would have no trouble moving. If I went to uni there would still be the accommodation, travel costs etc, minus the income and having to pay for the privilege, which is why I want to avoid it unless I know it can secure me a better job!

Thanks for the info on blacksmithing courses. The truth is, it's not the choice of course that puts me off going to university, it's the idea of spending even longer in education. I'm pretty good at school, but unfortunately I hate almost everything about it, the repetitive routine, the feeling that you're not achieving anything practical, that's really why I want to get straight into an apprenticeship, so I can start earning some money and feel like I'm doing something for myself. I've never been able to be proud of my grades, even after getting quite good GCSE results, I'd much rather show off something I've made than a scrap of paper with some letters written on it. I did a terrible job at explaining that, but essentially, spending another 3 years in education would be my idea of hell, even if it is for something I would enjoy. I get a lot of satisfaction out of teaching myself things, many of the things I am best at I have taught myself, and from what I hear many smiths don't like to take on apprentices who have been taught at a university or college as they would rather teach an inexperienced person do to it their way. What do I know, I'm just making excuses I guess, but really further education would be a real last resort. I'm not sure if Owen would like to wait a couple of years for me to finish school, or if I'd really be the sort of material he is looking for, but if I could apprentice under a master bladesmith like Basher it would be everything I have been looking for and more! As it is, I will also have to wait another year before I can enroll on any of his courses as he has a minimum age of 18, likely because of liability, at least I know what I'll be asking for my 18th birthday! Also keeping my eye open for any forge-ins near me, may be just what I need to get to know other blacksmiths and really get into the 'community'.

Really looking forward to the knife chat. I'm gathering parts for a tyre hammer to help with drawing out as I spend most of my time changing size of the stock to a size I can work with rather than actually forging the product, a rolling mill could be a really good alternative, thanks for the idea, I'll check it out! I did use a cross peen before I got the bottom fuller, but it really didn't have the weight, and I think a straight or combination peen would have been more useful as it is difficult to get a good blow in from all angles.

Hi, I'm currently in my first year of 6th Form, when I finish my A-Levels, I'll be looking for an apprenticeship- hopefully in blacksmithing. I've been doing blacksmithing as a hobby for a few months with a particular interest in bladesmithing, I've made a few knives and have some quite nice ones in the works. I love what I do, and if I can 'forge' a career out of that, then it would be fantastic! I've considered my options for how I could get into a career, there is the option of becoming self-employed, but to invest in a shop at the age of 18 with only a couple of years experience and expect to earn a living is quite frankly ridiculous. So the other real option is an apprenticeship, this would offer me formal training and an income, and with a couple of years experience, hopefully I'll be of some use to someone! The question is, where do you look? An apprenticeship in blacksmithing is not something I've ever seen in the papers, and certainly not one in bladesmithing. When I am ready to take on an apprenticeship, where should I look? There is the option of asking local blacksmiths, but it's not usual to walk into an establishment asking if they are looking to take on new staff when they are not advertising. Now the questions, because I haven't asked enough already! What can I expect from an apprenticeship and where will it get me? I realise this is an incredibly broad question, considering blacksmiths range from sculptors, bladesmiths and toolmakers, but I assume there must be some things in common. I'm expecting lots of striking work to learn how the smith works, but really, I don't know much about the structure, timeframe or anything. If there are some resources I can read into about blacksmithing apprenticeships I would most appreciate it, as I hate asking so many questions all at once. And then there is the dirty but all-important question of money. I do quite well at school, and it took some convincing to tell my parents that I didn't want to go to university. To convince them that blacksmithing is a viable career option so I still have somewhere to sleep may be difficult. Quite frankly, as long as I can get the money I need to eat and pay the bills, I'll be happy as I am doing something I currently do for free. But what sort of money could an apprentice blacksmith expect to earn, and where do things go from there in terms of pay after, say, 2, 5, 10, 20 years? I'd be interested in any form of blacksmithing, but I fear that my endeavors so far may have pushed me too far to the dark side of all things sharp and pointy! Really, I like to create functional items that have a beauty of their own such as blades and tools, although I'm sure I could be swayed to the more decorative side of the craft! Thanks in advance for the feedback, or at least taking the time to read this and tolerating the vast number of questions I have.