Jon Smith

Well yes that would be the obvious answer. The less obvious one would be that the parent wood was reclaimed, which would give the piece a lot of character and make it more of a conversation piece.

You do good work. I'm curious. What were you doing with a piece of 200 year old walnut?

Space sword!! Hehe I forgot about that

Thanks for the advice gentlemen. And you're right, there's already several things I would do differently since then

*Drooling* Quick! Send it too me so I can hide it for before someone steals it!

Name does ring a few bells... Or that could just be the echo from my anvil still bouncing around. Either way, good luck

Whoa whoa whoa lets put the brakes on this wagon train for a second. Who's the new smiths in Eunice? I wasn't aware there were any metal bashers in town

I was thinking swages too, or make a knife out of normal rebar and just weld in a bit and make it San Mai

Now I know I have engineering on the brain--I saw "integrals" and immediately started thinking of calculus.... Needless to say, I definitely like these integrals better. Wouldn't mind having one for a hunting knife

Do a search on here for the original etcher post, as its not my idea, but here's how it works. Take an old laptop charger and cut off the end that goes to the computer. Strip back the wires then separate the positive and negative. On mine, the negative was wrapped around the positive. Attach the positive wire (I attached alligator clips) to the blade and the negative to a cotton ball or q-tip dipped in salt water. To form the design, I coat the area I want to etch in nail polish then scratch the image into the dried polish with an xacto knife. Then, plug in the charger and apply the salty cotton to the design. It should start to fix and produce an acrid smell. About 30 seconds should do it. Reversing the wires will produce a darker mark. Then remove the polish and shine normally

The laptop charger etching system is the way to go. I use a bottle of my girlfriends old fingernail polish as a resist, but wax would work too.

Nice job. Is that a church or a house?

Might still be a bit much...but if it looks like it'll hold the edge then you should be good. I normally go with a deep yellow/ light brown temper for an hour in the oven for 5160. Either way, welcome to the addiction that is bladesmithing

Love that crazy blade profile! What steel? Depending what you used, a blue temper (being somewhere around 475-550*) may be a bit much for an edge

5160 spring steel cracks badly in a water quench....trust me on that one. Lost a few good blades that way

You're smoking tobacco...it's unhealthy to begin with. But then again, working a forge all day, especially a coal one, is bad for you too. Pick your poison I suppose. So long as there's no heavy metals involved to burn off, it should be relatively safe. Though I have heard that a metal pipe doesn't smoke the same as, say, a good briar. Not being a smoker, I couldn't say for certain.

Sweet work. Put a handle on it and keep us updated. And I thought I started young, haha. I was 19

You're a bladesmith, forge it to whatever shape you need! I would be more worried about the makeup of the file steel, rather than the shape. Some files don't harden very well.

The smaller ones are perfect for colonial cheese cutters or something similar

Again, I may be wrong as I've never seen/worked with one in person, but a vertical forge would be set up similar to a normal gas forge (anyone ever try coal?) except that the chamber is oriented vertical with burners through the side. I would assume the reason being that long pieces of hot iron tend to bend under their own weight as you remove them from the fire in the normal horizontal orientation?

Not sure how much help I'd be, still having a lot to learn myself. Though if coal is a problem, you might consider a propane fired forge. I love mine

I'm sure he will correct me if I'm wrong, Ne0spartan, but I don't think Thomas is referring to a vertical forge (though they do exist). I think he means a temp-controlled heat treating kiln or furnace with a vertical chamber to prevent sag (warp).

Bienvenu au la famille! Welcome to the family! Good to see another Lousianian taking up the craft

No there's no problem with it, and I have read through the ref materials. I was just wondering if anyone had come up with other methods/ materials that weren't listed. The whole vacuum/pressure thing kind of throws me for a true, deep stabilization.

I went ahead with the bag method and have it in a compressed two gallon ziplock in a dark corner of the shop. With it finally turning colder (below 75*) down south, it shouldn't get too hot. Which leads to the next step. Anyone have a good home process to stabilize this bad boy? I keep seeing the minwax wood hardener, but anything else that has good results?