Chinobi

All your fruits and vegetables are belong to me! What are the lengths on that monster? It looks enormous!

Nice hammon as well, intentional or happy accident?

Actually my worst procrastination habit is reading this forum! XD

Please take a step back and look up the terms 'harden', 'anneal', and 'temper' here in the heat treatment section. I only suggest this because it sounds like either the source is bogus or you may have misinterpreted the terminology or chronology of the work and without knowing the depth to which the confusion reaches it will be difficult to remedy otherwise. Once you have cleared up what those processes are for yourself your answers will be self evident (sorry for the fortune cookie response) = Learn to speak Chinese Hello = "Knee - how " lucky numbers 23,14, 56, 87 Just wanted to help finish the fortune cookie :)

i know a couple of blade smiths in the Visalia and porterville-ish area but I know they are going to be pretty busy. CBA Facebook page would be a good place to check as well

Way too cool! Great mokume and awesome froggy-ness! :)

I got to link up with Der Hannes yesterday and see his shop :) had a beer, forged a pretty sad facsimile of a wrap and weld keychain axe and talked shop. Before we parted ways he presented me with a freshly re-handled Peddinghaus 1000gm crosspein, which is an awesome hammer! Thank you again Hannes, it was a pleasure to meet you :)

Rats!! B of A just called and said they can only order half dollars in batches of 1000$ minimum, and I don't think I want to make that kind of commitment :P they are also not interested in shelving the remainder of the load in the vault for me to only grab 100$ or so from them =/

Looking forward very much to mine in the coming day(s)! Fortunate timing as well as I am starting to dabble in cutlery of late :)

the composition of the halves is the same as the quarters, and they are just about twice the mass, so its pretty much a wash between the two. the easiest way for me to darken the nickel but let the copper come through naturally is to flame up the entire billet until you get the nickel to oxidize to blue/black and then let it cool. I don't usually quench it off because I don't want to risk blowing the finish off, I usually lay it on a piece of copper or steel as a heat sink and do something else for a while. then put it in some pickle, I use skaylex, and let that sit until the acid cleans off the copper. the nickel oxide is some tough stuff and is generally unimpressed by the acid and will stay dark. I picked up some liver of sulfur last week but I haven't played with it yet. that would be a way to blacken the copper, but I don't know how it will treat the nickel, as nickel silver is a predominantly copper based alloy (especially in quarter/50's). head over to the alchemy and formula section as well, I know there have been several great discussions about patinas and recipes there that are really interesting.

d'oh! sorry, I tried :P however that area is pretty dense with other CBA membership, so you should be able to scare up some sympathetic hammers if you maybe post up on the CBA site that you will be in the area, or actually the facebook page I think has higher turnover and might be a better idea.

well, yes, a grinder will leave its marks on the edges when you take off the reeds, but they will be considerably smaller than the reeds themselves, to the point that they may just melt themselves away in the fire (220 is kind of my 'default' grit too, so that's usually what my experience is based on). the scratches we want to avoid would be the collateral damage to the faces of the coins in the attempt to clean up the edges.

That's a mighty fine billet you cranked out there!! Love to see what you make from it :) Hard to speculate about the tumbler's effects Frosty, seems like it would be inclined to round off edges that shouldn't be which would give oxygen another avenue to penetrate the weld, and might not be thorough enough to get the valleys of the reeds where cracks would spring. Plus it would scratch the faces up pretty badly which would also fight solid welds (at least that's what the books recommend avoiding...). I'd maybe skim them across a grinder to knock it back to a flat uniform edge beforehand, but that might be overkill.

Matt K, look up the Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum in Vista, lot of good people on staff there that might be available to share an anvil or a meal with you :) it's only about 30 miles north of Carmel Valley

Wouldn't mind having a rolling mill myself! But I would need to reclaim some space first... Do you find that it want to make the coins oblong when you run them through, like the penny smushers at fairs? Or is it so slight and concentrated on the raised imagery that it doesn't affect the perimeter? Posing this to anyone; IIRC the reeds on a half dollar are much larger and deeper than on a quarter, any thoughts on grinding them off beforehand to possibly mitigate opportunities for cracks to start in them? especially because fresh rolls picked up at the bank are likely to not have much circulation time, and the valleys will be fresh and crisp with sharp angles. Or is that again a solution to a non-existent problem?

Thanks gents, I can't take credit for the plate design though, better men than myself figured that one out, I'm just spreading the word :) Also, I had occasion to do some banking this morning and I tried to change several rolls of quarters for half dollars. The said they can do it but they don't keep them on hand and would need to order them in for me. Do if your banks don't stock them try asking them to order some from the reserve before you try a different branch.

interlocking and permeable pavers are all the rage in my industry, but if you look back not to far that was the default. before all the asphalt and concrete pavement took over and turned developed areas into instant flood generators.

Could it be tinned like a copper pot?

I don't know of anyone that uses solid, but that's what the Japanese were using when they invented the stuff so it would seeeeem to be doable ;) you can build up a sort of ovenlike enclosure with firebricks or just make a real sturdy beehive/cave with your solid fuel and go from there. My very first attempt was with a MAPP plumbing torch open face on a firebrick with 1/8" torque plates. I have seen videos of it done with a weed burner on larger billets, so it can be done with a great variety of heat sources.

a note about twisting: it behaves in the same manner as Damascus, when you draw out your bar prior to the twist, at the very least knock off the corners if not take it all the way to round. that way you reduce the tendency for it to crack along those ridge lines and you wont need to chase the valleys so far if you re-square after the twist.

very nice, that came out really well :)

ill be in Germany, and im on the calendar to meet up with Der Hannes a few days before xmas, just confirming exactly when :) ill be back home but not working from the 29th to the 2nd so any of you other southern Californians want to link up im game to travel! also, there is (on the calendar at least, if theres interest I can ask and confirm its actually happening) an evening (7 to 10pm) open forge at Adams Forge on December 30, could make that an IFI crew get together (you've all done their discovery day... right? ;)) and then go for a pint somewhere afterwards.

Ill throw my lot in here as well, I ordered one of the IFI flavored FFF hammers, and I had the opportunity to put it to work last weekend, and it was pure pleasure! so comfortable, and without ever really having actually practiced the motion I found myself almost automatically working with the edges of the round die to draw and spread. I cant wait to use it again :D !

Bad. Adze. Period. :-D Stop making me want a machete!

A lot of it is technique as well (not saying I know it, but I can see what I am missing!), hit up Brian Brazeals YouTube channel if you REALLY want to feel inept! How and where you are striking plays a HUGE part in how quickly or slowly the metal moves, and how much energy you are wasting to fix collateral damage from the previous swings.