toolish

Thanks for that mate, be handy to touch base with the local smith for many reasons Haha office folk lol I love randomly calls to people, Thinking it is best to call a head so I know when it is a good time to come down or knowing my luck Ill turn up on tools down day or packaging up products in boxes day lol

Do any smiths working there come on here at all? Might try and give them a call and see if they like visitors. From the outside of their building you would not know what they do. Be handy if they let me play only 2 min down the road

Mate I would be doing the dinner but the misses has me going to a party that night down in cronulla so ill have to skip it. I am sure there will be enough time over the 2 days to network and spin a yarn with people. Looks like a lot of Sydney locals are starting to come out of the wood work on this one, who knows I may even find another smith on the Central coast lol Seems like there is a few in Newcastle which is only an hour from me which is nice, hoping to try and find some time to pop up to your shop Forgemaster and see how the professionals are doing it, just got to workout my family life a bit lol. Looking forward to this event and meeting some people

Mate ill be training it each day any yeah if your not getting a lift home with some one I would not be in the city on a saturday night. I almost got robbed a while back in there by my self. Ill walk from redfern station to get there if you want a walking friend

Yep ill be training it in there as it is apparently the way to go. Moony and a few others are going as well, hoping it to be a good event

nice vine work, really adds a level of fanciness to it. Keep at it mate it looks like you know what your doing.

Ok thanks for the reply, sounds like your the straight razor man. Might have to hunt down some O1 steel, was thinking of using ball bearing steel

that looks great, One of those has been on my too do list for a while. Have you tried shaving with it?

hard to see how the condition is, especially the jaw part. Does seem a bit rich though, have you seen others around? I had to wait 4 months before i got mine, but I got it for $50 and it looked about the same as that one. As said, drop him an offer then walk, I usually also look at random part of it making grunting sounds, scratching at random parts and kinda pointing at parts of it, before you give him the offer..... Dont know why but it just seems to help lol

More power tool related i guess, Was just doing a quick wood working job, just drilling a hole in the wood then putting a screw through it. Was wearing a pair of thongs at the time and holding the bit of wood down with my foot. Drilling into the wood and the drill kinda jumped as it got snagged on a knot in the hard wood, went up a little bit then went down onto my big tow as the drill slowed. Thennn.... As I tried to get the drill off my toe I squeezed at the handle lifting it while pressing the drill trigger at the same time..... Got down to the bone and had a few days off walking lol . Power tools can always hurt you more and faster then a hand tool ever will

Mate no welder is going to be a real challenge. I just made mine but i needed the welder to put all the scrap together. You will most likely need to buy the contact wheel and the ball bearing spindal and a motor, unless you find the right type of junk. All depends on what you can get your hands on. I would look for an old welder, got mine for 40 bucks, makes things easier.

picture uploading issues, please delete

Finally picked up a leg vice for $50, was keeping an eye out for them for months, the end of the leg was sheared off where the ball would be, so I made a little pad for it to fit into. Goes leg, solid bit of steel, hard bit of rubber then 4X4 bit of hard wood, then the ground to give it a bit of shock resistance. Had no bracket or spring (found it didnt need a spring as the jaw falls open when i wind it open) Was going to forge up a proper mount to screw it onto my bench, but 2 bolts and 2 bits of scrap seem to have done an alright job, Time will tell

really nice shape, That hot head looks like it was really putting out some serious heat. Looks like it is about 3 LB??? What steel did you make it out of?

wow it took that guy 6 smokes to take a picture and that was the best one he could get......

That sounds like a great offer to me, I am surprisingly close for once (Less then an hour drive) and your near a coke supplier, what more could you want ;-) From the looks of your work there is not much you have not tackled and worked out, you seem to do the larger jobs and the smaller work as well. Are you more of a monday to friday forging person, or just when ever the work is on? If you would like some random company at your shop for a day, i'd love to be that random company :D

That knife is using to many elements and different techniques its hurting my brain just thinking about it lol

Hi darren, Im kinda close to you down on the central coast, just kinda getting all the gear I want together (just picked up a leg vice) Think there is a few guys up your way, Its where all of my blacksmith equipment seems to come from too, so keep an eye out. Theres a group called "Artist Blacksmiths NSW" they have a few members near you and seem to do hammer ins and open anvil nights near you, they have a facebook group and site http://www.artistblacksmithnsw.com/ if you want to get in contact with them. I'd invite you down to my place but it would be the blind leading the blind. Theres also a 2 day smithing demo in Redfern coming up in July if your interested

very nice video, look forward to many many more to come ;) Really looks like you have a nice set up and you know what you are doing very well

No markings is odd, most of the good ones have some sort of marks, Have you had a good look with the steel brush and a little bit of water to clean up the side. Does it have a nice long ring when you hit it with hammer? Is the rebound any good when you drop a ball bearing on it? Id say your not looking at making a mint off it if you sell it, face looks like its copped it a bit and a chunk missing (hard to see from pics) Is response to your "now what?" question, put it on a mount and start using it. Heat it and beat it like it owes you money :D

hehe like the bottom one, kinda looks a bit like a shark head. Maybe you could work with that and make a whole shark with that style of opener???(even if you just put a little eye on it or something lol)

cute little guy, might be a handy knife to incorporate into something you wear every day or just put it into you wallet. Just have to make a small sheath. Nice knife either way

Just confirming these pictures are of projects you have done, not projects that you would like to do as your first project?? As I feel it to be slightly insane to think someone new to forging could produce such a level of work off the bat. Or maybe I should jusy hang up my hammers now lol

as long at you tempered it back, honestly even if you didnt and it was at full hardness I cant see why a belt sander would not be able to take some metal off it, unless your belt is made of something really soft. Maybe try using some plane wet dry metal sand paper and see how you go, or a sharpening stone. Just out of interest when you try and sharpen what comes off the grinder, metal from the blade or bits off the belt ?