jake pogrebinsky

Markb,the ice run can be anything from completely,eerily silent,to a deafening rumble,and occasional rifle-shot of a drift log getting caught just so.But usually,most of the time,there's just the loud hissing/rustling of the ice rubbing on itself,with frequent tingly sound of candle-ice collapsing. It can mask it's immense force,everything moving smoothly,and fairly quitely,till it encounters some resistance.Then,things happen,loud noises among them. Here's a link to the news of an unfortunate village of Eagle,they got it very bad,a few days ago:Ice flood tears up Alaska town - Weather- msnbc.com

Actually,to continue the thought(with humble apology to Glenn,who's wondering by now what to do with this thread.Maybe we need a new section of the forum:Blacksmiths Annonymous,or,There IS a way to quit blacksmithing): The blend of pre-agrarian survival,and the severely Specialist trade of forging metals,is as schizophrenic as it gets.The former,a life in compliance with the Creation,the latter-an open defiance of God's prerogative to substantially modify the existing physical reality. According to some directions of thought during the Dark Ages,forging was the first of the Three Diabolical Trades,the other two being the Musicianship,and Fortunetelling! In for a penny-in for a pound!Wish i could play,and foretell the future,woulda been cool!

Thanks,Charlotte,Frosty,all's fairly well so far.Thewater level's holding,ice cruising by.And yep,Frosty,i've evacuated all my tools.Blacksmithing contributes regretfully little to my survival here,yet,i'm in love with it more and more as the years go by,and make it a priority.Silly,really:Quite an expensive and complex hobby for a hunter/gatherer...

Justa quick update:The City boys pulled through with their loader,and got my hammer up on the dike.Now it's serving a much needed purpose by being a dog picket anchor.Lonesome-looking,the furthest north(?) LG in N.America... The ice started running last night,but,so far,very peacefully.

Sorry,it's entirely off the topic,but i did want to horrify evertone by imagining the poor LittleGiant,in this same predicament,probably by tomorrow. Thank you,Frosty,for your kind thoughts,but it's probably toast-it's in a direct path of ice.All the equipment in the village is busy elsewhere,on chores very much like this.The high place to move it to is also not certain.I've a boat stationed there for the next stage of attempted survival,and the LG certainly would not fit in the boat.But,like with all things of this nature,it may come to nothing,or be an unprecedented disaster.The population is to assemble at the school,another elevated patch,and it's flat roof-even higher.It may be a sight!

All you guys are very kind.Steve-i can't even READ instructions,let alone write any,in any (comprehensible) language!Any more,it's Chinese only in a sense of "odd" or "puzzling"! Actually,i must admit that i've carved up more'n one scandinavian scribed cabin,mostly with hand tools,so that the experimentation wasn't entirely random. Frosty,hi there!No,it's nothing that wholesome as a native wood.It's a chunk of an air-dried hichory from Superior Hardwoods in Fairbanks,that i shamelessly mail-ordered,and what great stuff it is!I could never had gotten away with an eye that shape(modified my boy's axe drift)with birch-it would last about an hour... We're about to get nailed here with the ice-run.I've gotten everything somewhat to the high ground(relative concept),exept my poor LG25.I weep for it,for the water level now is already 10' above the disasterous '37 flood,and the ice hasn't moved yet. You just got a hammer-fantastic!Congratulations!See how the universe is balanced-one hammer more,one less...Life is good here,wouldn't live any other way.As hard on the machinery as the River is!

I generally don't hold with reforging tool heads,but,just this once,for expediency mostly,went ahead and done it. It was a "blacksmith"hammer,2lbs,but after cutting the pein off,and welding on an edge of 52100(skew-welded),it weighs in at 1.8lbs,so,your basic boy's axe weight. The Chinese no longer are as sloppy as they used to be about the tool production.This hammerhead was not scrap,it sparked like some med.C,and even could've been some tool steel,like W-1,or some other simple alloy. I went ahead and welded on the bit anyway,because i needed more mass forward. The order was for a small carving hatchet,so i looked around at the usual run of Sweedish,and similar "sculpting" axes,and derived what i could out of all that.Thus the peculiar point-forward attitude,and also the funny looking handle.The idea was to have a number of holds practical for using someting like this.How well it will work?Will have to wait for the user's review. Reinventing the wheel for every order is exciting,but tiresome,sometimes i daydream of working at some shop where the shape of a tool is set in stone by countless generations.But,i really have no idea just how deadening that may be,suspect that quite a bit.And,of course,i'm forever grateful for ANY job that comes along.And so it goes...

Coincidentally,i've just finished reading this very dissertation(most of the 1000-some pages of it,anyway).It is,indeed,quite interesting,though i found it disappointing(as per usual),how the little interest the author manifests toward the particulars of metalworking.It is the old,seemingly unbridgable gap betwixt the academia and the empiricist. Too bad,the two have a world to gain from a closer mutual exchange. The original is also becoming outated by now,possibly the new published version deals with that.

Welding depends on too many factors to be able to tell just like that,from the info that you provide.Easiest is to test it-with a separate,poker-like chunk,as it's heating up,you will be able to tell when it gets sticky.

Steve,good for you,to accomplish something like that,very cool.Many years of careful,systematic work,is what allows one to eventually get into the neat stuff such as this. You too,dablacksmith,my hat's off to both you guys,and thanks for talking some about it.

I can't but imagine that somewhere in the archves of this forum there's a ton of ideas.Very briefly,your drift=your proposed handle shape,minus the allowance for expantion when hot,scaling,and what finish filing that you plan on doing.So,find a handle that you like,and there's the 3-D size/shape of the drift... But then again,it all depends on a type of an eye,too:Some you drift to finish size,some you work on the drift to shape.The more work-the smaller the drift,as you'll be forging against it,enlarging the eye.Best to think it through beforehand.

Here's a link to some info that i found very helpful:Steel designations and common steel compositions - British Blades :: Custom Knife Making And,Dm-listen to Steve,get off the dead spot that you're on,and try to educate thineself in matters metallurgical SYSTEMATICALLY. What was that Gaellic saying about how dangerous it is to annoy the blacksmith?Anyway,figure it out! Here it is:"An uair a th

If you look at the Pulaski head carefully,you'll see that it was built almost like a standard double-bit.Then one side was fullered narrowly-set,right close to the eye,and given a 90 deg.twist.The eye was punched with the standard immense force(making all the modern store-boughten axes tough to duplicate),and,thus was it made, without welding whatsoever...

I must differ from you,gentlemen(and not ONLY out of contrariness!).Personally,i find that FORGING a sword is easier than many other kinds of forging:It's essentially simple and uniform,and the size actually helps-you can avoid using tongs,and have a much better feel for what's going on.Unfortunately,forging a sword is a ridiculously small portion of MAKING a finished sword blade.all the endless and endlessly complex other processes make it the supreme challenge,not even mentioning the often specialised equipment. I'd also not be at all surprised if i was told by an experienced sword maker that a very large part of the chore is intellectual-the metallurgy ins and outs,the HT of it all,and the sequencing of the stages.So those that must challenge themselves thus,would be best advised to study VERY long and hard.Entirely apart from the hammer control and other areas common to all forging. Naturally,i'm full of beans as i'm not a swordsmith,but recently did have to forge a 3'machete out of a leafspring(had to draw the whole thing out,both thichness and lengh wise,make my own stock),and forge in all the 32"of bevel.Was relaxing and repetative,i'd say,pleasant in the controllability of it's simple shape.I didn't need to taper it distally,but can't see how it would've added much,tapering is...Tapering! All that with my endless respect for swordsmiths-they're a breed apart,for sure!

RossFL:I'm sorry,but at least a part of your problem is the all important PLANNING. Forging thin stock on edge is tough to begin with,and tougher for someone with the lack of skill(yet). That pretty photoshop diagram is NOT the real life.You WILL end up with some fishmouth,it's the nature of,basically,trying to upset the stock that is bound to cool off right where you least need it too. The task that you set yourself is not the best technical solution(nor is welding,but it's even a longer story).Therefore,it's certainly not a productive beginner exercise. All sorts of info is available on the net,however,your time would be better spent practicing basic forging,and,as a result,you'll gain an ability to judge the REASONABLENESS,as well as a DOABILITY,of a given forging task. I hope it doesn't sound harsh-it's not meant to,at all.Strictly information,and,without having to say it-from my experience only. The very best of luck,Jake.

Looks like a practical tool for trail work.Mostly what people use,of this type tool,is Pulaski,and this looks much lighter than it's 5 lbs.If you're happy with it's shape/weight,the only thing that one can improve is the eye-shape.If you were to cone out the top,making it a compression eye,like a pick-axe,it would be easier to deal with getting a new handle.Also,it would be easy to un-handle,for sharpening,packing,or whatever.

Hi,Charlotte,great to hear of your interest in the subject.Frankly,the info available to us nowadays,is so vast,that it's tough to incur anything definite...It seems to me,that the American axe(made locally or imported),kept gaining in poll weight,and becoming more narrow in profile,as the 1800's wore on.Makes sense,as the trees were large,and the amount of wood in chopping the V-notch felling can add up in a hurry. Most of those Norsk axes in the link above are,however,"broad",or hewing axes,single-bevel like other ww chisels.American hewing strategies also did not stand still,and many styles of those tools became obsolete after a short time here.The goose-wing is typical of that. There's a huge number of factors.One of the most confusing(for me)is that in 1700' and 1800's both, HUGE quantities of cheap,often nasty,imports from the manufacturies in England and Germany,were being brought to the States(Home Depot of the time-some things never change). But the type of work,the type of metal available,and much more,had a bearing on the tool design. That old Ukranian axe was made by people poor in ore and charcoal both-but rich in agriculture and time.So building not for trade,and not worrying about making steel,they cementated the edge,vs the welded-in bit,the design of the whole reflecting it.Bogdan,in his experiments,manages to case-harden the edge to the depth often exeeding that of the steeled tools,in his cooking fires,of an evening,in a clay box full of coal dust,as he cooks his grub in the same time. Just rambling,sorry for the longwinded and unfocused thoughts...

Yep,those are all tough issues.Welding a collar can be quite tough.On the transition,as well as the socket,it being so thin.Brazing was used,historically,but so was welding.Many old methods depended on the type of material.People long ago,starting from bloom,had the advantage of all the slag inclisions acting as flux.But it was a tremendous workout to get that chunk of bloom anywhere near the final forging stage.It had to be "refined" for hours,till intermixed very fine.Most of our wrought iron,like the Navy grade of the 40-ies or so,is still too coarse.

Yep,i planned that transition poorly.The spring was 3" by 3/8" thick,and i was hoping that it would upset into more than it ended up doing.Welding the spring with all the Cr is not much fun,but next time will have to fold it and weld it up. So,you've isolated that part in the middle with a gillotine,good for you,worked well.Great when things work the way you mean for them to! And no,i don't go after the critters manually,some younger guys are into that.I do a bit of work locally,mostly in trade for the meat.Spear hunting is not done much here anymore,the gun is too efficient.I should have a photo of an old one,forged in Siberia,that was used around here.If i can find it...It's surprising how small it is,the blade not much over 6".

Jimmy seale,i'd not hesitate to apologise if i've done someone wrong.I've not been sarcastic yet,but very earnest:There's not any one right way to slit and drift an eye,as an example,but the discussion CAN go on,about where the different attempts lead to.If someone,young or old,publishes their work here without a desire to hear what others think about it,maybe they can specifically indicate that critique is not welcome.Otherwise,i reserve the right,in speaking to the membership in general,to point out the faults in their work-(as i see it,and as full of beans as i is)something that i,and many others,are actually o.k with,where our own work is concerned. And,"master"?Of my own thoughts and actions,for sure!Forging-wise,mastery is when you quit learning(read-dead).

Once again,dablacksmith,you've maintained an enviable(to me)degree of control on this.Right on.Here's an interesting batch of historic blades from a museum in Sweden:S

Sure,dablacksmith,you're right about some people having a different purpose,not wanting to hear that they didn't work hard enough at something,or any criticism at all.It's tough for me to imagine:i love forging so much that i'll always put learning above my hurt feelings...But it's different for others. I liked the way that you dealt with those spears,by the way,esp.that central thickening.I thought that you must've used top&bottom tool like some use on pickets,or the like.You did clean and competent there,anyhoo,respect. Also,of course i know what you mean about some early work:Some stuff that i was really proud of,i'd now prefer to not even see,embarassing to the hilt,awful,man...normal reaction,i suppose(or hope). Here's some assorted junk from my past half-dozen years.More and more of that is beginning to seem goofy to me now,as well.It's a good thing that i've finally learned enough computer stuff to edit it once in a while. http://picasaweb.google.com/jakesiron

Now this:Bilo , utstilling av

My hearfelt thanks to you,Steve,for understanding what i so crudely try to express.I'll try to substanuate my view,as much as i can.Here's a link to a thread on one of the Russian forums:

Thanks,Frosty,for showing at least an alternative to the (inexplicable but ubiquitous)spike.I choose to take it as a tactful way of indicating that the rr spike,let's face it,is just not an appropriate stock,in any way,to practice forging a handled tool.Period. I understand that you need to start somewhere,but it might as well be an appropriate somewhere,or the learning itself suffers,and what is learned,if anything,is questionable. I apologise beforehand to anyone that may feel let down.Especially as i'm a newcomer to this forum,as well as being poorly socialised,and not a native English speaker to boot.But,i MUST say this:Much of what's shown on this(and all other forums),especially the rr spike objects,is exeeding poor work.My concern is with the developing craft of the beginner.The planning,ALL important element of forging process,is often at fault.As a result,NO lesson is learned,the potential progress stagnates.Out of tact and politeness everyone choruses:"Nice...nice...".Because of that,this sort of "nice" work drags on for years...Not much is "nice" about a mis-concieved,and,therefore,malformed,forging operation.The whole idea of forging,vs fab'ing,is the differentiating of mass.A head of any handled tool is a great opportunity to study that.If one's shy of skill for that yet,they need to be helped.Encouragement in proceeding in an incorrect direction is not helpful,well-intentioned attitude notwithstanding. Again,strictly my opinion,and absolutely subject to any degree of CONSTRUCTIVE criticism.