Nobody Special

Looks cool. Sp;lit the teeth up with a chisel, and curl, and you could make a pretty sweet Cthulu too.

I put a little bit of a taper where the peen will be, and it's lightly wedged into the square tubing to keep it from rolling while I'm punching.

No hardy on my anvil since the heel's broken off, and I got tired of it moving on me. The tubing's just sitting there, no attachments, but between it and holding the punch in one hand, I had a lot more control. With smaller stock I could ding the tubing in a little for a smaller diameter. Theres a forum for it under shop tricks.

If I worked there, I think it would have gotten a little smaller... :)

Not much. :)

First time? Nicely done. Looks much better than my first experiments.

My favorite twist is the reverse twist. Just like it sounds, twist one way for part of it, then twist the rest the other way. Use a little water to cool the part you're not twisting if needed.

And yes, I wanted to show that I copied the shape from the above Benchmade.

Nice! Did you split it, or forge weld four rods and do a reverse twist?

The ones I let them bust had all the consistency of coke or pumice. Stuff you could literally tear apart in your bare hands. Not teaching them good habits, but not splinter inducing.

Also, they do eight things a day that would stop your heart if you're not used to it. At one point during that crushing I had to stop because I looked up and those two were 20 feet up a tree that was NOT safe.

The four year old let himself out of a locked room when mommy turned her back for a minute the other day and was outside, up a ladder almost to the roof I was working on when I was coming down for more shingles. The five year old has a positively amazing talent for finding buried beer bottles and making broken glass.

Despite close watching, lumps bruises and splinters are the norm in our house. This? Safer than five things I have to stop them from doing in an afternoon.

Looks great, got a make on the side? Or a group of 3 numbers slightly spaced?

Go Army, beat Navy!

Very cool.....and at the same time, going to give me nightmares. :)

I agree with Kerry, I'd keep it warm at night, and day.....oil it down when it's getting tired......Introduce it to my friends, mister hammer, and mister post-vice......

Nice collection, boss.

For the bow portion, or prod, I didn't forge this one, because two years ago, I wasn't good enough at heat treating to make a decent spring. I probably will on the next one, especially since I'd like to make one with more of a recurve. It's cut down and ground from a leaf spring.

I did at least forge the trigger parts, but that was early into my forging. I also made a stirrup for it, and it cracked under stress (see, I told you I was bad at heat treating back then). The nut is a piece of hickory, with mild steel pins driven in where the trigger meets the pawl. I tried metal wedges, but they tended to come out or split the nut. They might have worked better with more pre-drilling before driving them in.

I used some elements of earlier, primitive crossbows, like the lashing for the bow, and the tied in nut. Doing it again, would definitely add a proper lockplate with pins for the nut and maybe make a block to enclose most of the top. It was definitely the hardest part to make work right without slipping or breaking.

Piece of angle iron, sparked for high carbon, but exact content unknown. 1/4"  thick, 1.5 on each side, so about 3" flattened, and around 6 or 7 inches long.

Dear lord, put a handle on it and hang it up. Too pretty to use!