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I Forge Iron

SnailForge

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  1. Yeah. But Einstein was quite an accomplished physicist with a thorough understanding of the area he was working in. He was not a simple patent clerk who one day woke up with the idea that everyone else was wrong. In blacksmithing terms, Einstein was an accomplished master smith before he attempted to forge a sword that is incredibly complex to make. He was not a beginner who attended a knife making seminar and then set out to make said sword. Btw, have you calculated how much this sword would weigh with the proposed dimensions?
  2. I just wanted to add that in terms of sharpening a straight razor, Murray Carters methods leave a lot to be desired. A straight razor is not a kitchen knife, and what works for his kitchen knives definitely doesn't work with a razor. We've discussed this video at large, and even had a 'dialogue' with Mr Carter but that didn't end well. And as someone else already indicated, 6000 is considered pretty coarse for a razor. 6000 to 8000 grit is usually the last step before going to a finishing stone, like a shapton 16000 grit, or some type of natural stone like a coticule, escher, or nakayama.
  3. Visit the workshop subform of www.straightrazorplace.com We have tons of information on making scales from any material you can imagine. wood, metal, epoxy, acrylic, ivory, horn, bone, etc. And of course a very friendly community.
  4. Sure. First off, there is no friction fit with the scales (scales is the term for what you call handles) When you close the razor, the spine touches the scales, but they don't lock or grip in any way. The scales are also not entirely straight. they 'bulge' a bit to the outside. The reason for this is that tang at the pivot is narrower than the shoulders (where the actual blade part starts) so it has to 'wrap around' if you understand what I mean. There are brass washers on the pivot pin, between the tang and the scales. this is to give it a way to open and close without touching the wood. The pin should be tight enough that the blade can remain in the 'open' position on its own. The tang is tapered, and runs into the blade beyond the point where the cutting edge starts. this is important because as the razor is honed, trace amounts of metal are removed from the spine. If it was not thicker than the tang, it would develop a spot with uneven wear, and make the razor wobble while it was honed, eventually. I know this is a small amount, but over time it would add up. Maybe not the first decade or 2, but razors should last centuries. My oldest razors for weekly use are 200 years old, and still in perfect condition. If you want to start making razors, I suggest you buy a couple of old ones on ebay. They don't have to be good anymore, just good enough that you can take them apart and inspect the geometry. But old brands from sheffield or solingen. those places had the best in the world in the heyday of cutlery. stick to those 2 areas. The bevels on the blade should be really narrow. You need to grind most of the way after heat treating, and end up with narrow bevels. 1 mm max. The bevels also need to be even, and identical on both sides. You hone with the spine on the stone. At 1000 grit until the edge grips your thumbnail along the entire edge. then you progress to 4000 and 8000. After 8000, it should be sharp enough that you can take a single hair, tap it to the edge, and it should be cut in 2.
  5. A lot of Tungsten and cobalt. Wouldn't that make it rather hard to work?
  6. It could shatter, but would most likely do so when the sharp bits were already stuck in something. I've read about people felling a tree with a frozen axe, and having a half-moon break out of the edge when it thunked into the wood. That is certainly annoying, but not that dangerous.
  7. 52100? That's good steel too. You just have to be a lot more careful about grain growth. In terms of ending up with a useable razor, it's a very good steel as well, but it is not commonly used. One reason is that it is harder to find the right thickness (although that could be solved with upsetting). Because of the required angle, the width - thickness ratio should be between 3/1 and 4/1. For a 7/8 wide razor, that means you start with 1/4 thick stock, but that is not commonly available in many places in 52100. 52100 is also significantly harder to grind after heat treating, so you end up making you own life miserable. And it's not like the added toughness adds value to the razorblade. It also makes it harder to hone. As I said, it is a fine steel, but overkill for the requirements and it causes more work. O1 is the standard steel used by most razor smiths. Or O1 / L6 pattern welded.
  8. This one not yet. But I have been shaving with them for 20 years now, restoring antiques for 6 years, making new ones for 3 years, and forging new ones for a year and a half. I am a straight razor enthusiast and admin of straightrazorplace
  9. Heat treatment is similar. You want 59 to 61 HRc. Softer and edge retention will not be great. Harder and it will be very hard to hone to a decent edge. You grind some before HT, but you leave at least 1 mm thickness at the edge. Preferably 2, because you really don't want it to warp. And thin also means a big risk of decarburization. That grind is roughly 3/4 hollow. If you are going to make a razor, I will gladly help. A razor looks simple, but the geometry is rather tricky and subtle. I am administrator of a large straight razor forum, and we have quite an active workshop forum. Every so often we get knifemakers dropping in, and what usually happens is they come in and post stuff and show their razors. And then we start pointing out that this won't work or that's not right, and we offer assistance and inspect prototypes to point out the specific problems. At that point, most of them leave in a bad temper because they 'know' that a professional knifemaker doesn't need lessons from a bunch of amateurs. :) Well, most of us are amateur or semi pro, though I know a couple who make customs for a living. Anyway, one of the key elements is the honing angle, which should be around 15 degrees, up to 17 degrees. No less, because the edge will be too thin, and the geometry will cause wide bevels which are again difficult to hone and look ugly. A second key element is that over the years, the spine will wear down ever so slightly. And at that point, the contact of the spine on the hone should still befree from the tang, meaning the tang doesn't touch the hone. otherwise, you will get uneven spine wear, wobbly hone contact and bad edges. You hone on 1000 grit until the edge grips your thumbnail along the entire length of the edge. Then you progress to 4000 and 8000, followed by a finishing hone. At that point, you should be able to take a hair, tap it gently on the edge, and see the end falling off. That is how sharp it should be, But as I said, send me a message and I will gladly give you as much information and help as you want on this subject.
  10. I forged this from O1 with the intention of making a razor with a big smile, no shoulders, and no visible boundaries between the different parts. I suggested ebony scales, which was ok with the buyer. But then he said 'you know what would be really cool? the symbol for Pi inlayed in coticule' (coticule is a belgian type of natural whetstone with a very fine grit, and popular for razors) ... Yeah sure. Why not? After all, it's not like that would present any difficulties whatsoever . However, it was a very interesting idea so I agreed for the fun of it. I made the scales, gave them a mild CA coating to prevent splitting, glued on a template, and then painstakingly cut out the shape of the symbol with a thin chisel and an exacto knife. I put in a drop of CA, and then pressed in ground coticule dust. After letting it set for a while, I used the knife to very carefully scrape away the excess dust. Then a layer of hairspray to lightly fixate the dust, and more scraping. Then a couple of layers of CA, sanding, more layers, more sanding, and then many many many more times the same. Doing the inlay work was more time consuming than forging and grinding combined. And that is not counting the multiple test inlays which I finished on scrap ebony before trying it for real on the thin scales. And during the actual inlay, I had to undo and redo some things a couple of times because it was not behaving quite like the test runs. It was quite a huge time sink, but I am happy with how it turned out. The spacer is bone. I thought about using coticule as well, but in solid stone it would almost certainly crack. And I don't have the equipment to make recon stone using epoxy and coticule dust.
  11. A blacksmith friend of mine who is also a doctor, told me that a good way to prevent this is to wrap a small elastic band around your fingertips, and then repeatedly spread your fingers apart. This way you exercise the muscles that counteract the ones that are used for gripping. do this regularly, and tune the strength of the elastic band to your muscle strength. Initially, you will want a very thin rubber band.
  12. Most didn't. I once read the report of the UK surgeon general about working conditions in the Joseph Rodgers factories around 1850s. JR was one of the best and most prestigious brands in Sheffield. They were 'cutlers to their majesties' for a long while. Anyway, it was as you said. Really bad working conditions. But the thing was that people themselves didn't care much, even though they knew it was bad. The surgeon general mentioned talking to a grinder who had spent all morning grading (true-ing) his new grinding wheel with a scraper. He was covered in thick grey dust from head to toe. Didn't even wear a handkerchief over his mouth. the doctor asked him why. He said that he knew he should, but didn't think to do it. Joseph Rodgers was iirc the first workshop in sheffield to install an outlet fan in each building to blow grinding dust out. This was considered revolutionary. The factory came up with the idea to lower mortality rates. Up until then,, it all stayed inside, and the physcal location of each grinding station was such that the most senior and prestigious people (razor grinders) had the cleanest places, and each next less prestigious station sat in the debris stream of the previous one. Fork grinders had the worst of the worst job, because they worked with very thin wheels, ejecting a lot of debris in a concentrated stream. The usual age for a fork grinder to die of lung failure was around age 27. No, this is not a typo. Twenty seven. No wonder people had kids when they were 14. If you wanted to raise them yourself, you had to start early to beat those odds. Compared to that, razor grinders had a very cushy job because they made it to 60. File makers had it bad too. Lungs healthy as can be, but they usually ended up with all kinds of neurological degradation because of lead poisoning. Files were chiseled on a lead plate, and people didn't wash their hands before eating.
  13. And the rebound can catch you by suprise. One of the first times I beveled a knife blade, I missed the blade just by a fraction, hitting the anvil instead of the blade, and I almost hit myself in the face with the hammer. Only reason I didn't was that I was lucky enough it went past my face, inches from my head :)
  14. Apparently the asking price is 60 euros. I've sent an email that I'd like to buy it. We'll see how it goes. Btw, I just told my wife yesterday, and she understood why I'd like to have it, even though I have a perfectly good anvil already.
  15. The ones they use for hot air tumble dryers and kitchen exhaust? They are fairly cheap.
  16. Also be sure to have someone there with a camera to put it on youtube. Because I'd like to see that :)
  17. I use a mixture of ashes, kitty litter, some refractory cement and water. Mix it all to a thick paste, and let it dry over a couple of days. Then gently fire it to get the rest of the water out. Works well for me, and is dirt cheap. Just keep in mind that the kitty litter will absorb a lot of water quickly, so mix everything first, and then add water. Otherwise mixing becomes very tiresome.
  18. 6 legs are bad. Because each of the points on the floor needs to be level, and logically, the more points on the floor you connect to, the less chance they'll all be level and as a result, a 6 leg table will be more wobbly than a 3 or 4 leg table. And you want the legs to be thick and strong so the table doesn't wobble like captain Jack Sparrow.
  19. Haha Yes. The little girl -not so little anymore, she's 8 now- likes to help me when I do things like that. They both do (the other one is now 5). To be honest, it's not like they do anything that really shaves time from what I am doing. But they enjoy themselves, feel useful and learn to work. Basically, at this point, everything they do is not so much about the output, but teaching them how to do things. I don't have sons, so I will teach my daughters how to use a drill , a hammer, etc. No 'damsel in distress' daughters for me. Plus I am a big teddy bear and I like to have kids around. When I am in my workshop grinding or filing or whatever, they are often there as well, wearing ear protectors. Hammering nails in a piece of wood, drilling holes, or playing 'kitchen' with wood chips and crumbled bricks :) I think I still have the pics of when the eldest was 2 or 3, and she was helping me bolt the legs of my workbench to the iron frame, using a hammer and spanner that were half her length :)
  20. Mine is easy. A fellow smith told me that it was traditional to name a forge after a local landmark or piece of geography. The part of my backyard when I built the shed that is going to be my smithy had a lot of empty snail shells, as wel as a significant number of live snails. After carefully moving one of the little roadrunners out of the way while digging, the name 'snail forge' was born.
  21. I would not mind 1 anvil falling from the heavens. Preferably in the back yard where the lawn is pretty soggy so it would not get damaged. But as a widespread phenomenon, I'd rather not have a rain of anvils. At least not directly over my house. I am too lazy to do the back of the envelope calculations, but the kinetic energy of an anvil dropping from the clouds would be high enough that it would not really slow down much before it'd hit the bottom of the basement...
  22. Well, if the seller of that old church windows anvil ever gets back to me, I might add a second anvil 'just because'. Because it is very old, is good enough a reason. Just as a working anvil, my current anvil is more than good enough :)
  23. This is what I built http://onikudaki.be/content/54-building-forge I think I only spent a couple of dollars on the kitty litter, and the rest was all scrap or free.
  24. That's fairly close to where I live. However, I already have one :)
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