Nick

I just realized something that seems to have been overlooked: eye and ear protection!

The bare minimum is hammer, tongs, anvil shaped object, bucket for quenching, and a simple forge. But I will submit a more practical minimum as also including a hacksaw to cut material to length and a file to clean burs or for shaping.

I keep walkways clear (mostly), and where I stand is always clean. The problem is shelf surfaces. The work table behind my anvil, the vice table, and my chuck boxes all tend to pile up. I clean them when I have to or, in the case of my vice table, when shaking or vibration could knock stuff to the floor.

I put a new rivet on the joint, and it works much better now. I also redid the etching, and oiled it. I'm happy with how it turned out. Here's a picture of it as it is now, and fully opened. It's 8 5/16" long when opened.

I've never used a wax/oil mix finish, but I've read it should be about 1:1.

Couple firsts here, my first attempt at pattern welding and my first folding knife. I don't make a lot of knives, but the end product is always satisfying when they work out. The billet for the handle was mild steel-wrought-mild-wrought-mild, welded, twisted, folded, twisted again and then forged to shape. There's a small crack down at the bottom, from what I can see it's the only one. It's not rusted, the flash on my camera tends to make any bare metal surface brown. The blade is forged from a car coil spring, I left it a little rough instead of polishing it perfectly. It's got a fair amount of spring to it, I think I did all right with the tempering. The one problem, though, is the rivet. I riveted it to tight, so I can barely get it opened past te point in the photo, and when it's opened it's nearly impossible to close with my bare hands. So I'm going to have to remove it and re-rivet it. I'll take the opportunity to improve the etching on the handle.

I watched a Modern Marvels on the History Channel earlier today about "Barbarian Weapons". It was typical History Channel medieval fare, lots of broad generalizations and serious oversimplifications (the HC sometimes have good programs, but I'm usually disapointed by anything they have on the Middle Ages ) However, early in the program they showed a smith named Hector Cole forging a Celtic sword, and I thought this was outstanding: "When you put the metal in the fire, your mind goes in with it." Cheers, Nick

Actually, I'd be more concerned about the price of tea in pricing than the Dow Jones :)

I was never very good at math, what's DJIA?

A concertina has over 200 parts?! :o

Really tiny hammers, that is I've made Thor's Hammers before, using the tutorial at V

In the spring and fall the city of Marquette has a cleanup, where you pile your spring cleaning garbage on the curb and the city will pick it up. The fun part is, there'll be stuff on curbs for a couple weeks (different parts of the city have their pickup at different time) and if it's on the curb, it's fair game So I keep seeing trucks going by full of stuff. One man's trash is indeed another man's treasure. I'm leaving the country for at least a year in September, so I haven't been scrounging as much as I would otherwise, but I picked up some bike chains (thought I'd give chain damascus ala Billy Merritt a try), and some other pieces of steel and plate.

You may be a blacksmith if...you've ever made a tool, to make a tool.

As far as terminology goes, we call them crow bars or pry bars around here. And as for the stones, I was going to suggest something similar to what habu68 posted. I've used something like that to dig postholes in the Garden Peninnsula for the Boy Scouts. The Garden Peninsula is about 1' of dirt covering a bed of limestone, then more dirt, so a good rock-breaking aparatus was needed. Ours was a solid bar with a thick disk welded about a foot from the tip. It then had a piece of heavy walled pipe with two handles that was raised and slammed down onto the disk. It worked well with limestone, though you may need something a little beefier with slate.

Mine started life as a barn. Then it was an airplane hanger (to this day it's called the Hanger as much as the shop). Then it was a storage building. Now it's a blacksmith shop, with a small area for storage.

That's the very same scale I use, except that instead of "high" I use "bright."

If you make a nice, big beehive fire, and then poke a hole not only in front but in the back also, the resulting cave will allow you to heat a section more efficiently than a trough. Still, it will only heat a section at a time. Heat part, move it and heat the next section, etc. The parts you heated first will cool, but will still be hot, and eventually by moving the piece back and forth through your cave you'll get a (reasonably) even heat.

Bronze can be forged, but it's best to know the exact properties of the bronze you're working with, or have a piece to experiment on, before you start a project. Some bronzes crumble under the hammer. Bronze, being a copper alloy, also work hardens quickly and must be kept in a soft state when working or it will crack. But despite the difficulties, it's a versatile material and, I think, a better choice than brass for a lot of things.

You can hold a forging hammer in the left hand? :confused: ;)

Here's a couple pictures of my favorite forging hammer. As I said before, it was hand made, and is the best balanced hammer I've ever held. It was my wedding present from the man who made it.