craig

He's right...and just because you're young or new, doesn't mean you don't have skills or talent...we might end up asking YOU for tips !!

Prints ?? Not exactly sure what you mean. But how about taking a look at this- If that's not what you're looking for, try spending a few weeks reading the forums and browsing the gallery (that's what I did when I first joined) you'll find more info and ideas on this site than you can possibly imagine...maybe not specificaly related to what you're doing...but one thing leads to another... :P

Very nice, amazing detail !! Congratulations !! :)

Here for big game a broadhead needs to be at least 7/8" But for small game there is no restrictions...so check your local laws. But from a smithing point of view, it looks excellent !! Nice job !!

Yeah, that's what I had always thought too...and if it did make a difference, it couldn't be very much. I just notice once in a while people say they do it, that's all.

-Annealing- I've wondered about this from time to time when people say they anneal first before forging... I always thought annealing will make the steel as soft as possible for cold working but it's still a lot harder than it would be at forging temperatures... does a previous annealing step really make it any softer for when it is re-heated to forging temperature ? -Steel selection- Fancy tool steels have never really seemed all that enticing to me...my "tool steels" are recycled springs and plain carbon steel (high, med, and mild) because they are cheap if not free and easy to work/heat treat. -Your chisel- I was in the same situation when I made the hot cut hardy I am using now...so I used a thinner leaf spring and it sits in the hole corner-to-corner...it may not look like the traditional square-shanked ones...but it works well and was easy to make with the materials I had on hand. Your's looks great !! And it will surely cut hot steel even though there is a good chance it is "only" plain carbon steel(that stuff is not useless)...that chisel will last longer than you think. :)

Like Phil said, it's the fuel that wouldn't work for me...my "shop" is not insulated, and though I do have a wood stove, it would take too long to warm up propane tanks as opposed to throwing the charcoal into the forge

If there are farms nearby you should be able to find things like discer blades, rake tines, broken baler pick-up teeth, knife-sections (a little small but maybe useful for something) springs, shafts, bearings, and old cultivator shovels (one of my favorites) :rolleyes:

True enough...but whatever is in my cattails is probably (to some extent) also in my well water so for the amount of them I'll eat, if any, shouldn't be too bad. I just wanted to start fires anyways :P

That's alright !! My first "leaf" looked like a flat piece with a square thingy on it for a stem

PS. I like your forge. I've never used gas since it really wouldn't work for me in the winter...but it looks easy to close up and even to change the inner dimensions if you need to...just re-stack the bricks and you got a new forge !!

If you want to keep them nice and round and free from hammer dings and flat spots, try heating just a few inches of the end and then squeeze it straight in a smooth-jawed vice...then just keep working your way along until you have a convenient length of bar you can hold on to with your hand. Makes forging points on the end a lot easier if you don't have good tongs to hold the pieces (I know because I don't really have "good" tongs) ;)

Cool, I have some cattails too I'll have to remember that for next year...as for eating, supposedly you can grind them up into a flour as well. I'm pretty sure I read that in the SAS survival handbook. I'll have to re-read it.

Thanks for the comments !! It was fun and I plan on making more. I tried catching sparks with a few different things the day I made it because I didn't have charcloth...I wasn't able to get it to work. I was getting sparks, though I can't say whether or not I was getting lot's since I've never used one before... And I actually did try with a piece of charcoal too with no luck...but maybe now I'll have to try it again. I've read that dried fungus will also work...anybody know of anything else ?

I made a striker a few days ago out of some cultivator shovel steel, spent some time practicing striking on small bits of quartz I found...then last night I made some charcloth out of old jeans and fired up my wood stove with it. I was pretty happy when the glow and smoke burst into flame !! The striker is nothing fancy, a small curl for the handle...just basically did it to test the steel. It was water quenched.

I made a little fire poker that I use for my forge I can't remember the exact length but it's not that long since I didn't want it all flimsy, something like 2 feet or less...it was a lot of work by hand

Ok, so you want high carbon chromium steel ? You could try to make some type of electric arc furnace to do it on a small scale...I have no idea how, and I'm sure it would be much more expensive than buying 5160...but then again doing it yourself isn't always about being cheap and easy Good luck !!

Hehe, straight for the jugular :P

I've read that members on this forum have made steel from wrought iron by packing strips or small bits in a metal container with powdered charcoal...the carbon from the charcoal is absorbed into the iron and I think there are even formulas that tell you how long it will take for the carbon to migrate through a certain thickness of iron at given temperatures. Here is a good discussion

That's a neat idea, but yeah...heavy

Yeah, and I'm sure people who see them in your friend's homes ask where they got them !! You should try making some without the stand and stick them into a block of wood together...kinda like the glass wheat field...but not glass...and not 14,000 of them http://www.reginaplainsmuseum.com/glassWheatfield.php

That looks super nice Mark I like it !! And the size is pretty much to scale with all the rain we had this year I know what you mean about being your own worst critic...I look at stuff I've made and if I seen it for sale in a shop I probably wouldn't pay for it...because I can make it (and make it better the next time)...but a lot of people can't. I'm going to use Brian Brazeal's horse-head bottle opener as an example of the many things I've seen that I think are just amazing and beyond my capability...but then I show my awful first corkscrew to people at work and they find it just fascinating. So I think it all depends on how you look at it.

That is cool :-) Congrats on the transfer. Maybe someday she'll bring home some new experimental steel samples for you to test out...

What steel did you use ? That tang will have your handle offset higher than the spine of the blade. It's crossed my mind to put holes in a blade before but I haven't tried it yet...I'd like to see how it turns out.