craig

Thanks for the comments !!
It was fun and I plan on making more.

Looks good to me too. I've found a little plain old broken charcoal works in place of char cloth. The pieces just need to be large enough they don't blow off when you blow on it.

Frosty the Lucky.

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

Adding carbon is easy. Any coal fire will add carbon if you hold the steel near welding temps and there are ways to add carbon at lower heat. Its adding the alloying elements that increase the hardness and defeat corrosion, such as chromium, that i wanted to do.

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

I have a couple of wall hangings with some of those glass heads of wheat in them. They are very nice.

I was actually thinking of making a sheave of wheat like the old threshing crews used put through the thresher, but it would probably take more time and material than I have available. Plus, it would weigh 200 pounds...

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

I started making smaller scale versions of these about 2' high out of 1/4" round stock, and they have been huge hits when I give them as gifts.

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.

That drill press rattled my brain for a few minutes there until I decided to look up the mechanics of it when I couldn't figure it out... Neat !! I never would have thought of that.

The only other thing I can think of would be one of those round hacksaw blades but I don't know if it would cut evenly on something 5" thick.

Grant's idea seems like a great solution. The only reason I can think of to prefer a square hole right now, over Grant's idea, is that square shank hardy tools are commercially available.

Sorry, I mis-read your post slightly when I relplied...you're talking shape and I'm talking size...maybe I gotta make some coffee. But I guess my main point is still sorta on topic :)

Grant's idea seems like a great solution. The only reason I can think of to prefer a square hole right now, over Grant's idea, is that square shank hardy tools are commercially available.

One thing that is better than commercially available is easy-to-make...I don't mean to say that if it's not easy it's not worth the work...But if it takes half the time to make a nice fitting tool most people would be more inclined to make their own, with a 1/2" hardy hole you could make tools to fit it quicker and with greater ease.

My current project is beating a pair of tongs out of some 5/8's or so coil spring...You make it look so easy
Thanks for sharing !!

Cool video, I liked his stake tool...and also how they weld just that tiny little bit of steel on for the edge.

Not sure about the type of steel...but a big chisel like is nice for keeping your hand away from the heat.
The first few that I made were much too short to use comfortably with hot steel.

I think those are super cool, if you make them from high carbon steel you'll have the best spike knives around !!

Thanks for the comments guys !!

There we go...

Thought this would make a nifty Father's Day gift...for those super hard to open bottles...Dad's a farmer so he likes things extra heavy
Pretty high carbon from a flat bar with a hole in it, found it out in the field. Ended up being over 9 1/2 " long once finished.
I had to test it on a twist-off

Cool blade and handle !!
It does have a sort of military style to it.
Nice job !!

People don't realize the amount of work that goes into even a small site

You're probably right...I would assume the guys running the show spend very little time actually "enjoying" the forum...so the rest of us CAN :)

As previously mentioned...nice job on the finish !! They look like sweet little knives.

Too bad, it looks like he's not willing to ship overseas....I guess I won't be able to retire my tomoto soup-can anvil quite yet :(