craig

I used a square tapered punch made from a spring.

Thats awesome!!! Those are pretty good looking weld. I need to start practicing soon. Are you using coal or gas?

Actaully I use home made charcoal, the wood I used when I did these was cedar 2x4's from a broken picnic table.

True, I just use the hole to hang it by...I have access to a lot of farm junk, so there's a lot of small, broken, only slightly useful bits of bar with holes in them I can use for punching without defacing my beautiful top-notch nail header ;)

Thanks !!
But I should probably clarify...these are my 4th and 5th successful welds...not attempts Hehe...I've made a mess of a lot of perfectly good scrap metal, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

I've only recently started successfully forge welding, here are a couple of "lap welds" ?? Not sure what you'd call them.
Just overlapping tapered ends.
I will have to make another key ring from a less rusted piece next time... My main goal with these was just getting practice judging heat and making some welds. These are my 4th and 5th forge welds. Thanks for looking.

The blade is from a ball bearing race, handle is chokecherry branch, the other piece is small chunk of wrought iron strap from a wagon.
Grinding is poor as I only have a little 6" bench grinder, but the knife works OK for a shop knife...Made it a couple months ago...I should've taken a picture of it right away before it got all dirty.

Made this out of a 9" x 1-1/4" x 1/4"
Some type of high carbon agricultural steel...from spark testing I estimated around 60 or so pts. carbon.
It was mainly for welding practice, as you can see it is not welded as far back as I wanted it to be.
Next one will be done slightly different.

Here's a nail header I made out of a small flat bar I found in a field...and a couple nails I made to test it out.

How come? Where where you having trouble with it?:confused:

Well, mainly just with the dustpan part of it
I have a handle ready...but for the actual shovel, I was using a small bit of sheet metal...It got very wrinkled (which I was kind of expecting) and I just couldn't get the wrinkles out evenly afterwards. I believe the term is "shrinking" Although I have never done it before.
How did you make yours ?

Very nice !! I recently tried a similar style of dustpan...it didn't turn out so good...

What steel would you guys normally use to make corkscrews ? Medium to high carbon ? Hardened or normalized ? I imagine it would be best to temper way back if hardened to lessen the chance of breakage ?

I use charcoal made from wood scraps (old lumber, dead trees, construction waste, whatever I can get basically) pretty much any kind of wood will work to start.
You'll find that some is nicer to work with than others, but I'm not too picky.
It doesn't smoke like coal does, but it doesn't burn as long either.

They would work, as will almost anything that has a decent amount of mass.
If you have access to a fork already, the biggest challenge is to get it sitting how you want it so it is nice and sturdy and stays in it's place.

I intentionally overheated a peice of mild steel once just to see what to look for.
It was nearly white and was like those sparklers you put on a birthday cake for about 2 seconds, I'm guessing higher carbon would not have to be white hot to burn.
The sparks didn't look like forge sparks.

I've never made a flint striker myself, but after reading how they work I'm going to have to try a couple...and see if I can get my hands on some type of flint-like stone.
Great photos and links guys !!

I make charcoal in the stove a couple of ways...Both involve a small stock pot or something of the like (I used to use a coffee can but the pot is nice cause it has handles)
First method is to burn a bunch of wood until it's only charcoal left, then scoop it out into the pot and put the lid on until it cools.
Second is to cut the wood into small bits and fill the pot, then once your fire is going good, put the pot (with loose-fitting lid) in the stove and keep wood burning around the pot until no more flame is coming out from the lid. When it's really cooking it looks and sounds like a blowtorch !! Then take it out and leave it sit until it's cooled.
The first method is less work, but you have to deal with more ash.
Second method is more work cutting it all up, but the charcoal is nice and clean.
In the summer I use a 1/3 of a barrel on the fire pit (one of the two pics in my gallery)

All look great !!
The first one looks like a handy little guy.
And the black palm looks very cool !!

How did you fuller that ?
Stuff like that happens to me if I rush...fuller too deep in spots and get too much of a corner, and then not smoothing things out properly.
Maybe got cold shuts from sharp edges folding over and then hammered in ?

Very nice !!
I had a similar project in mind...small carving tools out of haybine tines...I only made one so far just to test it out. It works ok, but sure isn't as pretty as those knives :)

The shack must be loaded with all kinds of goodies by now...we need to see !! :)

Well, one thing is for sure... Your first chain welding attempt looks A LOT better than mine did Your's is at least, for the most part, one piece.
I would still clean it up some more and try etching it to see how it looks.

When you say wire brushing do you mean by hand ? I would try a wire wheel on either a bench grinder or angle grinder if you have not done so already...?? I haven't done much with stainless but found wire wheel makes a huge difference when hand held brush has basically no effect.
Just a suggestion.
Certain stainless (I don't know what grade, but have seen sheet stainless turn orange with rust after being exposed to muriatic acid vapours) steel will corrode to a surprising degree with certain acids if not neutralized.

Do you have any pictures ? Sounds interesting to take a look.

I know what you mean :)

...and i even have a piece that i polished and etched that you can clearly see a hex bolt head in the steel (higher chromium content, etched out brighter than the surrounding steel)...

If you can post a picture of that, it would sure go a long way in explaining how A36 can be dramatically different than a plain carbon steel such as 1018... and also would be just plain neat to see ;)

Awesome blade !!

What part of the sheep??

Yes, what part of the sheep ?? Ram's horn ?
Or chunk of bone ?