craig

That looks like a beautiful little handy tool to carry with you all the time !!
I think knives like these can be more practical than a 1-1/2 foot long bowie most times.
There's always a use for them.
Nice work !!

Hey Ron I like it, the butt cap reminds me of a shot shell. I think I will make one using a shot shell.

Those are neat little knives, I like them !!

I like the look of those siding boards !! Now all you need is a little ironwork on the outside and it would be sweet
It is bigger than my "shop" (which is actually a crusty old granary) But should still be cozy enough in the winter.
Windows on either end would be good for flow-through removal of bad air if you can do it, depending on how you have the inside set up.
Thanks for showing !!

That's a nice looking blade !!
Personally I would keep it rough-ish too More character.
What diameter thickness of spring did you start with ?

I spark tested that bucket tooth that I mentioned...and it sparked like mild steel...??? I'm thinking it must be some type of alloy for toughness or whatever, but doesn't appear to have much carbon.
Will be tricky to heat treat without knowing what it is.

That looks awesome !!
I think I have years of welding practice left before I could do anything like that.
Handle looks great too, what is it ?
Also, what steels are used in the blade ?

I've never made a knife from one, I do have a bucket tooth though from a payloader that I haven't done anything with yet...so I would be interested to see how it goes with your tooth.
Maybe just clean it up so you can check if it has any small cracks from rapid cooling from getting wet.
If it still looks OK I would continue.
But as for hardening and tempering, it may be somewhat tricky if you haven't done some testing with a sample first.
If you decide to finish forging the knife, try to get your hands on another of the same tooth so you can experiment with it without wrecking your blade.

Yeah, I think that should be plenty sturdy enough too...but if you're still worried, just try it out !!

Nice job. It's plenty heavy enough. I forge pokers from 3/8 sq. , unless someone wants it heavier. Most folks don't. As far as you thinking it's too light, I've never had anything come from my anvil that I was satisfied with. I'm sure a lot of others have the same feelings.

What is a railroad knuckle pin ?

That looks pretty good, what size stock is it made from ?? I just recently made one for the mother in law very similar to that...they wanted it 4 feet long for the fire pit...and since my forge welding skills are very minimal and I didn't have time to mess around with trying, I flattened the poker end of 3/8 stock since I was cutting with hacksaw so it would lose less metal when I cut down the center. I'm not sure if that really saves all that much metal...but if you're splitting with chisel or hardy then you lose next to nothing.

As long and you're not using that hook to drag trees around the yard it should work for what it was made for.
Thanks for sharing !!

Useful working knives are the best kind !!
And it looks great too, awesome work !!

Well, I suppose it could be...I didn't weigh it. You can sort of see in the picture it says 85 lbs. on the side (per yard I'm guessing) so I did some quick math to get an approximate weight per inch and in the end came out with 66 lbs.
So it must be a lighter grade rail.

I think chop saw or any kind of grinder has a lot of xxxx in it...not sure if you want to (or even can) melt that stuff and mix it in with your scale.
I've never tried it, I think it was Thomas Powers who has posted on here that he's done the bloomery furnace thing.

That looks good, I like the wrap !!

I work in a large bakery, and live out of town...I take all the broken pallet scraps to make charcoal out of it, and have a small but steady supply of clean canola oil (about 10 L/week from the bottoms of barrels) which I have recently started using as a large portion of fuel for the heat to make the charcoal...being on the farm also makes broken machinery a handy source of junk too, with which I have just finished putting together an "OK" forge.

Shop vac, but I think its overkill. I may try a hairdryer.

What do you use to cut out the blanks ?
Angle grinder ? Hacksaw ?

Nice !! I really like the burned/scaled look where it is not ground.
I have always been a fan of the rough forged look.

Those look great !!

Get a tetanus shot BEFORE digging around too much...but since most won't...get one as soon as you cut yourself:)

I have a small "swing set" chain nailed to my stump that drapes over the anvil,
but instead of a weight, I have a piece of 1" x 4" attached to the end of the chain. The chain lacks a couple of inches of reaching the floor, so I can step on the 1" x 4" board to hold down my work.
I hope this makes sense!

Hi, Craig, and welcome to IFI. Yep, this is the right place to come for BS'ing ...er.. Blacksmithing of course. Do you know anyone at IPSCO? Or what used to be IPSCO, it's EVRAZ now. I work for what used to be the Tubular Division of IPSCO here in Houston.

Hey everyone,
Fairly new here, but have already found a lot of good reading.
I just wanted to say that so far, this looks like a great site with lot's of friendly people !!
Keep up the excellent work !!
Craig.