Rob Browne

That was going to be one xxxx of a knife!!

Daniel, Welcome to IFI. I look forward to your input and your work speaks for itself. Cheers

I like to forge because I can take any piece of suitable steel of any shape and size and change it to make the knife of the design I want and grinding is minimal but still necessary. So its a combination of both for me.

The complete smithy is a bit on the pricey side!!

Now that is one sweet knife!

Move over, it would be on its way to Australia if I had the readies. Just think what you could do with all those curves!

Welcome to IFI JJ. Awsome spider, enough to give you the creeps Problem section for your question and away we go with it. Cheers

G'day James. Welcome to IFI and we look forward to your input to the discussions. Hopefully your new forge will quickly go from a limp to a full on run Cheers

Hand cranker for me, total control. Not much good with coke though as it goes out if there is no air pumping through it.

Welcome to IFI Jeremy, lots of great info here for you, but you already know that Now you are in for a great ride so hang on! Cheers

G'day Tom and welcome to IFI Looks like you are up and away, especially if you are already trawling your way through the site for info. Cheers

Welcome to IFI Toby Lots of good info here for you to used and look forward to your input. Cheers

Les, Welcome to IFI. As for your pricing problem, I would have a range of prices from quick/cheap things that you can punch out in minutes to really good stuff. People will often drop a few dollars on a cheap article and only look at the good stuff but at least that way you are getting them to look. Hard for me to comment on prices for you though. Another thing is to be demonstrating these "cheap" articles and people will often watch and if the article is in their price range then they will grab it. Leaf key fobs are great for this so have a good supply up your sleeve for the slower buyers. Good luck

Don't blow your job out of the forge is great advice given to me by an old blacksmith. If you have a strong blower then you need a valve of some sort on it to prevent it just burning your coal an jobs up before you can do anything with them.

I just line mine with a mortar mixture like used by brick layers to fix bricks into position. Simple, cheap and if it breaks then easily fixed/replaced.

Just back from a visit to the family farm and the car was MUCH heavier on the way back. Lots of scarifier points, plow disks, broken tynes, old hammers, files, rasps and coil springs. Stopped on the way back at an abandoned railway and pulled a heap of spikes to play with as well. Now to find the time to do something with them. Its a problem I am happy to have.

Great job Karl, that Ironbark really finishes up nicely. Its a pity we burn most of it.

Give it a try but remember that you can't turn off the air when working on a piece as you can with coal so if you have a hand cranker it will be difficult. See how it goes and give us a report.

Alan, another Aussie, its been a while between us joining lately. The yanks are starting to take over this forum Seriously though, lots of info and help in this site. Start digging through the Getting Started/Lessons in Metalworking articles from the front page as a starter.

Great job and finish but not too sure about the description (Street Fighter) though :)

Whether they are useful or not they are a great demo of your abilities. To make miniature objects is often much harder than the full sized objects. Great job :)

Now that was a day WELL spent!!

Couldn't find your web site but welcome to IFI :)

Take it that reo bar is mild steel, probably some sort of low carbon remelt. I use it for practicing techniques for projects before using better steel. As its probably remelt some of it could be heat treated but I would say its not worth trying and just use it for general use.

Welcome to IFI Niels. Can't help you with local groups but I am sure some other member will know of any groups in your area.