3DistinctKnocks

Jonathan,

Love your forge setup.  I visited your site....yeah, gonna have to delete that one from the history lest my wife sees it.  You'd end up with my entire paycheck!!  Beautiful work, man...really.

I haven't used this, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.  On another thread we were talking about the kitty litter and water solution for clay.  I was at the auto parts store yesterday and saw a 50 lb bag of generic oil-dry.  The ingredient was 100% Fuller's Earth...clay.  Cheaper than cheap kitty litter and finer grained to boot.

Whatever it is, it sure is a good looking forge!

After checking out Glenn's link...I kinda like that.  For a little easy forging, I think I am going to set up the old bathroom sink.  For some "sho-'nuff" forge welding, I'll probably give the side blast 55 forge a go.

As a side note and in reference to the kitty litter clay, I stopped by the local auto parts store to pick up a new headlamp for my old '77 Chevy C-10 and saw a 50lb bag of generic oil-dry.  The stuff is 100% fuller's earth...go figure.  I might give that a shot for the clay lining.  The clerk said that its much finer grained than litter, so it might be a little easier to use for forge clay.  I've got to go back Monday and pick up a drive belt for my wife's car...might come home with a 50lb bag of clay, too.

 the term would be "knapped" not knapper. a knapper is the person doing the knapping.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

Unless its a kid doing the knapping.  Then the term would be "kid-knapper"

Don't mind me....its my bedtime.

Great looking knife.  I recently saw a youtube video where a guy made replicas of ancient archery tools.  One thing that interested me was a birch bark glue that he made to secure the fletchings as well as the knapped point to the shaft of an arrow.  Basically, take a coffee can or paint can, poke a hole in the bottom and fill it up with birch bark.  Dig a hole and place a jar in the hole, then put the coffee can on top so that the pitch can drip down into the jar.  Fill in with dirt and top the can with a loose lid and place a good sized stone on top to hold it down.  Now, build a fire around the can and let it burn down.  After about an hour, you should have a decent amount of birch bark pitch which is gooey when warm and hardens when cooled.  To make it gooey again, just warm it back up.  The pitch is blackish in color.  After he seated the arrow head and secured it with moistened sinew, he coated the whole wrap with the birch bark glue and let it dry and harden.  This was the same technique used on Otzie the Iceman's arrows which are about 5000 years old.  Some arrows were still intact. 

Sorry to ramble, thought I'd share a tidbit that might make a knapped blade look more "authentic".

:wacko:

I must have misread the OP.  I thought he was wanting to line the vessel.  All the tin cups I've ever used were soldered at a seam.  My bad, ya'll.  That's what I get for getting on a forum with very little sleep!

:rolleyes:

I may have a good source for old squirrel fan blades, the kind that goes into hospital room a/c units.  I'll probably rig one up in a wooden or sheet metal housing with an electric motor and dimmer switch for speed control. 

My proposed forge will be fairly stationary.  I've read in another thread that the kitty litter-to-clay thing is a god-awful mess to make and may not be wife (or cat) approved.  In fact, I'd probably wake up to find a xxxx in my boots if I used kitty litter.  I live in an area full of red clay, so I'll probably "go green" and use that.  If not, I can always come up with a cement mix that has some decent insulation properties. 

If I scrounge around a bit, I may even be able to come up with an old ceramic coated cast iron double kitchen sink.  One to use as the firepot/forge and the other bowl for quenching.  Seems like I saw one down in a gully behind the house once... 

The sink is from renovation on my dad's bathroom.  It was probably installed in the house in the mid 70's or so.  Not as squared-off as the one in Workhorse's pic.  More shallow, too.  Guys, this thread has turned out some pretty good ideas for me.  Thanks, Charles, Workhorse, DSW (for the link...its great!!), and of course Mr. Powers for the thoughtful question you posed.  I hope to see this grow a little to get even more ideas rolling. 

If you do use tin, just be sure to use a lead-free solder.  Otherwise, folks'll start dying off pretty quick.

Mr. Powers,

To answer your question, I would pile the charcoal or coal up around the middle of the bar.  Like I said, the sink itself would have clay built up to around 3-4 inches below the top of the sink for insulation.

Why not machine aluminum instead of forging a steel bar?  A steel staff would be nearly impossible to use due to weight.  Aluminum would drop weight, but might bend easily.  Personally, I'd just go with a good ole waxwood staff for martial arts purposes.

Being an old Civil War reenactor, I'll tip my hat to tin as well.  I've drank out of more tin cups than glass.  I still use my mucket even though I'm out of the hobby.

If there was a "Stupid Question" smiley I'd tag it for this.

Ok, so I'm thinking of using an old ceramic coated cast iron bathroom sink as a firepot on my first forge.  Its heavy as all get-out and the ceramic is in good shape with no cracks.  I'm thinking of building up the base and sides with clay, allowing an "air tube" with a cast iron grate to prevent coals from dropping into the air pipe.  The fuel for this home made forge will be wood charcoal, perhaps coal/coke if I can get my hands on some in the future.

So, my question for the experienced smiths is this:  Do you guys think this will work?  Does anyone have experience using an old cast iron sink for a firepot?  Or is this an idiotic idea? 

I've browsed the forum and couldn't find a thread on this, so I thought I'd start one.  Before I go off and start scraping together an unusable forge, I wanted to get ya'lls opinion.  I'm willing to learn.

Happy to help.  Nice looking short sword.

I love that blade design.  That'd be a good bush knife.

I know this is an old topic, but I thought I'd share a little find.  Did a quick google search for artilleryman's short sword and came up with a positive ID.  Here is an article in the form of a forum post that ID's the sword, judging by the handle.

http://www.pickelhaubes.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=6523

Very beautiful work!  The dogwood blossom is at the top of my list of favorite flowers.  Very detailed and life-like.

Very impressive, sir.

I have two thoughts, the first being some type of vintage sheet metal notch cutter type tool.  The second is along the lines of Mr. Turley's suggestion.  It might be some type of dehorning device or a souped-up bovine hoof trimmer.  The way the handle connects to the jaw implies that it creates a lever-type action.  It had to cut through some pretty darn-tough material...but soft enough to be cut by hand.

Looks like a farrier's driving hammer for installing horseshoe nails.  Just a guess.

Thanks for the welcome, Steve!

Hello all,

My name is James.  Happily married to my wife of 12 years with three sweet loving and creative little girls.  I'm new to blacksmithing and am just now getting tools and other what-nots together.  I've done a little tinkering around on a RR track "anvil" but nothing that I would consider as true blacksmithing work.  Just a little about myself:  my family and I live on a small "farm" with horses, goats, rabbits, chickens, dogs and cats.  I've recently begun doing all the farrier work on our horses and plan to start making our own shoes to shoe our Tenn. Walkers.  Living on a small farm presents many blacksmithing opportunities, and I plan to take what knowledge I glean from this site and from talking with other smiths and apply them for my own purposes.  You can say I'm a huge DIY'er.  I'm a Freemason (Past Master of Pontotoc Lodge #81 F.&A.M. under the Grand Lodge of Mississippi) so I'd like to extend a hardy "hi-ya" to all the Brethren that may be here.  We're good country folk that loves to hunt, fish, and raise as much of our own food as possible.  I'm eager to learn and willing to try new things.  I look forward to engaging in good conversation here!