mcraigl

Hey guys, the wife bought me a guitar for christmas, so now I got another hobby to learn! Anyway, the key thing here, just like forging is practicing. It's a bit of a pain to get it in and out of the case etc. every time. I'm thinking if I had a nice guitar stand I could just leave it set up, plugged into the amp right next to my chair and whenever I got 3 minutes I could pick it up and at least run through a couple of scales. I'm in the research and design phase. Not really sure what's important for a guitar stand other than it be stable and hold the guitar securely. It would of course be desireable to have them look nice to boot. Any design ideas or input or pictures etc. would be muchly appreciated.

Good job. I've had similar issues around the boss / jaw transition. What I've found that seems to help a lot is to not tap around when setting those shoulders for the tong and boss. Usually only takes one or two hits. And making sure after the first hit, that you've got the shoulder repositioned well. Anyway, after about 20 or 30 more pairs you'll get the hang of it.

I'm wondering about the need for a forgeweld at all in your design. Seems to me that you ought to be able to upset a piece of torsion bar to get the mass needed to split off the different parts of your design. Not something you'd want to be doing a lot of, but your doing a one-off... You'd be amazed at how much you can upset a bar with a little care and patience. Good luck and post pix of whatever you come up with.

Hey John. NICE!!! I really iike those. See ya in a couple of weeks bud.

The weather's darn nice this time of year. Was in the mid-upper 60's today. A little cooler than normal but I"ll take it. You should come on up for a visit when you get burnt out down south. Look me up when you do!

Good luck Keith. Keep yer head down bud.

Dang Par. Those are real nice. Known a lot of Buckaroos in my time and they'd all be proud to ride with those spurs. Beautiful

Keith! It is nice to see another BLM'er that's into smithing. First one I've come across. I'm the GIS Coordinator in the Klamath Falls Office in Or. When did you retire? Do you know John Olthoff? Anyway, I think it's cool to find out... And nice shadow box!

Looks good. One thing I'd suggest is to brush the scale off very frequently. Especially when you start getting close to final shape. If not, you'll be pounding "pockmarks" into the surface of the steel and that just increases the amount of drawfiling / grinding that you'll have to finish it up. Also, I'm not totally sure I agree with reefer man above. True it takes a little bit more work to forge 5160 or one of the 10xx series steels. But not 10 times. I'd say it takes maybe 20% more work in terms of the number of heats etc. as long as you're starting out with stock that's already flatstock or almost.

So I went to visit my buddy John Emmerling in Gearheart, Oregon on the way home from a business trip up north. We had a very fun day of making some pattern welded billets. I love sea level. I love BIG power hammers, and hydraulic presses. John's got a real nice shop. Thanks for letting me stop by for a visit buddy. He showed me one of his prize posessions, a sushi knife made and sent to him by a master bladesmith in Japan. There's an interesting story behind him getting that knife, the gist of it was the bladesmith was in the NW demonstrating for the NWBA and had in the past had a power hammer accident that had damaged one of his hands. John forged him a custom tong out of Titanium and several months later this beautiful knife showed up in the mail. This was the first time I've "handled" a real sushi knife and was intrigued. So when I got home all inspired I launched into making one. The billet was some odd number of layers of 1095, 5160, L-6, and 1018 (I think it was 13, or 15 layers). We welded it up, then drew it out to about 3/4" sq. and 24" long. I rounded / beveled the corners and then we cut it in half. We twisted one half clockwise and the other anti-clockwise tighter than I thought was possible without it falling apart. Then we re-squared and welded the two halves back together. I think this is called the maiden hair pattern? Anyway, I came up with a couple of new grindin techniques that I'm sure some of you pro's already know or have better ones, but I was real happy with the grind except for one small hicup on the flat side that's not really very noticeable to anyone except a knifemaker. I decided that since it was a Japanese themed knife it ought to have a bamboo handle. Where in Klamath Falls, Oregon do you go to get bamboo? I looked in every likely store, then remembered the Mike-HR was out of town and has a piece of bamboo leaning up against the side of his shop. So I went out and stole about 16" of it. I came clean when he came back to town and he wasn't to upset once he saw the knife:-) I carved a piece of myrtlewood (what I had handy) into a dowel shape that fit nicely inside the bamboo then cut a kerf for the tang to fit in. Then slathered and filled the cavity with Acraglass, so the bamboo handle is actually very solid (I was worried about it splitting) For a ferule (not sure of the official japanese name for this part), I remembered JPH's instructions for making some of these parts and parts for scabbards by fabricating from sheet metal (copper in this case) and silver soldering. So that's what I did. I was pretty trepid about it when I started, but as it turns out I'm really happy with how it came out. A one sided bevel is a more difficult blade to grind in my opinion, but overall I'm pretty happy with how the whole thing came out. Not super happy with the fit of the slot in the ferule, will do better next time.

Good video Mark. Adding the dialog makes this video a lot more powerful than just adding text-overs. Thanks for all the effort you put into education for our community. Mike Limb

Graham, I'll second that. Those are really nice. How do you get such a clean fit between the bolster and the handle? Some sort of filing jig or something? I did a couple like this and they turned out pretty nice, but didn't have as nice and crisp and clean of a junction there. I used dye in the epoxy and the slight gap isn't noticeable to anybody but a knifemaker, but always looking for ways to improve. And the Madrone burl... Wow, seein' as I live in Oregon I should get some of that stuff and give it a whirl. It'd be a hit around these parts. ML

Mr. Hofi, I'd like to second Wayne's motion for a blue print, if I may. I really like them. I can't tell scale from the photos. What are the dimensions of your bulls? Thank you sir, ML

Glenn, Figured I'd be the guy to get the ball rolling in this area. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to get to "My" gallery, then it wouldn't let me create a new album. So I figured to add the photos to the knife gallery, went through the process and got the following error message... Any ideas? A little frustrated with the new software. [#107148] The image upload failed, please contact a system administrator

In the same post on another forum mentioned previously a fairly good effort was put into trying to objectively test various glues and prep processes. I believe one of our forum members here (KBA) was involved. Among the tests conducted were shear tests, and dishwasher followed by shear tests. Sandblasting did outperform the other prep tests. Scratching with a new 36 grit belt worked well, jut not quite as good as the sandblast treatment. On the glue front, there were a couple of interesting results. The most surprising was that Gorilla Glue was very near the top. One thing you have to understand about gorilla glue is that even though it "expands" and foams up as it cures. That foamy xxxx has no strength. It is useless as a gap filing adhesive like for a stick/partial tang. But for scales on a full tang, its very good. The best glue in the test was Brownell's Acraglass epoxy. It is formulated specifically for bonding metal to wood. I broke down and bought a quart size kit of the resin/hardner mix. Those are the two glues I use. All the various Devcon epoxies failed early in their testing. I've had a couple of failures with the 5 minute and 2 ton type epoxies, and so they're not worth using to me for these applications.

John, I've been wanting to do a similar thing as far as a pattern welded guard/bolster, but haven't figured out the process of how to do the final handle fitting without erasing the etch. When you figure this out, let me know what your process is... And like the others... I got plenty of room at my place for your "rubbish"!!!

Hidden pin construction? or can I just not see any pins (quite possible).

That's real sweet Mike. Aspery make a real nice Miner's candle along those lines, though I think he puts a spike where you put a leaf thatway it'll hang as well as can be driven in. Anyway, real nice.

I thought I'd mentioned this, but can't find a post about it so I must not've. Or the "forum monsters" ate it. Anyway, I decided to purchase and try a couple of new things and thought I'd give a little report on them. First. I bought a .lb of PCB anit-scale powder from usaknife. It's a very, fine black powder you sprinkle on the blade when it's hot, but before it starts to scale. I did mine at about 600 degrees. It melts into a coating that prevents oxidation. VERY, VERY cools stuff. I'd been making a few things out of O1, and it's a pain in the rear because of the 15 minutes of soak time leads to a ton of scale to clean up. I've been doing the HT in a comp controlled kiln, and have tried charcoal in the oven and that didn't really have any affect. PCB. If you're HT'ing steels that scale real bad this stuff might be worth a look for you. The coating mostly just "pops" off in the quench, what doesn't will come off with a soap and water wash. The steel has no scaling at all, but has cool temper colors. I may try to leave a blade colored this way soon. Second. I got ahold of a piece of CruForge-V fromt he same source as the PCB. This stuff forges real nice. I think it moves under the hammer better than O1 even. Pre HT grinding and filing are all pretty easy too. I forged a bowie blade from it and normalized in vermiculite three times and was able to file and grind no problem afterwords. This stuff also wants a 15 minute soak at 1500 degrees, though I couldn't find spec.s for the quench temp. I went with the 140 degree oil that I've been using on O1. I used the PCB again and no scale to clean up. After HT, this stuff has lost all respect for abrasives. I'm impressed. It took an incredibly keen edge and I'm eager to cut stuff with it to get an idea of the edge holding ability. If the lack of respect for grinding belts is any indicator, I think I've got a winner here. The forum wont let me upload pics to my gallery so here's a link to my picassa web album for this bowie. Blade is 7 1/2" flat ground, partial hidden tang, Feric Chloride etch, silicon bronze guard, and Nebraska whitetail handle. Let me know what you think. ML Picasa Web Albums - Mike - bowie_091211#

Mike, I haven't read the book. Is he referring to a specific steel? Seems like all I've read and been told is to quench all the way to the temp of the quenchant, then temper. For O1 and a few other steels I've been preheating my oil to 140 deg. F. then quenching 'til I don't think it's cooling down anymore. Then I wash the oil off with soap and water (room temp, or just cold water from the faucet), then straight into the Tempering oven. The works a real treat on O1 and CruForge-V if soaked at 1500 deg. for 15 minutes then into quench. But every steel has its own specific heat treat needs, and that's what I'd try to go by.

Don, I suggest that you think about joining the California Blacksmith's Association www.calsmith.org There are a number of instructors in the bay area affiliated with CBA, having someone show you, is a whole lot more efficient than reading about it. I've tried both, and though I do learn from reading, videos, etc. nothing compares to hands-on instruction. ML

Mike, I'm no expert, but my cleanup grinding went down a bit once I started using a flatter. In fact I us a set-hammer as a small flatter to finish up the bevels (my Regular flatter (Rthibeau special) was too big. I use the regular flatter for truing up the sides and straightness, and a 1 1/4" square set hammer as a flatter for the edge bevels. Just gets me that much closer to final shape without too many more heats, etc. and reduces the amount of filing/grinding/sanding I have to do.

I've heard that they work OK, but that you gotta be careful about heat or they'll melt on you. I don't have a big contact wheel, I've got a 2" and a 4" and I've never got either of them hot to the point that they actually felt hot. Seems like more heat is generally created in the bearings than at the surfact of the wheel? Anyway I too am in the process of looking for a large contact wheel for hollow grinds and am anxiously awaiting your report should you so choose to be the guinea pig.