mcraigl

I have a nominee. His name is Jesse Woods. He's been active in the CBA for about the same amount of time I have. He's been at many of the events I've attended and is a very attentive student and quite accomplished for his age I think about 14'ish. He is very respectiful and polite, in a way that's uncommon these days, reminds me of how I was expected to behave around other people when I was his age . He lives in the mountains of northern california near Fort Jones which is a little west of Yreka, ca. I'm not sure, but don't think he has computer access from home. His father died in an automobile accident this summer. His Father's name was Lee Woods and was a great guy, hauling Jesse to all of the events and supporting his interest in Blacksmithing. We will miss Lee greatly, but were very encouraged to see Jesse at a hammer-in at Mount Shasta only about a month after his father's passing. I would liek to do anything I can to help keep Jesse going in the craft. I will try to call him and see if he has internet at home and if so, try to encourage him to post up to this thread. I'm sure his mother will be happy to support Jesse in acquiring the forge if he was picked. I'd be more than happy to pay for the shipping if Jesse was selected.
ML

Derek,
It's getting tougher and tougher to compete with the antique dealers and collectors, but if you keep looking you can find one. Remember that it doesn't have to be shaped like a london pattern anvil to be a good serviceable anvil. A nice big chunk of scrap can be decent to work on. Also, did you look up / join the CBA yet? There's a lot of good folks in So.Cal. that would probably either have a loaner or be able to help you out with your quest. Also good folks to get some instruction from. Join CBA, best $45 you could spend if you want to get into this art! Was for me anyway.

Yea, but did you eat crabs with it? What does a blue crab look like? Are they as good as a Dungeness? Send us pix of a good 'ol Maryland Crab feed would ya. I'll post up some good 'ol Oregon Dungeness pix in trade.

Declan,
I think you just need to login at about 6am gmt to catch the knife chat. Grab yerself a cup of coffee, pour some Jameson in it, and join in...

Back to work! You have no time to chat on the puter. Back to work!!!

Nickle Silver Dodge.

Nice blade.

Mark,
Back to the shop? You had a busy last couple of months there didn't ya? As to the tongs... I understand both views. For me ( a novice / hobby smith), I think you use all of the basic skills of blacksmithing in the production of a nice set of tongs, and look at their creation as both practice at those skills, and as a way for me to evaluate how I'm doing. I only have maybe 25 sets of tongs on my rack and can order them chronologically and it actually kinda makes me feel good. The last few tongs I've made I don't think anyone would be ashamed of using in good company. Welcome back Mark.
Mike Limb

Use pins instead of screws to hold the dies in place. Much quicker than either type of screw. So to lower the ram do you have to turn the valve on the jack? Or is there some way that it's regulated with the air cylinder? Are you operating it with a foot switch of some sort? What type of air valving are you using? Fill us in on the rest of the program please? I'm kind of digging that thing. A lot!

Saiga, how 'bout a bp on how you do the "wet molded" sheaths? Do you wet it with Acetone (or some other solvent) or water? How do you get it to conform so nicely to the handle? Vacuum pump/clamp? In quiring minds want to know....

By the way, nice knife.

Jeremiah,
Do you realize how rare it is? This opportunity you've got? A 90 yr. old smith "wants" you to come visit his shop and chew the fat? Take my advice bro. you better make time for this one or you're gonna have some serious regrets later in life. Maybe it won't turn into much, but man, I'd go "all-in" on the hand you've been dealt here. Make the time man, make the time. You've got more of it than he does.

Let us know how it goes OK.

In my early teens, my folks both worked out of town. I had a good three or four hours each night to kill and it only took about half an hour to do my chores so I spent the rest of the time in my Pop's shop. He had O/A and the proverbial lincoln tombstone. My uncle Rick was a pipeline welder at the time and gave me a few pointers, and the first real project I built was for a platform on the front of dad's boat trailer. He was so impressed that he always had me do his welding for him after that (cause he sucked at it :-). Then all my buddies who had nasty old rusted out cars and exhaust systems would come to me for patch up jobs. I got pretty good at welding rusty, dirty old exhaust pipe with o/a and a coat hanger. My mom yelled at me about burning up all her clothes hangers, so I told all my buddies they had to bring their own rod over if they wanted me to weld on their cars! Got several certifications in the early 90's TIG welding aluminum and stainless as I was working in a large glass and window shop building all of their skylights, large fixed windows, and some of the commercial storefront installations. Good fun stuff.

That's what I do. After final forging, I reheat to cherry'ish, then set aside (on a piece of kaol wool insulation so the whole tool cools evenly) and let cool til cool to the touch. I understand that the tool would be slightly harder if tempered, so will probably try that some day too, but tempering at around 1000 is hard to judge without a tempstick which I don't have and I've been forbiden from putting "any more of that dirty metal stuff" in my wife's computer controlled kiln. Of course, what she don't know won't hurt me right??? Anyway, I made a 1/8 x 7/8 slot punch from 3/4round H-13 and heat treated as I suggested and have punch a pile of holes with it and it still looks like brand new. I also made a 1/4" round tapered punch from the same material and it too looks like new. I grinded/sanded/buffed the working end of both of these tools to a very high polish, then treated them with punch lube as Quenchcrack suggested and they both work very, very well. Good luck.

Inazuma,
All good suggestions so far. Go for maximum effect. First, put a peice of rubber matting under the anvil, then fab up some hold-downs that you can lag bolt your anvil down on the your stump, add chain and magnet, and that's about the best you can do for the sound production. Then think about sound propogation. I forged in front of my garage for a while and when the garage door was closed, it reflected the sound straight down the driveway, across the street and into the neighbor's front door. They never complained, but I was at the end of my driveway one time when someone else was working at the anvil and wow, it was quite loud. I went and opened the garage door, and voila! Walked back to the end of the driveway and the sound was reduced by a lot. Now I'm inside the garage, and can close the door if it's not too hot outside and my hammering at the anvil is no more obnoxious than if someone was hammering nails inside their garage. I've talked to all of the neighbors and know their work schedules and adjust my forging time accordingly. The neighbor to the south works graveyards and is sleeping on weekdays from 8am to 5pm, so no problem there. The other neighbor works a swing shift and his bedroom is on the opposite side of his house. He says he's never been woke up by my hammering so I'm good to go. Also, as some have suggested, a nice simple little gift, candle stick or flower or something will go a long way toward ameliorating any hard feelings.

Thanks Ed and Rich!!! Just the info I was looking for. I'll post pix when done. Sorry for the long delay in responding, been on vacation 'til today.
ML

The meth-head neighbors' across the stree. I'm very envious of a couple of the pix and descriptions here...

Frosty,
Are the candycane shaped pieces what you are calling "track clips"?

dntfxr,
the candycane shaped pieces (possibly called track clips) are hard and tough. We've broken one down on a power hammer to be included in a pattern welded billet. Even with a power hammer they were pretty gnarly to forge. It was then stacked with L6 and pallet strapping and you can see in the photos that it didn't "forge down" nearly as much as the other steels did. I haven't made anything else from it, 'cause I don't have a power hammer at home shop and don't want to mess with it by hand.

So I've decided to build another blade. Let's see this would be number 4. Anyway, after some searching in the archives I've found that several of the "guru's" here recommend a differential treatment. Here's my question / scenario. When I'm making a chisel lets say, I was taught to "shadow" the tool up and down a little bit so as not to create a sharp transition from the quenched to unquenched parts of the tool. Do you do this same thing with the blade if you're going with an edge quench?

Another question / scenario I've been thinking about. Since the edge of the blade is not straight. Do you worry about having a hardened portion that's not parallel with the edge? I doubt I'm describing my issue here, so bear with me. I can see where you'd have a very narrow hardened portion near the ricasso, then a wide hardened portion near the heel, then a very narrow hardened portion at the tip. Is that Ok? Or is there something I'm missing in the equation. I found a post where someone recommended welding plates across the ends of a piece of 3" angle iron to form the edge quench container and this is an issue I'm seeing with edge quenching a blade this way.

Any other recommendations?

I'll second that Finnr. I love mine! Use it all the time.
ML

Is it for sale, or was it custom ordered? Very, very nice.

How many holes? Just a couple, then drill and file. If lots, then maybe a square hole drill bit.

Kris,
If you are interested in hands-on classes there are several providers in your area. Are you a member of the Cal. Blacksmith's Association? If not, you should be! Go to their site (www.calsmith.org) and get the membership forms and sign up. Lots of good resources, and lots of good instructors. The education committee chairman does classes in Sacramento, his name is John Crandall. PM me if you would like more contact info for him and I'll get you hooked up. Also, he can tell you who else in there area instructs and their contact info. I'm an instructor through CBA, but it's a pretty fair drive from Elk Grove to Klamath Falls!

Mike Limb

I worked as a carpenter for ten or so years and acquired a decent amount of tools. I got into collecting antique hand planes and had a nice collection going. Then my shop got burgled... Thomas gave some really good advice above (annotated photo inventory). I had renters insurance at the time and am not sure how my homeowner's coverage compares. They gave me 80% stated value for all of the tools and 100% stated value for all of my reloading equipment. The rub is... I had a couple of days to come up with a list of what was stolen. I missed about 20% of the items that were stolen. That happened about 15 years ago, and I still occasionally run into a situation where I think I've got a tool, but don't. Some dirtbag meth-head probably hock'd it. Wayne's right about the stiff drink too. I had a really nice set of leather carpenter's bags that were loaded. The bags cost me about $250, but loaded with the tools that were in them they were worth at least a grand probably double that, and they were able to carry them out with one hand! All the antique planes and chisels are basically not replaceable. If you do find them, I can't afford them anymore as all that sort of stuff has become very collectable and ebay has driven the prices way up. Wayne talks about $20 tongs. Well, I don't own a pair of store bought tongs. I've made every pair I'm using right now. What are they worth? What about all the other tools that you've made. What's a 1/8" x 7/8" slot punch made out of H-13 worth? You can't go to Sears and buy one. I won't sell you mine. What about that hammer eye drift that you made that perfectly fits the hammer handles that you can get in your locale? What's the worth? I think its time for me to do the annotated inventory thing too. I don't have a large number of tools. But I don't really have any tools (blacksmithing wise) that I dont regularly use. And it would really suck to have to start over at this point. I felt like my insureance overall treated me fairly, except for the antique stuff that they gave me 80% of what I paid for that has appreciated by thousands of percent by now. Would they even cover me at all if it was a fire? That might be the most appropriate question for me right now. They might flip out over having a smithy in the building.

EC,
Let us know how it works out for you. I'm intrigued by your idea. I'm also skeptical that it'll work. On the cube twist with solid stock you're relying on material in the center of the bar to hold the peice together. At least on the few I've done it seems that the edges where you left it uncut at the corners tear a little bit, and they're supported by the intact center of the bar whereas tubing will have no center support? Unless it ends up being a very gentle twist... At any rate, I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Glenn, it's still interesting to see what folks from different parts of the country are paying.

ML

Wifey runs her kiln pretty hard and it's holding up so far. Usually it get's heated up relatively fast, then she ramps the cooling rate. She does lampwork and beadwork. Nothing in any of her documentation said to ramp slowly for the kiln's sake.