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I could improve it. A blacksmith is a person who goes to an art museum and is only interested in the grids, door locks, and hinges

I misunderstood you I agree 100% John Cuff was a famous british microscope maker in the eighteent century

The artist probably worked partly from memory. I.e. he made sketches on site and finished in the study misinterpreting his sketch. I assume that both jaws rest on a common plate on the floor The blackish line may be a spring. What are the disadvantages? I would assume that it were a god idea to have both jaws carry the pounding down to the support without a bracket introducing a bending moment in the leg. All provided that the support is stable and the moving jaw cannot rotate around a vertical axis. Thank you for the fantastic pictures!

This will be a fantastic vise. Both jaws heavy and transferring the load down to the base plate. I like that. It will be a dream for upsetting.

Frosty is describing better than I do but his way is what I mean. In case you want a thinner neck it is easier to fuller that down before you bend the head. I do it this way starting with stock twice as wide as thick. There are good descriptions with picks on the net but I cannot find the URLs #1 Split the stock at the end approximately the intended horn length but do not start drawing out. (They will become longer but i is easier to cut than to lengthen). #2; Fuller the neck to square section. The distance from the split about 2,5 times the length of the intended head #3: Bend 180°in the middle between the split and the neck and forge weld. #4: Shape the head, put in nostrils and mouth and make a slight step in front of the horns for the eyes (or do not). Put in eyes. For a dragon's head one can set up the mouth end and/or fuller a little between nostrils and eyes and create a forehead for the eyes by making the step. #5: Bend the neck after shaping the head. It is easier to fix it in the vise (or on the anvil) and put in eyes etc before bending the neck #6: Separate the horns (which are now free), draw out and shape them. Doing them last this way decreases the risk of burning. They are also thicker at the base so some heat comes fom the head. #7 Finishing touches.

This steel is intended for casehardening so I do not know how sensitive it is. This temperature is in the austenitic area. I assume that the normal procedure has to be normalising afterwards to get the grains down again. The smear method as I understand it is quick.

Well it takes seven hours to get 1mm (40/1000") depth cashardening in Uddeholm formax steel at 900°C. Two hours will get you 0.5mm. The edge will harden quicker because of its shape. 1mm from both sides means that the blade is hard at leat 5.7 mm in from the ege assuming an edge angle of 20° but because of the twosided carburization (if this is the word) it will go further. My guess is near 10mm I have no idea how deep the hardening will go if the cast-iron-smear method is used but if it is useful for plows it cannot be very shallow. It could be worth someones while to experiment. I do not even own a rail spike. They are not much used here.

How did you make the horns? I would split the end of the stock and then fold over to form the head. They then start out fairly thick. If you do not draw them out thin it is not so much of a problem. Most blacksmithing animal heads have thicker horns. However if you want to have them as thin as these they will loose heat quickly.

I disagree. I think it looks very good. (all of it) I would get the feeling that a round "eye" would tend to wobble sideways and try to "avoid" the coat. The feeling might be wrong but it is the visual impression I would get and the perceived usefulness is a part of the estetics of any item that is intended to be used.

Would it be possible (and useful) to case harden the knife. A case for trying the cast iron alchemy perhaps?

I think that you are absolutely right. Nearly all metals oxidize instantly and it is a well know phenomenon hat light rays (and other energy input) can push put particles into the surrondings. Einstein got his nobelprize for his work on photons releasing electrons - not for the theory of relativity. That was too extreme for the comittee in those days. However, there is nearly always some kind of contamination on the surfaces so organic compounds is probably a contributing factor. The onion smell contains sulphur in the formula. It is not much of a deterrent however.

I agree with Thomas. There must be any number of old grids in Thüringen if you look around. A blacksmith is a person who goes to a museum and is only interested in the grids, door locks and hinges. Where in Thüringen by the way? You are not very far from dem germanischen Nationalmuseum and die Wartburg would have some old traditional blacksmith work.

How true!

I do not believe that anyone can smell a clean piece of metal at room temperature. There is nothing that can get into the air. It has to be some kind of gas or aerosol if we shall be able to smell it. There are many ways for this to happen; some mentioned above. One easy way to distinguish limestone rock and silicate rock in the field is to hit it with a hammer and sniff at the hammer. The limestone has next to no smell but the silicate rock will smell "gunpowder". It seems that we can smell minute particles of SiO2. If we grind silica wet in a ball mill, it is customary to increase the pH by adding lime to decrease chemical attrition of the balls. If the lime is forgotten there is a very strong smell that I associate with iron but I do not know what it really is. I do not doubt that experienced persons can smell the difference between different metals. I would like to know more about circumstances. Buffing is one. Polising is another. I smell something that I believe is the polishing compounds reacting with the metal oxide that is removed. I assume metal spinning works in a similar way. I would assume that working metals cancreate dust that is so fine that it oxidizes immediately. Metal oxide way react with the humidity in the nose and create more or less soluble hydroxides that the receptors in the nose can detect.

Living I mean eating, drinking, working, playing using talcum, blacksmithing etc. is very dangerous. It inevitably ends with death. Look at all those people who were using talc in the nineteenth, eightenth, seventeenth centuries. they are nearly all dead.

If you work in cold weather the temptation is to ventilate too little. You will need to be able to get the smoke collected close to the source so you do not ventilate out a lot of clean air. The normal hood arrangement tends to collect much more fresh air than smoke. I omce met a very interesting man in a hotel bar in Toronto who said that he were an Eskimo and proud of it. He said that Inuit means "human being" and that may Eskimos wanted us to call them Inuits because that means that we are not humans. He was coroner in some very remote part of Alaska.

Because he is not in the desert but in a tiny place where he has difficulties in putting hot stuff away. Also he, like me, may wish to have as few hot bits and pieces lying around to be grabbed by the unwary especially his kids.

Since they are intended for cold use, the problem is slight. use suitable clamps to fix some kind of straight edge to support them vertically. Make some kind of lines on the straight edge to align them horizontally

Why do you not ask Kohlsva? They are still alive and kicking and would probably be helpful if you approach them. Yes they would understand Ebglish.

This is quite difficult. Perhaps you could make use of the shape of a normal rifle cartridge. I have not tried myself but I would assume that a fair number of casings would float in water since they are heavier in the closed end. Perhaps if you dump a bucket of mixed stuff in water, a fair number of the casings would float and could be scooped up with some kind of sieve.

American rebar may be made from scrap. Swedish rebar is made with close analysis tolerances. Carbon (0.17) Someone in Spain must tell about Spanish rebar but I asume it conforms to the same standard as the Swedish. You may be able to get bits and pieces from auto repair shops like discarded springs and shafts. These make tools. Make friends with the local repair guys.

Flux late Middle English: from Latin fluxus, from fluere ‘to flow’. In my corner of the world it is "flussmedel" and it definitely means a substance that lowers the melting point/makes things flow (It may also prevent oxygen ingress but if that is the sole reason, other words are used.). Borax has been used to identify metal oxides for some two hundred years. The process is simple: First the borax is heated until anhydrous then the oxide is dissolved in the borax and the resulting colour is an aid to identification. This works because the metal oxide is dissolved - a process that obvioulsy has been known to chemists for a very long time. Boron compund have been used for lowering the melting point in the glass/ceramic industry for a long time. As I understand it, the process goes via diborontrioxide that combines with the metal oxide. The trioxide is formed at lower temperature if the source of the boron is boric acid (575°C) rather than borax. (765°C). A flux containing boric acid should thus be useful for welding at lower temperatures (provided that the dissolving of the metal oxide can take place at the lower temperature). The metal oxides are the problem in all welding/brazing/soldering. If there were no oxides we would be able to weld at room temperature. Paper, oil etc. may combine with the oxygen in the oxide layer to form carbon oxides and dihydrogenoxide which of course will disappear. Surplus carbon will dissolve in the iron if in small amounts. One could say that this is a smelting process on the microscopical scale.

Well Frosty are you not a little bit categorical here. If the flux is ONLY used to keep oxygen out, why use Borax? Besides technically a flux is something that makes tings fluid, hence the word. Borax (and some other boron containing compounds) have the property of combining with metal oxides to compounds with lower melting point that can be squeezed out from the joint. Some smiths use sand, some use glass, some use a mixture that in reality is a recipy for glass. Japanese swordsmiths use rice straw ash that contains a lot of silica and will kind of fuse to a glass. All these do what you say: keep the oxygen out but do not fluidise oxides. However fluxes containing borax will dissolve the oxides. Alaska flux will in addition take care of oxygen - maybe also oxygen in the iron oxide. Technicus Joe keeps the temperature at a level where the oxide is fluid even without flux. Unless it is kept in reducing atmosphere there aint no such animal as an oxide free iron/steel surface. It happens immediately even at room temperature but a very thin layer will perhaps not interfere when welding. If you are using borax the way you describe you are squeezing fluidised oxides out together with the borax just as I do - even if it is very little from a newly filed surface.

I prefer wood. Stright grained and not too soft. Because of the dutch elm disease I have a lot of dead seasoned elm so I tend to use that but I used pine (Pinius silvestris) when in a hurry and it still works but I do not use that hammer a lot. A big advantage is that you can shape your handle so it fits you rather than the manufacturer's designer.

Hear hear! - or should it be read read?