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I Forge Iron

strantor

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    33
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  • Location
    houston, tx
  • Biography
    I work full time & smith when I get the time
  • Occupation
    oil field service technician
  1. I'm not sure yet. looks like at least a big expensive variac, industrial transformer, expensive high power switching silicon devices, some tubing, lots of time for trial and error, and I'm assuming lots of money to recoup from the errors.
  2. Oh ok, gotcha. Thanks for the explanation. Yeah, I'm not tossing out my coal forge any time soon. My kids will have to figure out what to do with it when I die. IF I build this thing, it would be more for the satisfaction of building it anyways. And then the further satisfaction of using something that I made to make more things. I'm not too worried about monthy cost to run it because I probably wouldn't run it that much. I just like to confirm that what I'm about to do isn't a giant waste of time because in the end its less efficient than the tried & true methods already in place. Like when I made ethanol in my garage; what a waste of time and money.
  3. Thanks! That's what I was hoping to hear. I'm a little confused by your analogy. What are you comparing to a spear and what are you comparing to a m16? are you saying that an induction heater is overkill?
  4. Hello, I was here a few years ago, with a short-lived hobby of bladesmithing. I have been toying around with electrons since then, and electronics might be bringing me back around to bladesmithing. I have taken an interest in induction heaters, in part from the youtube videos posted by imsoother (who I find is on this forum). I am considering making one, but I want to know how cost effective it is (the forging, not the forge). I was using a coal forge before (still have the forge and the coal) - and I figured there has to be someone on this forum who's used a coal forge and an induction forge and made comparison in dollars for KWH VS. lbs of coal. looking for perspective, thanks -charlie
  5. I like the handle, is there a spacer between the wood and the brass? if so, what is it?
  6. I have this huge bolt that fell out of a railroad bridge and today I decided to pound it into a blade. During the first heat, it got this weird yellow pollen looking crust on the outside. I didn't think it was galvanized because it was all rusty and i've never seen anything else used in the rail industry be galvanized. Is that what galvanized looks like when you heat it?
  7. WOW! your etch looks way better than mine! is that due mainly to the solution, the stencil, or felt& stainless thing? probably a combination of all 3. How does a stencil allow you to have the floating centers of letters like "O" or "A" or "D"?
  8. looks nice man! I'll have to try making a fillet knife.
  9. I got some old crusty knifemaking VHS cassette from my uncle a couple years back (I think it was by loveless) and in the video he uses some kind of electro etching thing with steel wool and a stencil. I've seen similar devices for sale on the internet for $120-500+ and was contemplating getting one, but as always, talked myself out of it, convinced that I could find some other way to do it for cheaper. I went to walmart and got a $27 6 amp max car battery charger and some votive candles. I melted the candles in a pineapple can on my stove and dipped my knife into it a few times, then scratched "JP" (as one letter, my cousin's initials, the knife is for him) into the wax with a mechanical pencil. I hooked the red lead up to the knife and the black lead to some steel wool and dabbed it over the initials like i remember seeing in the video, no luck. I tried adding some water into the mix, no luck. I got smart and figured it would be better if it were salt water like and electrolyte solution so i tried salt water, limited luck. I was getting frustated and I decided to dip the sucker into the salt water with the black lead submerged at the bottom. This worked alot better, kinda like backwards electroplating and within a couple minutes I got a cup full of nasty looking xxxx and a pretty sweet engraving. The engraving is not precise and i wouldn't try this on something I intended to sell because you can't really control it, it does what it wants to. It fits this spike knife though I think. Tell me what you think!
  10. Very nice! I think epoxy would be a good idea if you intend to use it due to fluids getting inside and causing rust, but I have a rust phobia. I have seen mammoth bone and mammoth tooth for sale on the internet and I have been wondering: Is it REAL bone from a REAL mammoth that is eons old, reclaimed from the earth? This seems counterintuitive. How much usable bone could be recovered from a single mammoth? and how ordinary is it to run across a mammoth skeleton? it seems easier and cheaper to obtain mammoth bone than ivory, and elephants still walk the earth!
  11. very nice. I have never worked with damascus; when you make a damascus blade, do you run into problems with (say, during sharpening) where one metal wears away quicker and you end up with ridges rather than a smooth surface?
  12. HAHA! that's great. It looks pretty scary! I like it.
  13. I've never tried hot cutting, because I've only ever seen it done on an anvil with a hardie tool. I have a railroad track for an anvil so no hardie tools. I guess if I got somebody to hold the hot spring with the tongs I could hold my hatchet on there and hit the hatchet with a hammer. It's worth a try and would save me alot of acetylene because I currently use a torch to cut em up.
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