bigfootnampa

They look great!

As far as I know those "HC" railroad spikes are still pretty soft steel.  Low carbon levels are only part of the problem IMO... copper in the alloys adds weather resistance, but also makes the steel noticeably softer!  So good for stuff that needs to withstand weathering... like gate hardware.  Not so good for any cutting edges.  Typical rebar is significantly better for blades... though still minimally serviceable. 

You see the piece of wood provides the pivot for the foot pedal!  The wedge at the top of the wood can be exchanged to allow for adjustment for different sizes of workpieces!  Cleverer than you realized, eh?

The other tool is a gouge.  Probably for wood turning, judging from the thumbnail grind.  

A very beautiful adze!  From a purely practical point of view I think you should work toward a deeper socket for the handle on your future adzes.  This is very sculptural looking though!  It is a tool that could easily be loved!  

Gorilla glue might be fine as long as your fit is pretty good... it becomes a weak foam in larger gaps and fails easily IME.  If you hot set your tangs, you won't need any glue.  Make your fit such that the tang will not fully seat cold.  Then heat the tang and seat it as it melts its way in!  The resins in the wood will be your glue and the compression of the fibers in the tang socket will make it stronger than the rest of the wood!  Practice with some scrap to get the tang hot enough to melt in with little or no charring... charring will ruin the glue effect and weaken the socket.  Tangs should have a slight taper for this type of fitting. Leave the tang surfaces rough for a better connection.  I usually step drill the tang socket to get my rough fit.  Softer woods will compress quite a bit but very hard woods only slightly.  Therefore the prefitting of the socket needs to be closer to a cold fit with the harder woods.

What kind of power is needed to operate such a press?  What is the approximate weight likely to be?  How much room is needed for minimal operational area?  

There is an Amish smith near Springfield MO that makes shoeing stock.  He sells to other farriers.  I haven't been to his shop... but I'd like to.  Mostly NOT the same stuff available from factories, I think.  Specialty shoeing stock.  His stock is profiled but not creased or bent or tapered... that must all be done by the farriers.  Some farriers will preform shoes from his stock to rough fit horses that they know.  My wife has been to his shop.  She doesn't know enough to see the interesting details. 

Charles; I know a farrier that punches each hole on all his shoes!  He shoes standard bred horses.  He goes to the shows and puts featherweight aluminum shoes on the horses.  Then he pulls them off and replaces them with very HEAVY shoes handmade from 1" half round stock after the shows!  Helps to get them prancing for the judges!  He uses a fore punch followed by a Pritchel punch for each hole!  Fore punch is the right name... similar to a bob punch though!

It appears to be a splitter, which uses a planer type blade to shave leather to thinner dimensions.  Kind of a specialty tool!  Pros sometimes have several but for most hobbyists they'd hardly know what to do with such a thing!  My advice is to sell it!  If you need to ask what it is you are FAR from ready to need it!

I think Frank is right to call it a counterpunch.  Some farriers use them or bob punches followed by through punches to create the sockets for horseshoe nails.  Preferring the individually countersunk holes to the creasing system.  I have made punches for those purposes.  

Basements are tough to ventilate!  I had to spray the ceiling and ductwork in one.  Very little window openings and far from the work area!  I did have an unused stovepipe outlet to a brick chimney.  I bought an inline vent fan and installed it there. It worked pretty good!  Apparently there is quite a market for such fans to supply the indoor grass farming operations!  Just an idea for you!  I still have the slightly used fan if you are interested?  Pretty high volume output. 

Well you can try some of those weird tools... if you have time to burn!  Vee parting tools and veiners and checkering tools (which are specialized files with very fine, sharp teeth) are traditional tools for working woods.  Personally, I prefer carving hardwoods.  Softwoods tear easily and take poor details!  Typically softwoods are hardened with a penetrating hardener (super glue, Kwik-Poly, thinned polyurethane, etc.) for areas where details are needed. Burnt in texture works well on softwoods or softer hardwoods though. An enterprising knife maker might come up with a way to brand interesting textures with semi-hot irons.  Ideally this would mostly melt the textures in... rather than charring them!

As far as safety while carving... study various power grips that cut with tremendous force and yet never allow uncontrolled motion of the carving tools!  Always use a technique that provides a stop or limit for each cut!  This is carving 101!  I read about a carving club that purchased a half dozen hook knives from various custom makers.  They mailed these around to all the members who tested and rated them.  Later they all met and passed themaround hand to hand. They noted that the most experienced carver among them could make EVERY knife perform better than anyone else could!  Tools count but SKILL RULES!!!  IME hook knives are a bit tricky to use and require unusual techniques to work efficiently!  Thus they might magnify differences in skill levels!  Checkering tools share this trait IMO!

I do some rough work like that for my tool handles.  I use a surform tool and then smooth the rough edges of the texture with 120 grit sandpaper or sanding sponges.  It gives a nice rustic grippy feel!  This method might be a bit too rustic for a nice knife... in which case I'd probably use a V parting gouge to texture with.  I've done kind of coarse checkering with these tools and also some pseudo wood graining texturing.  On pine I like to burn and wire brush... followed by finish then sanding and more finish.  Pine can be a bit soft for knife handles... but I can harden it to acceptable levels with a finish like Kwik Poly.  You could also try burning textures in with a wood burning pen, in the manner of decoy carvers texturing feathers.  Most any texture is possible with such techniques. 

I gotta say "that cider house RULES"!  I LOVE those collars Yves!!!  Both the technical concept and the look are terrific IMO!!

I use the slack area for almost all of my final grinding.  I will sometimes use my contact wheel to hog off metal.  

As BIGGUN suggests they'll need silicon buttons to cushion the glass.  Probably their glass guys will take care of that!  The rivets are not an issue... It would need cushions in ANY case!

I don't do mine that way... but I can see why you might.  Say that you want a through tang that has a small rivet at the hilt end... yet you desire a strong, robust tang where the blade meets the handle.  That would be one reason for a step down tang.  Usually I would just use a partial tang instead... possibly tapered a little. 

Go with the newer LED lights if buying any new ones!  The savings in bulbs and electric usage will far outstrip the higher initial costs!

its a beauty!  For myself I find that I get almost all the work done on the slack area of the belts!  I do use a contact wheel for heavy removal occasionally.  I have never even installed my flat platen!  

Very small strips you are working with!  A polished flatter and a polished anvil block might do it for you.   You won't really need an anvil... just a very smooth block of half inch stock or even a flat hammer face will do.  Another way would be to use a vice to press the strips between two smooth flat blocks.  That is almost too thin to call sheet metal... it's more like foil!  Probably you'd be ahead to just buy stock of proper thickness and cut it with scissors.

BTW you can use a belt grinder for sanding wood, it's commonly done... it doesn't work so well the other way around!

I like my Pheer 2" X 72" belt grinder!  I have a two horse model with variable speed control.  It seems a very good bargain to me!  VASTLY superior to the cheap equipment I used previously!  I can tell you that the first time I turned it on I sharpened a blade to shave hair sharp in less than two minutes!  I experienced euphoria!!!  I left it running while I raced through the house searching for dull blades!  In less than twenty minutes I had sharpened everything I could find that even hinted of dullness!  With coarse ceramic belts I can easily remove enough metal to regrind badly chipped mower blades or re bevel axe heads!  I can also sharpen scissors, small detail carving knives and other such precision cutting tools!  

After you've made a few free hand you won't need a jig unless you have a large run to make!

Looks like a nice one!  I don't want too cool your enthusiasm any but I think you should think about making the next one with a straight peen or cross peen on one end.  More versatility is GOOD!