bigfootnampa

Well for me, that size would be for use with a striker, and I'd want a long handle on it.

I am doing a lot of fly fishing and fly tying lately. I also carve, sculpt, leatherwork, faux paint and take great photos! This is a picture of a long-eared sunfish. These are truly beautiful fishes! Usually a bit smallish for the frying pan though. They do fight as if they weighed three times what they do!

J Newman has the best idea here! As drawn these would be ridiculously uncomfortable, at best, in a pocket and a near certain mess in a purse! So totally impractical as key fobs! As a stamped design on a smooth shape, it would become a reasonable pocket item. Easier to produce as well!

I think that's about the right offer.

I am able to turn my perfectionist tendencies on or off at will... so I can get the benefits of my jewelry experiences and avoid most of the pitfalls.  My experiences as a wood finisher helped me a great deal here!  I had a customer who wanted a distressed finish on her cabinetry... "the more distressed the better" were her instructions!  I had not been a real fan of that type work, but this job was HUGE... around 40 cabinets... by the time I finished it I had become a convert!  I have done numerous similar looks since and find that it translates to smithy work quite nicely as well!  Now it is a central theme of much of my work, in all mediums!  Skillfully done, I find the rustic looks to be the most interesting of ALL!  So I have learned to EMBRACE imperfection and WELCOME it into my designs and finishes!!!  Once it becomes an old friend, you cease to FIGHT it!  Invite it into your work and your shop/home, it will reward you with beauty and efficiency, your work will gain depth and durability!  You will be ENRICHED!!!

IMPRESSIVE!!!

Having considerable jewelry type metalsmithing experience before I became interested in blacksmithing... I would say that it has been quite helpful to me!  I fell in love with the forging process working copper and silver!  As a blacksmith I feel that I have progressed much faster and further than my experience would normally allow, because of my experience in metalsmithing!  My jewelry forging was mostly all done cold, but the metal moves similarly.  Detail work is still a strength of my smithing skill set and easily traceable to my jewelry experience!

So now, by my calculations, you ought to have something close to 1050 steel.  Good enough to make a decent cutting edge but not hold exceptionally durable edges.  I reckon you are having FUN though and learning too!  Keep on going!

WOW!  I didn't realize that they are giving good stuff like that away in Texas!!!  Maybe time I took a little road trip!

Those are really pretty!!!  I think that average owners might have a problem with them though... as I think the blades will change their looks in use pretty quickly!  They are not of styles that I would ever do myself... but I do LIKE them a lot!  perhaps you should consider selling one of them to me... being a smith myself I would understand about the blades changing patinas!  So if you have any extras figure up a price for me and send me a private message!  Frankly I like the "Sister" model the best!  All are great though.

I very much like the wedge system you've used and I will be on the scout for projects where I can apply the principles!  Thank you!

I step drill or use a smith made taper drill and then melt in the final fit.

Well I have also found wrought iron harder to work with!  I do like it for making rustic looking pieces though, it seems to naturally take on a bit of the aged look!  Of course it is also known to be much easier to forge weld... so that is another place where it can be useful.  I have found that I usually make my tapers a bit blunter when working with wrought iron... it helps to avoid delamination!  

Shoot for more like 5/8" or so for your flatter thickness, you want it nice and strong and it may not end up exactly what you aim for.  Your material is probably good for that purpose and I would harden and temper the face but I think case hardening would be serious overkill!  

That should work to put the fear of God in folks!  Nice burl!!!

I don't know... but it is likely to be very close to ZERO!  It is generally good practice to run some sort of drawing for a give-away item or prize at such events.  The sign up should require contact info and anyone with interest should be encouraged to enter!  The resulting list of prospects can be good to work for about a year!  After they leave make notes of what kind of things they were interested in so that you can talk with them later as if you remembered the conversation perfectly!  This is standard salesmanship and it really WORKS!!!  

It is generally good practice to slit and drift as a first step after selecting the blank.  Doing it that way will save wasted effort on those blanks that develop serious problems with these steps... common, because this is one of the hardest steps!

That came out pretty gray and not real eye-catching.  Try polishing it up a little and leaving the existing finish in the low spots... see how that develops!  Each piece is kind of a trial and error experience... but you get better as you go!  Don't settle for blasé stuff, keep tweaking and backtracking until you get something exciting!  

Oh NO!!!  The PVC will be GONE after the first fire!!!  Cast iron or thick steel is what you need for your tuyere!!!

A typical rivet type forge.  Often used with charcoal to heat soldering irons, rivets, horseshoes... light duty stuff.  Adding a few firebricks can help to get good fire depth for general smithing... or just pile the coal/charcoal up pretty good.

Patrick; I think that the amount of extrusion you got surprised you because of the heavier hammer that you used... mostly.  Remember that when you hit harder the metal is deformed (moved) more deeply.  Since you only had a 1/4" shoulder to begin with and a 1 1/2" Hardy it makes sense that much of the force from your early strikes pushed metal into the hardy hole!  Now that you KNOW you could cool the starter shank just a bit and/or use a smaller hammer to hit more softly and oftener until you get more material upset beyond the hardy hole to get a smaller extrusion.  Using a peened sledge to push more metal to the sides (rather than straight down) could also help some!  You could use a bolster of the depth that you want the struck shank to be to strictly limit the extrusion that you would get.  I hope these thoughts help you... I cannot give you any kind of rule of thumb that would be helpful... but hopefully you will now see more clearly what is happening and how you can manage it to suit you! 

The alloys in RR spikes are pretty soft stuff, I think it is due to copper content added for weather resistance.  Makes them poor material for tooling in general.  I have made several nail headers from them but now prefer harder steels.  I have liked them for handles where their weather resistance is useful!  I'd think they would work well for outdoor hooks also!  

I've seen numerous pairs of those one side sharp nippers.  Just a different style I think.  Definitely NOT custom altered or there would not be so many of them around!

If you have pickle that is well used for copper that will work.  Some guys use Miracle Gro plant food or one of the various root killer brands (which are mostly copper sulfate).

It's "RIVETING"!!!