MarkDobson

heres a new bench vise i got as a birthday gift all mounted up on the new workbench i put in my main workshop. its a yost 750 di. has 5 inch jaws and is made of ductile iron instead of cast. weighs in around 60 lbs. its sitting next to the old 5.5inch craftsman vise that we have been using around the farm for the past 10 years. the craftsman is getting moved to my dads workshop/ sawmill area upstairs once we get the larger bench done. as you can tell buy the pictures, i need to put a floor and a drain in lol. we used to have the pig stalls down stairs at one point as

continueing with the the rest of my posts, this is one of my first completed larger blades that ive made. this one was forged from a leaf spring. left it with a forge finish and a wrought iron guard. the handle is a piece of what i believe to be mahogany. it was a hard wood sticker that came in with some lumber at work. after it served the purpose of my parking brake i figured id use it for a knife handle. bevels were forged in then ground. still need to finish the sheath for this one

well guys i figured its been a while since ive posted anything so i thought id share some stuff ive made in the last few weeks. the one is a small spike hawk made from a 1 1/4 wrench with a welded in bit of 5160 (anyone know what steel the wrenches are made from?) the second is a hatchet/hawk i made from a wagon wheel and a piece of 5160 for the bit. this one gave me a bit of trouble because i may or may not have melted the eye trying to weld it, this was my first attempt at an asymetric weld. i then had to weld in more wagon wheel to get enough material to weld the eye.i used the spoke from the wagon wheel as the handle for this one and proceeded to work it down with a spoke shave to make it a little smaller. im surprised with how well it turned out just because of how old the wheel is (not sure why the one picture is sideways i tried rotating it)

if i had to estimate, id say its about 250lbs all together so i doubt id have to stand on it but its large enough that i can stand on it and the smaller square sections in the middle that are sticking out far enough so that if i need more leverage or need to be higher for whatever reason i can stand on those too

figure id show you guys the new stand i made for my vise. not sure what it was before i started cutting in it but i cut the center out of it and welded it back together, then drilled and welded studs into the top to hold the vise. and yes i was wearing a mask and had a fan blowing the fumes out of the shop while i was welding.

lol at the "NOT CAST IRON" part

honestly i love how the damascus stripes look on the one side of the blade, now im going to have to find a way to recreate that effect

as thomas said, its a columbian anvil, im not 100% but fairly certain these little ones were made of cast iron. not a bad anvil to have on a bench for minor work like straightening and small stuff tho

normally i use 1/8th inch for hunting knives and stuff, this is my first big knife that im making and was jsut kinda a spur of the moment thing so im going to use what i have. plus im only doing stock removal on this one. if i was forging i def would have ordered thicker material. if im lucky the lighter weight will make it easier to handle and will cause less fatigue when swinging. maybe ill even try tapering the tang. this whole knife is an experiment and is a lot of firsts for me but if you dont try you never learn, right? was thinking about trying to produce a hamon on the blade as well.

the (maybe) false edge on top,still have to do the main bevels. im using 1/8th inch 1095. its a little on the thin side but should help keep the weight down since its full tang

well i got motivated today and decided i was going to try and make something a little larger than i usually do. after a little sketching this is what i came up with. so far i just have it profiled and a swedge filed in. this is my first swedge so if i did anything wrong with it let me know. the blade length is about 8.5 inches, the handle is a little long but i think i like the length for right now. on a side note, i ended up getting a made in usa 14inch magicut Nicholson file that really made draw filing easier and faster. after i figure how im going to layout the bevels i think im going to try draw filing them in on this one instead of trying to use my tiny little grinder haha.

i have actually thought about doing that but wasnt sure how to go about it. was thinking either attempting to do a canister weld with the 1084(?) powder steel ,which ive never tried before, or just twisting and welding it like i did with the barbed wire and then doing a san mai construction with a 1095 core. good welding practice either way

Alright, so i finally finished this guy up, i heat treated it in water which worked great, i ended up with a fairly good warp in the blade caused by a small weld failure. i got it straightened up and cleaned up and then decided to make a guard out of the same barbed wire i made the knife billet from. when i etched the guard i found it had a more active pattern vs the stuff i had made for the blade. im guessing its because i didnt fold the barbed wire as many times to weld up the guard. the handle is red oak finished with danish oil. as you can tell by my hand, it was just a tad bit sharp after hand sanding a little honing with a 1200 grit stone and its razor sharp.

thanks!, i did end up pushing the one side over some, i think the core is just not perfectly, i think i worked one side more than the other. most if not all of those cracks or welding flaws or whatever they were at the tip came out as well. i was honestly surprised everything welded up as good as it did since i didnt use any flux. it started out as me playing around and then after it actually stuck together i was like "o crap what should i do with this now" haha

thanks, i just used pcb circuit board etch from radio shack mixed with water, not sure off the top of my head what the ratio is.

so i took advantage of the weather over the weekend and forged up this little knife, its not heat treated yet but providing that goes well i think it should turn out awesome. the core is just a piece of mower blade that i had that happened to be the right size and the outside layers are made of old barbed wire fencing that i twisted up and forge welded together. it was interesting to work the barbed wire because it started out with a decent amount of carbon but as i welded and worked the billet i could tell it was losing carbon, mainly from the way it sparked as i cleaned it up between welds with the angle grinder. the pattern is kinda hard to see in the photos but hopefully it becomes clearer after heat treat. it wasnt quite what i was expecting the pattern to look like but still neat.

it looks like a tractor weight to me, but its hard to tell with all the other stuff around it. if your thinking of purchasing it or the lot id say bring a ball bearing and test it

if i remember correctly rr spikes are .18% carbon (1018 aka mild steel) and hc spikes are around .3% carbon (1030) both of which are considered mild steel. you would be better off cutting up a piece of track to make your tooling. IIRC track is similar to 1050 series, still not hc but good for tooling.

that looks really good! if you guys keep up this metal sculpting stuff i might have to give it a try, providing i dont drop all of my pieces into the snow haha

so this weekend i decided to race the snow and get out and make some tools that ive desperately needed. i ended up making a square punch, a round/center punch and i guess what you would call a bolster plate for making rivet heads and tenons. the bolster plate as a 1/2in and 3/8in hole for rivet heading and a square hole so i can have nice clean tenons on my plant hangers or whatever i decide to make. the punches are made from 1/2in 1045. the bolster plate is made from a trailer leaf spring. i ended up making the square punch too short but it worked well. i think next time i will keep the punches closer to the length of the round punch. you can also see i didnt quite beat the snow lol.

Wow, he definately completes the family haha. those look awesome, and im not sure aus, they seem quite at home in that room

dont worry about hijacking, im really liking these ideas and i may try a few this weekend as long as the weather cooperates

wow, lockie looks awesome! and as das said, we need a family portrait

wow, i wasnt expecting my weekend project to inspire so many others to give this a go haha. those look really cool das, im digging the door pull! might have to add that to the list as well. if this keeps up i might run outa spikes! and to think people still think these are only good for "knives" lol

i really like that design as well, next time i get out to the forge im going to have to find a spike i havnt mangled up and see if i can make something similar. after seeing the size of your hook i think mine is probably to big. but i guess that also depends on what size i need for our hanging baskets.