Dave Budd

my last workshop had a stump (15"diam) with a small anvil on it. It got right on my nerves aws it moved around under heavy hammering. My previous place had a stand bolted to the ground but was made from RSJ and was REALLY load. Now I've a clay floor. So my anvil logs are 20" diameter oak that is planted three feet in teh ground. Those suckers are going nowhere :D

thanks guys. I fancied giving wire a try, just for the heck of it really. It needed annealing every 3 or 4 holes, but it wasn't as tough as I expected. I expect the patina will help too, I don't think I'll artificially age the copper though (don't want th xxxx on my sheath )

I've been puttingthis one together on and off for a while and I thought I would share the end result here (sorry, it's not a RR spike or shiny ats34 number ) The blade was forged alongside a student one day (he wanted to make a really big blade to take away and finish ) and is edgequenched EN45. 10" blade, 15" over all and not sharp yet. The handle was put on bit by bit over the following month or so leading up to the Midland Game Fair. Desert Ironwood and buckeye burl, the main pins are 3/16 brass with a ring of aluminium and brass around them. The centre pin is an assymetrical mosaic (I'll find a photo in a bit). The handle is a morticed construction with red/white/red liners between the bits of wood, but they didn't show in the pic as the layers are quite fine card Then the sheath has been decorated and finished when idol in front of the telly over the last few weeks. My first attempt at relief moulding and binding with copper wire That's 7 feet of 1/16th (whatever gauge that is) eletrical wire. I'm considering binding the edges of the frog in the same fashion but with thinner wire. what do people think? Over on British Blades there has been mixed opinions about the copper wire. I'm still not sure, but I think I like it

I started out making knives by stock removal, but taught myself to forge because grinding bores me to tears. These days the only time I make a blade totally by stock removal is if it would be too difficult to forge (getting more and more rare thankfully!) Forging is quicker in some respects, but because I prefer to leave my blades forged finished, I have to get everything closer to finished than if I am grinding some of it away as well. Obviously any pattern welded blades I make are forged less closely and ground, but without a power hammer I don't do many of those. The main reason for forging for me is coz (as many have said) its fun! I had a student in the workshop recently who wanted to learn how to make a blade by stock removal because he didn't expect ot have the set up for forging but wanted ot make knives at home. So for teh first time in nearly 5 years I made a blade completely by stock removal (I don't have a big flash grinder, only a cheap little linisher with a 500w motor and an angle grinder). It took me back! God it was boring.

I just wipe them over with a bit of oil. something like danish or linseed oil hardens in air, so will leave a protective coating on the steel. I suspect waxes like renwax would also work don't forget that the oxides are very thin and rub off with use ;)

I use fork lift spikes for anvils when teaching students. They work fine, unless you hit them with the edge of your hammer I'm sure that I could improve them no end if I re-heat treat them, but I don't have that big a forge.

the triple hardening is a way of refining the grain size of certain steels. To refine the grain size and thus get the best edge nd toughness possible the steel must get from above to below criticle. Normalizing is the usual way, but hardening also shrinks the grains (though it does impart stress as well). Steels containing certain carbides need to be quenched in order for the comlex carbides to form, so if you triple quench you get a finer matirx of carbides; thus a better blade. Simple steels (10 series in the US for example) don't need the extra stress and buggering about, but 52100 (lots of chrome and vanadium) really benefits from it. I was dubious myself until I ran some experiments last year and it did make a difference to the overall edge retention on some of the steels I use, but not others. My rate of warpages went up, bt then so did the quality of the blades that made it through intact The simple steels that I use I only single quench, relying on triple normalizing ot do the refinement of the grain size (there are no complex carbides to form, only Iron Carbides that form easily when in solution)

funny, I've got an earth floor (the clay that was under the topsoil when I leveled the site) in my new workshop. I've been in there now for about 5 months and mostly I porefer it to the concrete that I've had in the past. I don't find it hard to clean or to move things around on, maybe that's coz its hard clay. Its warmer and more comfortable than concrete and I've broken loads less things than I used to by dropping them on the floor! I'd always had trouble with anvil stumps moving around (not got big anvils), but now they are 3 feet in the ground I don't have that trouble. Bolting things like my drill down was a fag as I had to plant logs to screw the machines to, but the tools that vibrate make less noise now they are planted in clay and not hitting concrete. My main dislike with it is that I can't get it wet or it gets slippery/sticky. So I have to do my sharpening outside even in the rain :(

I'd definately go with a cold set, although I've seen hot sets that blunt (never thought they should be though). looks like it was made from a splitting wedge :)

I've even resorted to parafin wax candles when I've been at shows and forgotten my beeswax. Worked fine The colour was more black black than the brown black you get from beeswax and the coating was harder than normal too. Also, if its in a warm place teh wax doesn't soften, so it doesn't get sticky ;)

I've been busy making but not showing lately, so I thought I would put up three of the latest from my workshop File finished O1 blade, thuya burl handle, over all size 4 1/2" EN45 blade (silcon manganese spring steel), black palm handle. 7" over all 1085 blade, boar tusk and australian blackwood handle, 9 1/2" over all Most of the other knives I'm working on are pretty repetitive at teh moment, so the change was good for me

I went to see them a few years back and the slag flows are something else, its like sitting on a lava flow! I confess to not knowning a huge amount about the project (I'm more into the resulting metal than the making of it) but I know iits been teh launching pad for a lot of interesting and useful work. Various geochemical and geophysical prospection techniques have been pioneered there to identify metal working sites. I did my MA when the developers were doing their phd's and some of the maps were brilliant: on a map of the forge site you could make out not only where the hearth was (a raised hearth, so left no physical remains) but alco where the anvil was!

Gill' one of my old lecturers so I've seen a lot of the cool reserach from the wind-powered furnaces. They are billiant, using the monsoon winds to produce the metal. They ran some of the smelting experimients at night and teh resulting photos are incredible. The wind that hits the front of the furnace heads stright up and over creating a shield over the top of the furnace; which inturn keeps even more of the heat in the furnace and makes it even more efficient! Amazing stuff Some of the videos that she made of the Sri Lankan balacksmiths in their forges are great too. They are all using ground level hearths and many still have stone anvils and hammers as well as small iron/steel tools. I wouldn't fancy working with their equivalent of a sledge hammer though (a boulder of about 20lb). The smith in one film had a bit of metal in some very short tongs and resting on a stone anvil infront of him (sitting cross legged on hte ground), while his mate standing in front of him swung a boulder toward the hot metal!

first attempt at a forge was a pile of bricks and a scaffold pipe (haird dryer for air). 2nd one was old BBQ. 3rd was the clippings box from a lawnmower stuffed with adobe. 4th was a mild steel portable foge (looked like a heavy BBQ) made by a farrier for his own use but then he couldn't lift it. Since actually using the things rather than trying to get a forge to work, i've built from bricks and cement and fabricated from mild steel. I've a gas forge that is a pile of fire bricks and I've demonstrated using a 'Mad Max' style of ground forge constructed from broken concrete and scaffold pipe. When I go out demonstrating I use an iron age set up that is basically a hole in teh ground with simple bellows. I can do everything with thatthat I can with my modern forge set up ;)

I know the cold bluing solutions can turn shades of blue, purple, browns and black. Not sure how they got red though? Interested to find out

not 'alf ! I use 1/4" aluminium in the workshop, but when I'm demonstrating I've got a bit of old copper pipe flattened and folded across teh anvil. It's not thick but it does the job

Gortunately I've not gained any big scars from burning (they've come from abrasives, cuts adn horses), but I've managed a few close calls already (only been forging for 5 years). When I was first learning I volunteered at our local national trust forge, Finches Foundry, where I was basically picking it up as I went along but not letting the public know that I decided to have a go at a toasting fork and all was going well until I went to twist the square bar. I'm sure everyone who has demonstrated has done this, I would put the bar into the fire to heat up and somebody would ask a question. So I would take it out to answer (rather than burn my nice fork) and when done I put it back in to heat properly. Did that a few times so that when I finally got it into the vice and fitted the wrench to the bar, the end where I was going ot support it with my hand (to keep the length straight while twisting) was rather hotter than I thought! I grabbed it too fast andf let go even faster! Ended up witha perfect 10mm square bar line right across my right palm. Ouch! It blistered badly and was yellow and nasty, but with the good old lavender oil it was completely gone in a few weeks. not even a scar. I've got a nice little burn from hitting a freshly welded joint, that was deep and only hurt afterwards. Also had hammer scale weld to my forehead and all over my hands/arms (normally when firewelding of course)

thanks Rich et al, that's great! The channel idea is pretty much what was floating in my head, but Hofi's set up is something special! All I need to do now is get teh stand for teh press built, then mount the press, and then I can make some tooling :rolleyes:

The spanners I found were prety rubbish steel, but it's a bit of fun none the less When I learnt to forge I spent a lot of time creating scrap, so I only used old springs, files, etc. Then when I started getting the hang of it and began earning a living from my baldes I couldn't take the chance on unknown steels that could contain flaws. So I switched to virgin steel and now I onlyu use recycled stock if I'm going to keep its original character such as: Chainsaw files Chisels (beveled edge chisel, broken hammer handle and the suitcase again) A flymo (lawnmower) blade Another file sorry I seem to have hijacked your thread!

I bought myself a fly press when I set up new workshop with lots of plans in mind for its use (I've not got it up onto a stand yet though). One thing I thought about was for punching holes in axes and hammers Being new to fly presses though I've not thought about the tooling. I don't suppose you've got a link to the punch jig you mention? I can't find it anywhere!

ah the joys of recycling steel: you never know what it's made of! I always take a bit of the unknown tool and quench to find the right liquid and then draw the temper at different teperatures to find the right one. It's a pain in the bum, but at least it means that i'm not going to sell something that is only good as a paperweight That's how I worked out that this spanner was pretty poor steel, but with a super quench I could get it to about 55RC I did a series of totally recycled knives. The drill bit has a sheath made form a leather suitcase and sewn up with fishing line i found on the beach. The spanner has a scap of leather wastecoat, scrap of old para cord scrap of leather jacket and an end of waxed thread that I use for sewing sheathes; the sheath is more suitcase and sewn up with a broken dacron bowstring. :cool:

it's a 1/4" drill bit, so was only ever a novelty but could be a nice little craft knife as is. I've made larger knives from 1/2" and wrapped the 'handle' with leather, which was quite cool

I've made lots of little bells from mild (so could just as easily use iron) for dogs and horses. Probably like the goat bells mentioned. simple to make: flatten a bar so that it thins toward the ends and is bow-tie shaped. then drill or punch a hole in the centre. Curve the wide bits in a swage and then fold the thing in half but make sure the sides don't touch or it won't ring Then make a clanger by folding the end of a small diam rod or wire over to made it heavy on the end and draw the other to a fine wire that can be easily bent through a correspnding loop that will fit through the hole and be bent into a loop for suspending the bell. Try to get teh clanger to swing freely and hit the bell about a third of the way up. It's improved by making a seperate link to connect the clanger and the hanging loop (makes it swing more freely). sorry not a very big photo of the bell (it's about 2" tall), but doesn't my dog look good

I wouldn't bother trying to forge the fluting back into a bar, just untwist and use as flat. Or use the bits for something else just because you can buy new steel, doesn't been that should throw away good old steel ;)

Jim, where abouts in the world are you? Certainly here in teh UK it's not that easy to get hold of compared to the US (at least that's the impression I get). Before I found a supply of commercial HT oil I used peanut oil with very good results (though it depnds on the speed of quench that you are aftr )