JHCC

The hobbiest of hobbyists.

When I was working in art restoration, we took in a broken black marble sink that needed some missing areas replaced. My coworker Ed cast some thin plaques of epoxy tinted with white pigment, smashed them to bits, mixed the bits into a batch of epoxy tinted with black pigment, drizzled on some "veins" of white-tinted epoxy and dragged them through with a toothpick, and then ground and polished the resulting mix. Looked fantastic.

Welcome, Brian. I see you've already been directed to the READ THIS FIRST!!! post, so I won't direct you to that again. Oh, wait.... Check out your local smithing association and see if there's anything in the area for classes or open forges. And keep reading IFI!!!

Poking a hole in the top can help with airflow as you're getting the fire started. Once the fire is established, it's not so important.

We've been having the same issues at the college, with people donating musical instruments to the conservatory of music. Ivory flutes and piano keys are a particular problem. I was working with a possible donation of antique tortoiseshell conductors' batons that fell through not least because of the CITES issue.

Not Constantinople?

Take a look at this: And also this:

More photos showing the sides, ends, and (if possible) bottom would help. Very hard to tell anything from this angle.

Welcome to IFI! I suspect you may have already, but if not, please READ THIS FIRST!!!

Did another section of hard refractory in the new forge before running out of Kast-o-lite. I’d swathed the block of the ribbon burner in plastic wrap before mortaring around it, which left a nice lip around the edge of the opening. Here it is from the back, with the block removed:

Hoping you make another video to demonstrate your preferred method, especially since — if I remember correctly — I was the person in that discussion who asked you to make the how-to.

Thanks, Steve; that makes sense. I see that Kevin Cashen's website recommends forging O1 at 1800°F/1950°F at the top end and not forging any cooler than 1550°F. Granted that lighting conditions etc. can affect color perception, that would be roughly from a dark yellow down to about a bright red. If memory serves, I started running into trouble when forging the tang section at about a light yellow. So, I guess if I take the steel out of the forge and see that it's too bright, I should just let it cool off a bit before I start to hammer?

The first rule of hammer rack design is to make it twice as big as you currently need. Tool collections share an interesting property with gasses: they expand to fill the space available.

It's a sad day today, as the welder that had served me so well for the last year or so finally had to follow me away from home and return to the theater of the college where I work. I shall miss it.

The best first thing to make!

Great stuff. I can’t remember if I posted this here or not, but here’s a photo I took a couple of months ago of Samuel Yellin’s grave in Philadelphia.

Is the Gargoyle Grease made from real gargoyles?

Welcome to IFI! If you haven't yet, please READ THIS FIRST!!!

The OED has "tup" referring to a ram (as in male sheep) as early as the 14th century; the earliest documented usage as referring to a hammer (in this case, for knocking paving stones into place) is 1848.

Welcome to IFI! If you haven't yet, please READ THIS FIRST!!!

That's a handsome bit of work.

Welcome to IFI! If you haven't yet, please READ THIS FIRST!!!

Another good reason to make sure that you're not replying to a quote within that quote. See The Quote Feature for a discussion of best practices for quoting.

Richard McNaughton's book The Mande Blacksmiths talks extensively not only about how this task was the most important job of the apprentice, but also about how the rhythms of the bellows serve a vital role in underlying the rhythms of the hammer blows and helping set the pace for the day's work. If I recall correctly, a knowledgeable observer could tell by those rhythms with whom a smith had originally apprenticed.

Like having a London-pattern anvil in the Japanese setting of the "Akane No Mai" episode of "Westworld"? Or EVERY SINGLE UNNECESSARY QUENCH in every blade forging sequence ever filmed?!?