JHCC

What @Charles R. Stevens said, with the addition that location information needs to be included both for tailgating posts and CL/eBay descriptions. The world's greatest power hammer won't do a South African blacksmith much good if it's in Iceland.

Here's my most recent one, made from a rolled-up piece of truck leaf spring. Note the small fuller on one end of the edge, for cutting part way through a workpiece. I got the idea from one of basher's videos; you make the cut and then round out its bottom to prevent a cold shut.

I had a great old '81 SAAB 900 Turbo that I bought for $585 back in '91. When I moved to NYC in '92, I was planning to sell it (the insurance was really high, and I didn't really need it), but it got stolen off the street. The funny thing is, the night before it got stolen, I got pulled over by the cops because -- wait for it -- they thought I was driving a stolen car! As it turns out, they were right, but early.

Ooh, can I have some? I promise to be bad! Apparently, I had nothing to say.

The "Safety Glasses with clear lenses" from Harbor Freight are cheap and effective; for ten bucks, you could get half a dozen pairs and not worry about them growing legs.

For a first-ever piece, that's actually quite nice. The overall lines are pleasing; you have a good eye. From a design standpoint, my one quibble would be that your curlicue is out of proportion with the blade. A knife of this style and size gets used for lots of different tasks, and that big protrusion is not going to let the blade get all the way down to a cutting board, if you're chopping or slicing something. As far as execution goes, the surface on the handle looks a little rough. It's hard to tell from the photo, but did you burn that part of the steel? If so, that could be a significant problem. Burning significantly weakens the steel, and you do not want any part of a knife breaking under load. Not knowing what steel you used or how you did with the heat treatment, I can't make any comment about that. Frankly, I'm not much of a bladesmith anyway, but there are other people here much more qualified to help you there.

Have fun!

A top layer of clay would probably be fine.

Great article, and some truly beautiful photos!

That's okay. You also want the top of the forge to be completely covered as well. Otherwise, you'll get sand getting scraped off the surface as you rake coal into the fire. At that point, you might as well just clay the whole thing.

As my old advisor in college used to say, "You could do that.... It won't work, but you could do it!" What that will do is give you a relatively tough skin over a very unstable foundation. That skin will wear, crack, chip, and eventually crumble, and you'll end up with your fire in a hollow of shifting sand. You don't want that.

Safety gear!

There's a three-part set of YouTube videos of Jymm Hoffman making a frying pan -- not great video quality, but informative.

To quote one critique I've heard of this guy, "It's not primitive technology. It's recreating sophisticated technology with primitive materials."

I've got a couple of those knocking around; I'll give that a try.

Yes.

Addendum: when testing moisture content, you do not want any visible water, and you don't want any water to squeeze out when you compress a handful of your mix.

The key thing with clay is that you do NOT want it to be too wet, otherwise it will shrink and crack as it dries. On the other hand, you do need a bit of moisture, otherwise it won't stick together as you pack it into the box. I would suggest that you pound your clay as finely as possible. I'd recommend putting the clay on a concrete slab and crushing it with something heavy (a dropped sledgehammer is good). You don't want fine powder, but you do want it fairly small -- think fine cat litter or coarse sand. Then test the moisture content. You want to be able to pick up a handful, squeeze it hard, and have it hold together when you let go and break if you drop it. If it's too dry, moisten it gently with a watering can, mix thoroughly, and allow to sit for a few minutes to absorb the moisture. I second @Tommie Hockett's recommendation of adding wood ash. Sand is also good. I've never tried sawdust, but if you do, make sure that it's not from pressure-treated lumber (especially the old stuff). Arsenic fumes are not something you want to mess with. All of this can be done on the concrete slab. You can also do the mixing in a wheelbarrow. The nice thing about the slab is that you can mix the material fairly easily by scooping it up with a spade and turning it over on itself. When the raw material is ready, add it to your box and pack it in HARD. Do a little at a time and ram it in with a thick stick or a mallet.

Toxic members of the nightshade family are poisonous because of high concentrations of solanine; rhubarb (which is in a different family) has toxic leaves because of the high concentration of oxcalic acid. Chlorophyll is just the green pigment and thus isn't the problem; it it were, all green leafies would be toxic. So eat your spinach! Apple seeds and peach pits contain low doses of cyanide, but you have to eat a LOT to get sick. They also provide nucleation sites for bacterial growth; you do NOT want that kind of irregularity on a cooking surface.

The key to good punching is careful layout. The key to good drilling is also careful layout. As long as the holes are in the right place, it's not an issue. Punch the holes in the handle, and then use those holes to mark the locations of the holes in the pan.

Lot of hammer dings on that one. Might want to take an extra hammer (a flea market ball peen would be good) and really round the face over, so that you don't have any edges to mar up the inside of a concave surface.

ILL request submitted!

This happens to all of us. Don't beat yourself up over this. Just ride the waves until you find the flow again.

One nice little detail: the embroidery on the sleeve of the ballistics technicians that reads, "One test is worth a thousand expert opinions"!

Start them off with what someone here called "achievable awesomeness".