JHCC

JimsShip, check out this video; it shows a similar process done in Blackpool Rock (the lettering process starts at about the 4 minute mark).

Didn't they used to harden watch springs in lamb fat?

Nice!

To clarify: the outlet of the shop vac and the air inlet of the tuyere are not lined up.  Less than 1/4 of the output goes into the fire; the rest blows past to cool off the smith.

Google "mosaic damascus".

The war and developments in metallurgy.

I'm currently forging with nut-sized anthracite, and yes, it's harder to light. This is what I've been doing:

(BTW, you don't say what your forge and air supply are, but I'm going to assume that you're using some kind of mechanical blower; I use a shop vac set on BLOW). 

In the middle of your firepot, place a wadded ball of newspaper, and cover with thin pieces of dry softwood (no bigger than a pencil). Light. When the wood starts to burn, add a handful or two of lump charcoal and turn on your air. As the charcoal begins to burn, cover the whole fire with a layer of coal and give it a chance to get burning strongly. Once the fire stops sending out a lot of sparks (aka "fire fleas"), the wood and charcoal will have burned away, and you will be burning straight coal. 

I've made chocolate chip cookies with bacon grease. Those were some xxxx good cookies.

Can we get a photo or two of the existing blower mechanism? I would also explore human-powered modes of air supply, and it may be possible to remove the electric motor and provide some other means of turning the fan.

If someone treated him really badly, that would be an abuse of Executive Powers.

Google Scholar is a great resource for online access to scholarly books, journals, articles, etc.

Awesome. Loved it when he scrapes the scale off with an old bayonet!

A larger version of the one in your profile pic?

 

Yeah, but the froe needs a handle, but you need the froe to make a handle for the froe that doesn't have a handle so you should make a froe to make the handle for the froe so you can make the handle for the froe....

Anything that slows moisture transfer. Speed is the enemy of proper seasoning; you want the entire billet to lose moisture at roughly the same rate. You can use latex house paint, dip the ends in melted wax, whatever seals off the pores.

Think of the wood as a bundle of rubber tubes, each of which is slightly expanded with the water inside. If the end grain isn't sealed, the ends lose their moisture faster and shrink faster than the middle; this can lead to cracking, both internal and external. If you seal the ends, the moisture works its way out through the sides of the billet, which takes longer, but dramatically reduces the risk of checking/cracking.

Cutting the wood to rough dimension is a good idea, as thicker pieces generally develop more internal tension as they dry. Hickory is also a LOT easier to work while still green, so you'll be saving yourself a lot of aggravation down the road.

One advantage (perhaps the only one) of my long hiatus from smithing and the attendant loss of almost all my gear is that almost any project I want to do right now involves making tools first. 

When I modded a hand sledge into a rounding hammer (like the middle pic in Charles's post, above), I filed a small flat onto the same side of the handle as the flat face of the hammer. It's an instant tactile cue as to which way the hammer is pointed.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere (although I'm sure I just missed it) is that many hardware stores sell "horticultural vinegar" for use as a weed killer*; it's a lot stronger than regular white vinegar. Seems a good middle ground between regular vinegar and muriatic acid.



*Don't do it. Vinegar only kills the leaves, not the roots, and it's horrible for the soil bacteria.

There's a third option, I think, and one of which I know I myself have been guilty plenty of times: the tendency of the newbie (or the relative newbie) to seek reassurance and approval, especially if they (consciously or not) aren't feeling particularly confident or if they feel that they have done something particularly creative or clever, but lack the experience and perspective to know that others have tried and failed that particular method before them. Unfortunately, when confronted with some straight talk from the IFI curmudgeons, it can be easier to be defensive than it is to be humble.

Reminds me obliquely of the term I heard for someone who thinks too much of themselves: FIG JAM. It stands for: "F***, I'm Good; Just Ask Me!"

I have had garlic ice cream, and it's AWESOME!

Next year's garlic went in the ground yesterday, including three or four dozen bulblets that had formed on the flower stalks of a few of this year's. We'll see how they turn out.

And Frosty, be careful about those galvy washtubs. The last time I had my eye open for one (for a Tim Lively-style tub forge), I ended up buying my current rivet forge.

Looks nice, but all your design elements are upside down.

Tempting. How big a bag?

If we're making reading recommendations here, I STRONGLY recommend "Evening in the Palace of Reason" by James Gaines, especially if you like classical music and European intellectual history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.