JHCC

"Little corrections, little corrections. With the little corrections, we avoid the big corrections." -- Alexander G. Weygers As for the knife, I'm not Vaughn (and no knifemaker), but here's my critique: a knife is judged on a number of criteria: edge-holding ability, the appropriateness of the form to its intended function, proportion and balance, etc. The only thing we can see here is how it looks, and yeah, it's obviously a first knife by someone whose ambition is greater than their skill. It's kind of clunky, but that's where you are right now. I'll leave more technical critique to people who know knifemaking better than I do. I'll say this, though: it's a lot better than my first few knives! One other thing: if you really like the pitting, that's fine, but don't insult people who don't. "Shiny knives are for dull people" is unnecessary and isn't going to win you any friends. Glenn's comment was excellent, and the only thing I can add to it is that if you have any opportunity in college to take a drawing class or an art history class, DO IT. Both will train your eye to look, and the drawing will train your hand to do what your brain wants. Take a photography class while you're at it.

About 8,500 people. There's one guy who usually has some good tools; I'm interested to see what he has this year.

Ian, is your retort similar to the one discussed in this thread?

Yeah, I can't see any of the photos on that thread. Grrr. BUT, I did find this photo and this one online, that appear to show the internal tubing of the Hookway retort in a bit more detail (found on this site).

Good! Then you can post pictures (and get advice about it) on the Show Me Your Anvil thread.

Magnetism.

Never turn down a free anvil.

While doing research on various designs for charcoal retorts both on IFI and elsewhere, I ran across this interesting variation that I wanted to get folks' thoughts on. It's an indirect-method retort, but rather than a double-barrel design with the fire around the outside, it appears to be essentially a 55 gal drum with a rocket stove in the middle, fueled by the wood gasses being piped back in through the fresh air intake. Has anyone here ever seen/tried/used/built anything like this, and would they recommend it? On the face of it, it looks like it wouldn't be terribly complicated to build and wouldn't require quite as much firewood to get up to heat, especially if the outside is well-insulated. Thoughts? Addendum: another video from the same guy shows a similar retort that he build with bricks and clay, not even using a drum.

Tomorrow is the city-wide garage sale in the Ohio town where I live. I anticipate lots of things following me home....

You'll fit right in around here.

Welcome!

Beautiful blade, but a real ethical question about the maker's mark. At very least, add your own touchmark; otherwise, it really is a forgery (even if you didn't intend it to be).

"Oh. My. Frosty. Look at that BOLT!"

When my family moved to the Vermont woods in '84, we had no indoor plumbing at all, but got running water a week or so later. Until the house was finished, we showered outside under a hose. A hot-water shower in a snowstorm is an experience I will certainly never forget. (Oh, and I was forging with coal in an oversized rivet forge with a hand-cranked blower at the time.)

Congratulations! You tried something far beyond your current capabilities, and you failed. Good for you! You now know more about your own limitations than all the people who never try anything more ambitious than getting up in the morning. Now, get your ass back in the forge and say, "What can I do today with what I have here to make my skills and my tools one step better than they are now?" Then do that. Repeat as necessary. In the mean time, hang that crappy sword on your wall as a reminder of how far you have to go. In time, it will become a reminder of how far you've come. (And by the way, you don't need a sword to saber a bottle of champagne. A decent cooking knife will work, and the ring pictured on this page is something you can probably make a lot sooner than you could make a sword.)

Whatever it takes to get lucky!

Looking at some of the other threads about charcoal, I'm wondering if I've got too much of an opening in the tuyere. There's a central hole surrounded by smaller ones, certainly more total than the 3/4"-1" diameter I see recommended. Let's see if smaller charcoal and a smaller opening make a difference.

Yes, I was pleased to note how very little scaling there was this last time.

Oh, you're tearing my heart out. I had one of those once that I picked up at an antique shop for about $30; it was yet another of the tools left behind in my move to the big city in '92.

It ain't a project until someone bleeds.

As chronicled elsewhere, I've been experimenting with forging in a charcoal-fired rivet forge with a fairly deep duck's nest built up from clay and sand. Here's what it looks like right now: I've been having a hard time getting a good fire that will get steel up to forging temperature in any reasonable amount of time; I have this weird feeling that I shouldn't be spending only a tenth of my time actually hitting metal. So, in reading around IFI, I see a lot of recommendations that side-blast is a lot better for charcoal than bottom-blast, which is the current setup. Part of me is toying with the idea of tearing the clay out and building some kind of piping arrangement to convert it from bottom-blast to side-blast, something like this: (Not to scale. The crosshatching indicates clay, and isn't intended to indicate the actual profile of the firebowl. I'm open to suggestions there, too.) I'm thinking that if I do this, I can pipe the air directly from the blower to the tuyere, bypassing the ash dump, which is leaking air anyway. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Thanks, Frosty. I think I'm going to post this over in the Solid Fuel section to see what folks there might suggest. By the way, speaking of charcoal and rocks in fires, the last time I fired up the forge, I found an egg-sized chunk of sandstone mixed in with the charcoal. Glad I was breaking up the lumps into smaller pieces; I don't like to think what would have happened if it had gotten into the fire. (Although I suppose that if it went through the charcoal making process, it was probably already pretty dry.)

Fired up again last night. Real bear getting a fire up to forging temperature; not really sure what the issue is. Part of me is toying with the idea of tearing the clay out and building some kind of piping arrangement to convert it from bottom-blast to side-blast, something like this: (Not to scale. The crosshatching indicates clay, and isn't intended to indicate the actual profile of the firebowl. I'm open to suggestions there, too.)

Yowza. Good deal. Enjoy!

Sorry, too busy; I have to go iron my smithing shirts.