Prevenge

Having survived the first day I think It is time for a basic upgrade from my stone hand tool into the iron age. I choose a decent sized spike (or any other suitable chunk of metal) and , still using my stone chopper, cut a hefty piece of Alder about two feet long and 1.5 at the thickest end. If it is the same or similar to the red alder found near my home to the south then I know it to be fairly dense and sturdy if the rot hasn't gotten to it. Now to the fire. Using the fire , augmented by dry fir bark , I heat my metal. Assuming I have a large spike , I flatten the middle into a blade about 1" or more in width but leaving about an inch on either end of it round for lashing to the alder handle. Basically I want something shaped like " _[[[[]]]]]_ " ......I flatten and groove the mating side of the alder for the blade to fit and secure it with whatever is on hand .....preferably some wire , thin long nails and twine/cordage. After thrusting my crude axe into the air and grunting like a neanderthal I put it to work. Crab traps could made using willows. Weaving side and bottom panels together to form an "uncapped pyramid /_\ " would make it easy for the crustaceans to enter but doubly hard for them to escape. Due to lack of a boat and float I would place these at low tide and anchor them using a stone at the bottom. There is usually plenty of rotting flesh to be found on any beach which would serve well as bait. I try and convince someone to find a sow with cubs and persuade her to let them milk her so we could make some butter.

If i was wandering around in circles I would be looking for Mary Ann or Ginger in that order. Body temp regulation ect.

Well , with the two creeks in a relatively close proximity I don't know that I would worry about carrying water on the first day. Instead I would seek to find a favorable place to set up shelter near one of them. Perhaps the one on the east side of the bay since I am already there. I would do pretty much the same as odblacksmith ...seek a natural formation as a foundation for a shelter but I would look for something that is up the creekbed inland a bit more for shelter from the ocean winds. Assuming i have some twine/string I would also use bow drill. Having a good starter supply of tinder and wood I would use the drill on a piece of dry spruce bark with a dry wooden piece beneath it as a backing. I would gather some clumps of dry beargrass and old man's beard moss to use as the initial nest for the embers. The bear grass, salt grass and thin willows can also be woven into crude basketry. Perhaps even sealed with spruce pitch to hold water if needed later. If i was to explore it would not be very far from my camp...perhaps the beach and cove south of the creek I am near?

No zombies? Well then. Seeing as how food would not be the most pressing concern, given that you would be able to construct the aforementioned tidal traps and forage various seaweeds, then my focus would shift to shelter and fresh water. I probably wouldnt spend much time or energy on the first tool ....a good hand sized slab of hard rock with one side chipped down into a chopper edge. I dont know what type of debris that period tsunami would yield but a simple hand chopper would do well enough for the first day gathering of any type of lashing material and firestarter ...I would also be very inclined to find/fabricate any sort of metal water containers for use in desalination of sea water via evaporation and condensation if there isnt a creek or something near by. The tool could be upgraded/replaced later depending on what I was able to salvage.

Gorgeous. Good blend of artistically flowing lines mixed with precision in both the knife and the sheath.

Another beauty ..... it looks like it would feel very nice in the hand as well.

I like. Did you buy the scales as pre stabilized pieces or make them? I have actually been thinking of making knives out of all the springs on my Cherokee if it springs another leak or decides it wants any more of my money.

I think mine is a 135 pound unit. A little less portable....plus it requires quite a bit of ethanol to get it going....but it can also swing a hammer.

I am a relative noob too...but why not heat it up a little and straighten/flatten it? It looks like mainly the last inch or so and the blade looks like it thins out as it progresses towards the hilt. Depending on what it is made out of you might even be able to do it cold. few rabbit taps and good to go. I usually tap very lightly with the blade running lengthwise along the anvil face to get more of a flat surface. Or...since it is annealed and it looks like you have a bit of length to work with get a couple pieces of wood , one about twice as long as the other, you can use a C-clamp to secure the tang between the two pieces and then clamp it in a vice, grind, file and then draw file it down using the wood as a backing piece....i think you have enough material to work with but if it is not a decent steel then i would just use it as filing practice.. What is it made of by the way?

Thanks for the warnings. I have been smithing for about a year as well as quite a bit of welding and metalworking experience over 20 or so years so this definitely not some of my first projects. While I have successfully reforged , hardened and tempered old chisels as well as made some blade type things from 1080-ish ( I think... I mean it could have been unobtainium plow disc if we are going this far with it) that I trust enough to use myself. I do not really consider myself a blacksmith or bladesmith yet....which is why I loiter here and read. And why I ask questions. The nature of this trade for me means that I will be using some steel which doesn't come with a heat # and AISI grade stamped on the side. So i do try to test for the type of hardening steel it might be for anything dedicated to being hit with a hammer. Not precise by any means....But I acknowledge the risk and accept the consequences. But I also want to minimize risk and get a better result ...so i am researching and asking questions. I know 100% what the pieces are....and so far I have learned that they are most likely made of the boron steel 50B50 or possibly 6150 ....both of which austenize (?) at the same temp . If I decide to make something potentially dangerous out of them then I will do all I can to err on the side of caution. Hence why I am going back scouring for more information

Nailed it...definitely what they are. Rotovator blades. And also possibly boron steel as jumbojak pointed out. I have been reading a bit in to it as I am unfamiliar with it. I did find some info... That link has a decent write up on it i think....but does anyone have any experience forging this stuff ...if that is in fact what it is? I though I would make a bulky bushcraft style knife from it. After reading a bit about boron steel it might not be bad for some hot punches and chisel type tools either, correct?

Very cool.....some really good ideas that are nicely executed there. Also if you are like me and like to laugh at silly things...the russian-english auto-generated subtitles are very interesting.

I will trade you for my old Miller 250 if you want something less complicated ....The upper range of the suggested amperage for the rod is max for if you are burning it into material that is way thicker than the diameter of the rod..like 4 times thicker at least...and flat...and even then is usually too high lol. It depends a lot on the machine. Arc force can be handy for doing uphand vertical position welds....especially on piping where the bottom is kind of a transition from an overhead position to a vertical and the deposited material tries to snuff out your arc. Don't worry about that. Like suggested by others...get some more 1/8 7018 , set to DCEP and fine tune it on a flat coupon. Or several even because as the piece heats up it will make your beads look rough too. I find that rod to be the best all around rod for proper welding. Proper welding...not the farmer special = arctec 443 and down hand vertical haha. Once you find that sweet spot its just a matter of adjusting to suit the position and material you are welding.

Welcome to globalization, greed and their effect on quality. Recently, while in the grocery store...I seen "Canadian salmon" (I am from BC..salmon is one of our things) processed in the US...packaged in China. "Fresh" . Think about that for a minute. Let's give a round of applause to the overpaid think-tank members that came up with that idea. Saved the company 5% and outsourced 45% of the $ out of country. Bravo. If it is being sold here...it shouldn't have to say "canadian salmon".....fml

If i used channel I was gonna have the top section be doubled up and standing on edge , coped into the vertical....which would in essence act like beam or tubing depending how it was arranged. You are right though ...some gussets wouldnt hurt. What size is your jack?

Nice work... I am thinking of building one myself. If i am seeing yours correctly...you've basically inverted the working end of the jack so that the piece of tubing/pipe attached to the baseplate essentially becomes the new "ram" ? How much does that top angle iron flex? I was thinking of using channel iron for mine but i do like that design....

Do yourself a favor and do not come up here....almost all of us are terrible people. Just terrible. Sarcasm aside......Listen to the words of your most prominent village idiot Donald Trump if you are thinking of sneaking in illegally. According to him you get 8 years of hard labor if you get caught sneaking in to Canada .

yeah...I would just go with buying fret wire. But perhaps you could have it anodized or coated in some way to customize it beyond that

Beauty..... I gotta say though...that reclaimed pallet wood has some very nice character! what did you finish it with?

Hi and welcome! As you may notice I am a little further north than what is considered the interior region but as far as this forum goes we are fairly neighborly lol. Folks from all over here and all of them seem to be very good natured and eager to help , even though some can be a little prickly ...I am sure by now you have read all the stickies and perused the blueprints. I am fairly new to smithin' myself and I don't think we have a guild or organization dedicated to blacksmithing on the provincial level in British Columbia. I did find the Kootenay Blacksmith's Association and the one from Van-Isle as well. If you need some links for suppliers or want to see some mind blowing pictures of member's works check out the Kootenay Blacksmith's website. BC is known as an artist's province and there are some great examples there. Other than that I know there is at least one other person from BC active on here and maybe more will chime in if they read your thread.

On the topic of World of Warcraft metallurgy .....Back when I used to play that game I once had an adult player ask me where in the game he could go to mine bronze. Mine. Bronze. I guess that is why the internet invented the "/facepalm" .... for somebody being taught what an alloy was by an orc shaman in a video game.

I'd make some tongs too if you don't have some already. And if you do then I would use them to make another pair I'd start with the rebar ....well I did start with the rebar, actually. I made some slitter/drifts that actually held up quite well.... plus my first simple tongs were rebar. Still use them sometimes lol. The aforementioned anvilfire.com has lots of illustrated tutorials but dont forget to look right here at the blueprints found in the Articles section.

I spent a good portion of last night swinging a 4lb crosspein against some fairly large pieces of 1080 and 15mm rebar (yuck...but my material pile is dwindling) ...which I find surprisingly hard to move. A lot of drawing out and things...probably 4 - 6 hours of tinkering in total...plus i was running chainsaw for most of the day before that lol. I think I overdid it though cause i noticed today that my hands are stiff , which isnt surprising, but also my pinky fingers on both hand seem to have "trigger finger" ....where they close fine but when opening they seem to hesitate then open as if they were spring loaded. i've had it before and it went away but i think i went a little too hard and am maybe a bit out of shape as well. This is a new hobby for me. Dehydration may have played a factor also because I tend to enjoy a beverage or two when i am out in the shop .... i think now I just need a power hammer for ...medical reasons.

It is awesome to see modern technological advances put to work in a contemporary art form. I think it looks amazing. 3D printing isn't controversial ...it is game changing and you are fully embracing that and applying it to an age old manufacturing process. I think I prefer the first blade...but that might be just because of the pattern? I like the straight back style of the second one but .....even though you would think the hexagon holes would go well with the handle pattern ...to me they seem off. Almost like they should belong on something more like a utility multi-tool and not a beautiful folder. I think it would look epic with a dark patterned tanto or clip point personally. But that is just my humble critique as a noob. Keep up the amazing work!

I guess I too am a teen age boy who wants to make a sword......except that I am in my mid 30s haha. Swords , axes and all things fantasy and medieval are what drew me to the Blacksmith art in the first place. When I was younger , knowing nothing about blacksmithing nor possessing any of the tools , I used to make "swords" and similar things out of metal I found laying around.... then administer a savage pruning to the helpless poplar trees and willows. Nothing was safe from my wrath ..save for the more resilient trees who's branches would dent my blades or hurt my hands. I even remember watching Conan and then heating one of my mild steel weapons of death to a very dull red in a fire and then quenching it in a puddle of muddy water and livestock urine. Fast forward 20 something years and I am a budding amateur blacksmith and I thank the gods that I didn't have access to a forge or other means of hardening high carbon steel when I was into tree-slaying. I know for a fact that some of the metal I used to grind my weapons out of would have been hardenable and knowing me I would have got a piece hot enough , quenched and said " derp I has tempered sord now!" .....and set about whacking trees. The trees could have had their vengeance as i lay on the ground bleeding out through a severed jugular vein as a result of my own shattered steel. Lots of people who know nothing of the properties of steel do not even know the difference between hardening and tempering or somehow think they are synonymous (embarrassingly I did too). Now I have the tools and the knowledge , minus the experience , to make a sword albeit a crude and ugly one. Have I ? No , save for a few machete type things. Will I? Of course...it's why I am here. But not till I am confident in my skill and know-how. Being a relative newbie my advice may not be worth much but here it is: Listen to the warnings of people who DO know. When it comes to dangerous things it is always better to learn from someone else's mistakes.