fleur de lis

Didnt intend for this to be a folder, but I dorked up my billet somewhere along the line & I don't much like wasting metal. So its off in this direction instead. This started out as 1084 powder & 15n20 in a 50mm x 50mm x 75-80mm can. Welded, drawn out, & twisted (where I think I dorked up) by hand. Ground to a quick dirty 240 grit, followed by a 10 minute ish dip. I'm hoping to get about a 25mm wide strip from the middle of my little billet. That should get me past my problem areas. None run very deep. In full disclosure, I've never done a folder before. So I'm sure I'll muddle this up a fair bit. Any and all advice & pointers is greatly appreciated. Should be a fun learning experience regardless.

Thank you kozzy & thomas. I really appreciate the pointers. Much food for thought. I'm a oil or shellac guy traditionally. It's always been my go to. I've probably used more Danish or Teak oil than anything else. In my opinion, there is nothing like a good hand rubbed oil finish. Its what I'm most comfortable with & her blade is close to needing wood at this point. That said, I've never finished dyed wood in my life. Rarely ever stained anything either. So I'm grateful for your time to type that out. Will be of much help.

Thank you. Very very helpful. Its says to finish with any clear finish. I'm assuming oil based & shellac would fit the bill of "clear"?

I've been working on a blade for my wife & found some very nice birdseye maple today for the scales. She loves the colour blue. So id like to dye the wood, but I've never done this before. I like a natural finish myself. I've been doing some interweb searching for this. But everything I'm coming up with involves acid of one form or another. Which she'd object to. Does anyone here have a formula or recipe for dying maple with a more natural method. Thanks for any advice.

Arrived today. One week from order to delivery, which is cool. Since it be my birthday today. The forge arrived very well packaged & damage free. Which is more than I can say of most things I receive via FedEx. So absolutely zero complaints in that department. Assembly is super simple. There's 4 screws for the burner assembly. Installation is literally a matter of minutes. Attach the needle valve & hose to the regulator. Ready to rock. I didnt run the forge for long due to some safety concerns of mine, like not wanting to burn down my shed. The rear opening is closer to a wooden than I care for. I'll be getting some fire board to cover the area in the next day or so. But in my short run time, it did get a chunk of steel 7/8" x 1.5" x 3" to bright orange in a couple minutes running it at 7psi or so. Can't complain so far. Seems to be a well built unit. But I'll be needing more time to play with it before making any final conclusions. Needs to make some choke plates & take care of my fire hazard first though.

I'm hoping so. Also hoping it will allow me to start getting more consistent billets as well. I can forge weld with my current rig, but it is a real struggle to get my billets to cooperate. I'm not a fan of wasting metal. The sky's the limit I reckon. Now to get the blasted surface grinder working

Well, finally had enough extra scratch to bite the bullet & ordered the three burner knife maker forge today. So hopefully in the next couple weeks I can do a review & get it posted. This is good as my current Whitlox forge (really similar to a JBOD, with firebrick) is in serious need of a good tear down & clean up. Its been a good little fisrt burner for me, but 4 years of almost daily use has shown. But I'll always praise it as a simple & cheap starter forge. I picked up a 100 pound can for it a few weeks back in preparation, & ive some grill cans as well. So at least that's covered already. More to come soon.

Thank you. I'll give it a go. Plenty of counter top companies around here.

The only real source of supplies around here would be the traveling gunshow. There are some venders there who sell some odds & inns for the knife maker. However, I am loath to go to the shows. My ex-wife works for the promoter. To say that we do not have a cordial relationship, would be an understatement. I suppose I need to get over my anti online shopping problem & just deal with it.

Because I'm a cheap skate & I've never found any ready made that I've liked enough to buy. Add in the tactile personality I've got. If I can't touch & feel it first, I don't wanna buy it. I've got a good wood store local, but not a single blasted blade supply store. This personality trait has been the cause of more than a few ummm disagreements with the misses. She occasionally gets sick of my grumbling about stuff & just gets it only behind my back. Primarily truck parts. Now if you could direct me where to look for some locally besides my usual haunts ( steel supplier, fab shops, gun shops, leather store ), I'm happy to look & try it.

When I got into this 4 years ago, I bought a 56 centaur branded kohlswa farrier. In might as well be factory new condition & not one of the soft ones either. I thought I was getting robbed at $ 500 or 600 USD. How little I knew. Now people around here want that and more for a chunk of rail. Let alone a real anvil. Worn out or not. I looked at a fair condition 120# Arm & Hammer in a junk a month or so back. They wanted almost $2k for it. Wasn't there two weeks later.

This is true. Either of those would most likely be a better choice. I like the warmth of wood though & I'm not particularly fond of making micarta. So dang messy & I've never worked corian. Anywho, the picture is where I'm at as of now. I'm not real happy with the mokume I made for the guard. So I'll be after another stack this weekend. Amongst the 50 other tasks to get done & the half a dozen other guys at work who now want something made. Not enough hours in the day.

Kozzy. That 550v isn't a typo. I thought that as well, until I found another data tag reading 550v 60hz. Which if my research is right, would mean this unit was set up for Canadian use, or possibly Swiss. I'm betting Canadian though. Another thing that has me curious. The relays are also 110v. Same as the transformer. The power panel also looks as if it was added post production. I may just geta 220v VFD to wire in & see what happens. If I hadn't physically seen this thing run & used it in the past, I'd say I'd been had.

Just a smidgen. Ok, a very big smidgen.

Its a bit of an inside joke with my wife. When we first bought a M35a2, I needed a drum brake for the winch & she's much better at hunting down parts than I am. Except that she spelled it as wench instead of winch. She flat couldn't figure out why she kept getting porn as search results. I was almost on the ground laughing. Its been a wench ever since. I've been expressly forbidden from having more than 2 anvils. Under penalty of, I'd rather not mention.....

As requested, some pics of my little hoopty. 1970 Kaiser Jeep XM818. Which has seen more than a few modifications. Started as a stock MV, but I've a sickness of never leaving anything stock. Cummins nhc-250. Bigger injectors & fuel button. Bed from the M35a2 we had. 14.00-20 XML on combat rims. Manual T-case over the factory auto. The original t-138 transfer case ate itself. So I shoe horned a t-1138 case from a M923a1 in. So instead of a 50mph truck, I chicken out at 65mph. Will probably switch out the rubber to 395/85/r20 to get some torque back. It sucks in high gear & high range. In low / granny low, he'll still pull trees out of the ground on a slow day. Who doesn't need a 10 ton wench on their truck. Gotta replace the master cylinder & a wheel cylinder in the next week or so. Was a lot nicer in the army. I drove & broke em, and some other fool got to fix them. 20181008_093008_01.mp4

1970 Kaiser Jeep XM818. Not a deuce, but a 5ton. Had a deuce, but sold it. Couldn't afford the diesel for two. We get down your way with it every so often. I'll get some pictures up in the jeep thread before long.

So I've kinda dove in the deep end here & need some advice / help. I bought a DoAll D-6 hydraulic surface grinder from a local machine shop acquaintance of mine. I know that it used to run. I've used it in the past. But its been sitting the better of a year, so it does need some love. It's set up for 440v on a 1 horse 3 phase motor. I've only got 220v single phase at the house, so I've got to up the juice. Which is where my first issue is. I've been reading like a fool to learn what I can about VFD controllers & Rotary phase converters so that I can run this puppy & figure out what the next issue will be. However, I'm not real certain of what the differences between the two are. Nor which would be preferable for this application. I would like to be to power the hydraulics as well. The coolant pump is seperat & runs off standard 110v. I'm only into this for $80 USD, so I'm willing to play with it for a while. Any advice & help is much appreciated. The D-6 model isn't as well represented with google-fu as others. Please pardon all the crap in the yard. My wife has started spring cleaning early. Its not generally so trashed.

Gave it another go today, only with 1095 & 15n20. Same square tube as before & 3" in length. The 1095 is .187" thick & the 15n20 is .120" thick. 6 pcs each filled the tube tight. Now my welder is in need of replacing. So the welds on the can weren't very good. I will be getting myself a tig setup in the near future. But it worked well enough to move forward. Poped the can in the forge & piled on the coal. I let is soak for 20-25 minutes before the first hammer strikes. Got 4 good welding heats before some welds gave way. Specifically the one for the round bar for my tongs to hold. I don't have any tongs big enough for 2"x2" square or anything there about after hammering. I cut her open for giggles and much to my surprise, it took a weld. Well half a weld anyways. The center didn't weld at all but the outside three layers on each side did. So instead of damascus, I've got San Mai of sorts. Hopefully I can get it drawn out to blade length.

Yeah. It didn't work out. Next time around I think I should put the bandsaw material 90° to what I did this time.

A kid at work wanted a new blade for his pops. Something for skinning with a short blade & a fat belly. Somehow or another word got to him that I've been fiddling around with bladesmithing, & he brought me a drawing of what he wants. Asked if I'd give it a go. 5160 material forged to shape & 3/16" thick. 5 1/4" blade. 9" overall before handles. Normalized twice & annealed before grinding & file work. Heat treated & quenched in warmed canola oil. 2 temper cycles at 425-450° F. For 1 hour each. Finish ground to 180 grit then hit with a red scotch brite wheel. I will change that to a gray scotch brite wheel if I can find my stinking arbor adapter. I have been given liberty to do the scales to my own discretion. So I've chosen to do a hidden tang and figured hard maple with a copper/nickle mokume cap or guard. Not sure which that'll be yet. Made enough today to do either or both. Got the scales mostly inleted while watching a movie tonight. Gonna do some danish oil when finished. Got a big slab of wenge I may do a simple scabbard out of. Truth be told, I'm not crazy about this one. The shape is just out of proportion to me. But the kid likes it so far, which I suppose is what matters. Even if it does look like the bastard offspring of a puukko & a chef's knife.

Appreciate the info Mikey. I'll most likely go that route. Maybe go for a 3 burner instead of a 2 burner.

My wife has decided that I need to get a gas forge. She likes to watch but can't stomach my coal forge. I planned on just building one. Its not like there's not more than enough enough info here to do so. But she's afraid I'll blow myself up & not only said no, but exploitive NO. Then gave me a $5-600 USD budget. Not counting a couple 100 pound bottles. I've been looking and looking. Which is why I hate just buying stuff. I tend to over think and never make a decision. This will primarily to almost exclusively be used for bladesmith work and damascus billet production. I'll still be using my coal forge for blacksmith work. In my searching I've come down to 2 forges I like, with no particular reasons as to why. First is the 2 burner knife maker from Diamond Back Ironworks. Which seems to have good reveiws both here and elsewhere. Second is Uncle Al's 16" blown vertical forge at Riverside Machine. Which I'm not finding much info on with my Google fu. But what I've found has been positive. I like the 2 burner knife maker from a simplicity standpoint. But I saw a YouTube video where a guy hooked a PID controller to a blown UncleAl. Which would be awesome. I'd would like to get some advice and opinions the good folks here as to what you'd do if it was your money and situation & if your wife won't let ya just build one. Thanks for any help.

I simply love being sick. The joy of a stomach flu is not something I wish on anyone. So I didn't get anything done for most of the last week. But I'm better now and was able to get back to it. Made some guides, stops, or whatever you call em & started in on the wife's knife type thingy. Just about ready for heat treat. Also started the first round of rust bluing the other one I've been fiddling with. Did not progress as well as I had hoped. As I've only ever blued guns before, this is a smidge different. I also need a new hot box, as my current pos ain't producing the humidity I want. It'll get there though. I am digging the grey however... Till next time.

And it was a sorta success & sorta failure. But it was an informative lesson either way. Straight arm power for this. A few weeks back my wife picked up a can of 1084 powder for me along with a big bag of titanium dioxide. It was a nice surprise. A couple days ago I scored a 3 foot piece of 3/16" wall 2" x 2" square tube from a supplier at work. I like free. So tonight I gave it a shot. Cut a piece of tube 2" long & caps from another short piece. I ended up using white out to coat it. Used the 1084 powder & small pieces of bandsaw blade in at random directions, with a small amount of charcoal in the bottom to scavenge any air. Now my little coal forge ain't the greatest & I think this would would work a lot better with a gas forge, as mine is hard to keep consistent heat. But, we use what we got. Got it up to heat (just starting to sparkle, the turn 90° & repeat for about 20 minutes or so), hammered a side & back into the fire. Did this I don't know how many times, until the wife called me in for dinner & tv with the kids. I think I should have hammered from the some from the end as well. Might give it a go with the trusty old borax to see if it'll consolidate more. Not sure of the bandsaw material, but it will harden and break nicely. So that could be the problem as well. I've may do another can with the 1084 powder and some 1095 scrap & left overs. Got some 4130 tig rod that may find its way into a can. Might have a bit of 15n20 somewhere. Sorry metric guys. I'm to tired to convert things right now. Critiques & pointers are always welcome.