fleur de lis

Just trying to pay it forward where I can Frosty. This site has been a tremendous help to over the years. So I feel obligated help where I can. Sawbones. The only real advice I can give is this. Don't be afraid to screw up & make mistakes. You'll constantly find new and improved ways to screw up what your working on. Just learn from it. I learn something new every time I fire up the forge. Ask questions. But search for an answer first, or you risk the ire of the curmudgeons.

I've got a little 60ish pound travel / bench top anvil. It's on the soft side and has some dents & dings in the face. Its small & I've not got much use for it with the majority of what I do. You're welcome to it if you like, with one condition. Use it till you can get something better. Once you get something better, don't sell it. Pass it on to someone else just starting out needing help. It's the little one by the post vice in the picture.

I tend to get side tracked easily & often. I swear that I went to the shed to work on scales for my little puukko. But I had this little piece of drop from the coil spring. Maybe 100mm x 20mm, rough guess there. My wife keeps complaining about the kids messing up her paring knives. Well one thing leads to another & I ended up with this guy. Right now its 315mm in length & 4mm in thickness. I will call it, paring knife jumbo. I "plan" to attempt to flat grind, subject to change though. Maybe practice on something first, since I suck at it. I'm going to use the chunk of purple heart for scales and a scabbard with a bronze pin & a oil finish. Assuming I can find my bottle of solution, I will rust blue the blade. I like a dark rust blue that's been polished up. Used to do up my 1911's this way.

That's similar to what I've been doing. Only by shear happen stance through playing around trying different things. I hammered in the bevels roughly 1/4 of the way up. Then with a hot cut top and bottom I isolated the material for the tang. Isl used the top bottom tool because I tend to screw my material if I do it separately. My cuts will pull in opposite directions so my shoulders don't line up. Operator error on my part. I drew the tang out after that & clean up with a file. Then I ran the bevels to roughly half way up the blade. If I go past that, my grinds get wonky for some odd reason. My personal preference is for the convex grinds and over my past few attempts I've found that this works for me. I can do a hollow grind, but have never been fond of it so it is generally avoided. I've started to fiddle with learning to flat grind, but the results so far have been less than satisfactory. All in due time I suppose. I enjoy trying new things & learning just a bit more when I mess it up. Eventually I'll get it right as I learn more. Its been a fun journey so far & forging a blade is so much more enjoyable than stock removal.

So I far a hair up my XXX at work today while waiting for a service truck to show up for my truck. I really prefer knives to have some form of cap on the handle. Just ties everything together better in my opinion. Been meaning to try my hand at Mokume Gane for awhile now & there's no time like the present. Cleaned the couch of a few bucks worth of quarters (American) & had at it. Had to play around some to get it to take a weld. Steel seems to be less involved somehow to force weld. But reading ten years worth of peoples posts on here definitely helped. Got 15 quarters into a stack to take a weld & now I know why seemingly everyone who make Mokume uses a gas forge. Its kind of a pain in the backside with coal. Was a bunch of fun though and a good learning lesson. This is only ground to a 220 and I can't can't find my acid to etch, so it is kinda hard to see. I've got a bunch of 90% silver half dollars & some copper bar I intend to try to use next. But the best surprise of the day, my wife really loves me. Got home from work to find a nice new 5 pound can of 1084 & a 3 pound bag of Ti dioxide. Such a wonderful woman.

Bloodwood & bronze. Me thinks that I am liking it. Got the blade ground to where I'm comfortable with it. The spine is 4mm thick & the edge is at 1mm & 145mm from the tip to shoulder. 247mm overall. Gonna pick up some 220 belts tomorrow & will probably not proceed any higher. Now to see if I can remember where I left the brass rod. Slag. You are too right, I'm constantly screwing up words now. I switch between alphabet without thinking & I've given up spelling kat with a C anymore.

If it wasn't for work, I still wouldn't have a smart phone. I swear that I'm dumber for it. Lazier at the very least. I'm a tactile person. Computers are a wonderful tool but I much prefer live & in person and simple mechanical things. Heck, a guy at work thought that I'm a Mennonite since I still cut & split wood for both heat and cooking. I about feel over laughing.

Stupid auto correcting phone. Its hasn't learned my bad grammar yet. Yes no decimal point. It takes decent pictures, but is the village idiot of smart phones. It has gotten noticeably worse since I started taking Russian lessons. I think the back and forth of languages has fried its little brain. And I should proof read too. Sorry about that.

I was thinking the bloodwood with either a Tung oil or Danish oil finish. I like a superglue finish, but it hard on my lungs not matter what kind of respirator I use. I really like wood work. Handles are the first thing I ever did with knives. It probably the main reason I'm wanting to forge knives. So I can put my handles on my blades. Sounds a bit silly to my own ears, but if it keeps me motivated & learning from my mistakes. Then so be it. Course the folks around here are a godsend as well. So thanks y'all. The special wood I've been holding on to, is a big round of Birds eye maple. Its maybe a 12" round x 6" or so thick, and quarter sawn to boot with a bit of burl on one end. Been waiting for something special for about a decade now. I've got something in mind, but I need to get the fundamentals of forging knives down better before I can tackle it. I'm wanting to make the kids matching slip joint pocket knives as a graduation present. I've got a few years yet, but the girls both started high school this year & legally driving next year. So its going by quickly it feels like. Thomas Powers. There is a ornamental iron shop a few miles from me who sell blacksmith coal at 0.35 cents a pound cash and 0.40 cents a pound charge. Bring your I in bucket. I don't think their a BAM affiliate, but they are listed on the website. I need to go by there, but I'm always making excuses to put it off.

Alrighty then. Got the Ulu for the feller at work done now back to my own devices. After reading the good information from Sly, I just hung up the last one & started another. No point trying to polish a turd. Went back to the coil spring instead of the 1095 for my last magnificent almost blade like thingy. It's been hammered to rough shape. Normilized twice. Rough ground. Mixed up the heat treat & used charcoal instead of my regular anthracite ( I'm too cheap for the .35 cents USD a pound blacksmith coal, I really do need to just get the good stuff ). Quenched in heated canola oil. Tempered at 225° C twice for 1 hour cycles, or as close as the toaster over gets to being accurate. Started to finish grind at a brisk 60 grit to get the crud off. It's at a 120 grit right now. The is at maybe 2mm right now. Not real sure of that, as the kids have releaved me of all my measuring sticks. Metric, Imperial, Newton, they took them all & won't tell my what for. They're up to something...... Much more to do still. I I'm not sure what to use for handle material. I used to make custom pistol grips & just found a lot of left over wood. I've pictured some of what I found. 4/4 Paduak. Bloodwood. Purple heart. More Paduak I think it's 3/4, it's lighter than the first. Lacewood both Australian & South American (not real sure about the S. American). African Blackwood. And a big square of something. Thought it was walnut, but sanding showed it to be orange. Will be using brass pins & bronze for bolsters.

Got around to taking my itty bitty tiny little work table around to the shed today. Had to wait for a nice day to move it, since it takes the tractor to get it to budge. Small piece of scrape I brought from work. 1-3/8" A-36 plate, 37" x 61" welded to a couple of split rim wheels from a M35a2. Sitting on a steel military shipping pallet so I can drag it around. One of our suppliers at work sent the wrong thickness plate. Told us to just keep it rather than ship it back. My boss sold it to me at scrap value. Think it was around $40 USD, & I already had the wheels & pallet. Got it to be a rifle target, but the range said no. They were afraid it'd fall over & didn't want to have to move it. Could be some validity to their concern. Makes a great bench though. I can hammer on it till I'm blue in the face & I won't hurt it. I've got a smaller 3-3/4" post vise I'm gonna figure out how to mount to it once I make a new screw box for it. Got the stuff to make it, just to many irons in the fire to get to it.

Templehound & Sly, much appreciation for the info & the picture. Its why I ask for the criticism from folks with a more trained eye than mine. Y'all can see things I dont think to look at yet. To be honest, the picture makes the tang look a bit on the small side. It's roughly 3/16" thick by 3/8" in height. The length is were I'm unhappy. Its on the short side. 3-3/4". Which just doesn't feel right in my hand. A hidden tang is a new thing for me. Every knife I've ever made before (stock removal) have been a full tang. So more to the learning curve here. Still fun to try though. This ones on the back burner for a little bit though. A co-worker has asked if I can make a Ulu or 2 for him. I've never made one before. But if he's willing to sacrifice himself for guinea pigdom & pay me for it, I sure gonna try.

Fisrt puukko. No1 Mk3 (a nod to SMLE lovers) So after failing to fully take earlier advice my second attempt went to the scrape bucket. This here is try 3. May actually finish this one. Went to a simpler steel instead of the A485-1 I'd been trying with. This is 1095 bar stock. Forged to shape roughly. Didn't forge in the bevels, as that is a still developing skill. Followed with normalizing. Which without a nifty oven, was heating past critical with a short soaking. Can't say how long ad I forgot to note it. Then let it sit cool. Did that twice for giggles. Did the first grind, & then put my stamp to it. Which wasn't done deep enough. Heat treated in warmed canola oil. With no side to side swishing. Read that that's a bad thing. Presto, the dang thing didn't look like a road map this time (the crack looking spot in the pic was cat hair). Skated the best file I have. Quickly ground the surface crud & off to the toaster oven. Did 2 one hour cycles at 450ish. This took the edge to straw. Went back to grinding & grinding like the belts are free. Which where I found out that I need to stamp deeper. Another lesson learned. Which brings me to where I'm at now. Handle material and fittings. More grinding & sanding. Make a sheath. Not sure what I'm doing there, as I am not fond of leather work. Sorry for the lack of pictures. I didn't want to touch my phone over the weekend. Was afraid my jerk boss would want more work out of me. As always, advice & criticism are appreciated.

This is Mountain. Her & her sister Dew are the first shop cats I've had since my junkyard cat died several years back. Don't let her dolly pollie looks deceive you (27 pound cat). She's a stone cold killer where her anvil us concerned. That is her bed & she'll happily kill any critter that comes near it. The big grinder has also been claimed. I've seen her take down our 70 pound lab for setting foot in her smithy once. Might have ate the poor dog if I hadn't stopped it. She's not a mean cat, just protective of her tools. I'm starting to think that I just borrow them from her. Dad & Frosty. My condolences for y'alls loses. Good cats are just like family.

JHCC its funny you should mention that, I started reading through the discussion on the super sucker you made not long ago. Looks like a good setup you've got there & I like it Regardless, I'll have to make do for a little while. I've had some folks patiently waiting for me to finish some projects. I've been waiting for a touchmark I ordered to show up, & it did yesterday. I wasn't expecting it for another week or two. So back to work it is. Such a vicious cycle. Make money, just to spend it & need more. A.R. Hillbilly. The stump is about 250 pounds of good white oak. A saw mill I get slab wood from gave it to me a couple years back. Its in serious need of leveling for the new floor. Got some funky shim work under at the moment.

Not particularly of the size. Its roughly 9' x 12'. Can't do a side draft unfortunately, as there's structural parts in the way. So I went ahead and cut a hole in the roof for the pipe I've got. I need bigger pipe. Does great once it warmed up. A lesson in asphyxiation before that. I'll be getting some bigger pipe promptly. Also need to get some outlets still.

You sir are a genuine genius. Can't believe that such a simple solution never occurred to me. I know the former sheriff here, so appropriate introductions could be made. I feel like such a simpleton now Thank you. Now it's off to read up on hoods. Good times right there.

I am really torn on a hood design. I'd really like a side draft setup of some type. Be a hofi (which I really like), super sucker, or what not. My issue is a somewhat stupid one, or silly. Not particularly sure which. I live on the edge of town, literally. City stops 500' past me. My little area is the dope capital of the Midwest. Seems like moron around here is cooking the junk. These folk have taken to making their poison around where I live. So We Be got a strong police presence here. I somewhat afraid that a odd looking side draft sticking out the side of the shed will give them the wrong idea of what I'm doing. I know I'm doing nothing wrong, but the police don't always know that as well, and they've kicked my front door once in the last 4 years looking for a drug dealer. Which was not a pleasant experience. I respect to police, but that sucked. A lot. I know its a stupid worry, but I do worry. Course any chimney on the shed is liable to make them jumpy. So I may as well go for it.

So after almost 4 years on the back porch, I finally got the wife to let me take over the yard shed. I wanted the garage, but I won't complain. This will probably work better for now anyways. I like a small work space. No more than 2 steps to the forge, & maybe 4 steps to anything in my work area. So the shed is great for that. I've got most of my crap moved today & somewhat arranged. I'm not so sure of my stump. It was cut for an uneven porch & is kinda big for this space. I've got a sorta metal stand I started a few years back, but never finished. The little anvil is on it. I've never had a hood for my forge before, So having one now will be nice. Still needs to cut a hole in the roof for the chimney & get a better piece of pipe for it. Probably on the high side as well. Its nothing fancy, but still better than sucking smoke. Made spots for most of my hammers & tongs. Still got some more to hang. Most used hammers to the right & less unused to the left. I like to keep tongs close to the forge. Got some more to put up yet. Plenty more to move & do. Small things like electrical outlets. Bolting down the grinder. More materials storage. Finding a home for the mig welder & gas bottle. Then a lota little things. Finally, move things again & again. Might make a gas forge at some point soon. Its a start though. Critique & advise is appreciated.

jlpservices: this was the first time they've both actually gotten around to picking up the hammer & I'm pretty stoked about it. Was supposed to be fiddling with knives today, but this took priority. The farrier is an old centaur forge branded kohlswa. Its in 140 or 150 range if I remember right. Been a minute.

Made the new new bottom fuller I've been meaning to for months now. The I got a couple of the kids to swing hammers some. Had them practicing tappers to make some hooks. The oldest daughter & oldest son. Hopefully they stay interested in it. She didn't do bad at all. He needs a smaller hammer & I had to dig out the midget anvil for him. Was still great watching them.

Did something wrong along the way & got cracks. Good number of them too. Annealing vs normilized maybe. Thank you Latticino for correcting me on the nomenclature on that. Probably should have not used water to quench. Course, judging by the rust. That wouldn't have mattered. Don't know if I hammered it hot enough. Kept it a bright red heat. But, maybe. The grain doesn't look to bad to my untrained eye. But feel free to correct me. Fairly happy with the shape of my bevel though. Must try to do that again. Basically, I accidentally dropped the thing & noticed the crack in the spine. Knew it was DOA & wanted to see the grain. A vise and rubber mallet did the breaking. I am will keep at it though. Had a lot of fun with this failure. Hammering a blade out is so much more enjoyable to me than straight up stock removal. I'll likely put this one on the was as a "don't do this again" notice.

Well, i managed to heat treat the thing. I read Latticino's write up in another thread on normalizing, and followed that. So hopefully my little blade doesn't fall apart now. Can't touch it with the best file I own. Got it in the toaster oven now to temper. 425-450ish for a couple of hour cycles. Assuming the thing is half way consistent. We shall see. Started another one as well. A bit bigger than this one. Not particularly happy with the shape of the blade, but I seem to have made peace with my grinder for now. So it should be fixable. Attempted to hammer in the levels on this one as suggested. Which is a pain in the butt for me at this point. Needs more practice. But I'm having fun learning from my mistakes, & working at this has become somewhat therapeutic.

I honestly didn't know its an African wood. Lying wood salesman & sticker guy. That would explain why I couldn't find more. I'm also fond of purple heart, zebra wood, & African black wood. I used to make custom pistol grips. Been sitting on a big chunk of birds eye maple burl for years. Was thinking about doing some kind of caps today. I've got probably about 50 pounds of random sized blocks of bronze sitting around. That is very sage advice about the belts. I'm getting pricing from some of the vendors we use at work. I really like the 3m cubitron belts we use. Hopefully I can pick some up.

So.... Not to sure how well this will work out despite my myriad of mistakes. This was a mystery metal coil spring. I assumed it was most likely 5160. I got a buddy with one of the fancy laser guns to get positive material identification. Cant remember the name. Xlr or something like that. Took three samples of my coil spring to him today to test for me. Comes back as A485-1 grade 1. Hadn't heard of that one. High carbon chromium alloy used for anti friction bearings. Element Weight % Fe 94.9999 — 96.7999 Mn 0.95 — 1.25 Cr 0.9 — 1.2 C 0.9 — 1.05 Si 0.45 — 0.75 Cu 0.0 — 0.35 Ni 0.0 — 0.25 Mo 0.0 — 0.1 S 0.0 — 0.025 P 0.0 — 0.025 Could be good. Could be bad. I does not know. May just be a wall hanger in the end. Been a bunch of fun so far.