Jonah k

Very nice also like the bolster. What size of stock did you start with for the blade.

Very cool design love the riveted joint

Thanks for all the detail pictures, I am also building a junkyard hammer and detailed pictures like that really help. Where did you buy the wear plates. Nice hammer

Ok you don need a bunch of different sets but it makes a lot of things easier and it makes you better. And I am just beginning at this so I have maybe 10 sets of tongs and none of them I made just to practice I made each set for a particular job I wanted to do and thought a particular tong would help me. Anyways I agree with SJS (Do what makes you happy)

When I started blacksmithing a couple of years ago with a break drum charcoal forge and a piece of 3" axel shaft standing in a log the first thing I made was tongs. It took me 3 failed attempts before I got a set I could even use. I find that tongs are a very difficult project but are excellent practice for many of the fundamentals of blacksmithing. Like punching drifting drawing out upsetting scarf welding offsetting. If I were to do it again buy your first set something like wolf jaws or bolt tongs then make a bunch of easter projects like twist keys hardies punches and then make the rest of your tongs because you need quite a few different sets just for basic operations and it would get very expensive to buy them all plus it is excellent practice.

I have thought about joining the wcbg north it is based out of Leduc about 1 1/2 hrs away. Hard to get away for stuff like that that.

Hi What is the best way to peen both sides of decorative plate or a knife blade. I built some tea light holders and peened both sides with a rounding hammer and it looked good on one side but the last side you peen cancels out the other side. I hid the other side so it still turned out alright but I have a Japanese chefs knife with peened finish that I really like and would like to make a similar hunting knife. I'm thinking spring swage made with ball bearings but I'm open to ideas and would love to see other peoples tooling. Thanks

I bought a bunch of tools at Pieh when I was in Phoenix this Christmas and brought them back on the plane, didn't have any problems other than trying to keep the hammers from breaking my tequila in the same bag. I had some anti borax too and I told customs they didn't say anything but I don't think they looked in my bag either.

Great knife! love the partially rough scales

I dont live very close to a scrap yard so i dont get to go often but i do get quite a bit of scrap from work. A couple of weeks ago i got a 7' piece of 10' wide flange with 7/8" flange and 1/2" webbing should make a really good main column it weighs about 450 lbs.

Thanks for the vinegar tip i did not know that. I think im gonna use canola oil now though its cheap seems to work good and doesnt stink or leave scale.

Never thought of casting lead into square tubing thats a good idea. Its quite hard to find solid square stock bigger than 2". Is that what the clay spencer hammer has the ram looks similar.

Thanks Blade is 3 1/4" overall 7"

Does anyone else here have 5 left hand welding gloves with tiny index fingers? Hi my name is Jonah Krauskopf from Rocky Mountain House Alberta Canada. I have been reading this forum for quite a while now and got a lot of good information from the posts, I figured I am getting to the point that I have a small amount of valid input and I should join. I have quite a bit of trades background like woodworking and like building pretty much anything but only started blacksmithing a couple of years ago but quite a bit in the last year since I finished my house and got my shop properly set up. Anyways Hi all and if anyone is in my area feel free to look me up I'm always looking for someone to hammer or whatever with.

Thanks I'm from Rocky mountain house Alberta Canada. As for the knife it was made from all reclaimed materials the blade is made from a Nicholson file the wood is a leftover piece of hardwood flooring ( spalted Acacia) and the pin and ferrule are scrap 316 tube and a piece of stainless welding rod. I hammered the bevels in and hand sanded on wet 100 grit then sharpened and polished on 1000,4000 wet stones finished with green polish compound on a cotton wheel. I cut the jimping in with an air die grinder with a small cut off wheel worked very well on a hardened blade. The blade was normalized twice then quenched in warm canola oil then tempered in the oven at 375 d/f for 90 min. I ended up doing the heat treat twice because the first time I tempered it at 420 d/f for 90 min and it came out a little to purple, also the first quench I did in motor oil and the second I did in canola. I found that the motor oil left really thick scale that was quite hard to chip off and the canola didn't.

Very nice hammer I like the beer keg cooling pale. I am starting to build my hammer very soon I have most of the materials. What did you use for the hammer weight and I see you have a access port between the anvil and main support is that dead space filled with something, I filled my hollow anvil stand with gravel and it seems to keep the noise down. thanks

This is a Morris chair (antique wood recliner) adjustment rod I am making for my father. Thought I would post It and see what you guys think, this one took me 2 try's the first one I was mostly done but i wasn't happy with it so I re-did it. It was a good learning experience and I am pretty happy with the friction fit ball bearing. The second project is a candle holder I made around the same time, I have another one to make a pair almost finished. Let me know what you think.

Here is a couple of coat hooks I made recently. Sorry about the crappy pic of the second one. Really like the texturing hardie set (beammeupscotty)

When I first started blacksmithing a couple of years ago one of the main reasons I started (like most other people) was to make knives hawks and other cool stuff like that. But I decided in the beginning that I would xxxx xxx learn to blacksmith before I made anything like that by way of making my tools and some other decorative stuff. I have made a couple of knives before I started smithing but always bought premade blades and made handles and sheaths for them, but this is my first full knife.