Woody

Jim: You and your family are in my prayers. God Bless you all. Woody

Sandyple you are in my prayers. Get well quick. Woody

Jeremy: Copper roof flashing should be available at any lumber yard or building supply store. It comes in rolls. I believe it is pure copper. I am not sure of the width, but I think it is around a foot wide. Woody

Pete and canman, I can't send you a copy unless I have your email address, use the message function on this site to give me your email address and I will be glad to forward a copy to you guys Woody

Canman check the Knife Forum on this site there is quite a discussion on Railroad Spike knives. Woody

I was just rummaging through some old files on my computer and I came across something I downloaded a while back and forgot about. It is Ron Reil's Best of the Froge. It covers a tremendous range of blacksmithing topics. There are 3 volumes in HTML format. If anyone would like a copy please email or message me and I will send them along. Woody

Wayne: I know you must be devestated by this. My deepest sympathy to you and your family. My prayers are with you all. Eternal rest grant un to her Oh Lord and may perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen Woody

Ed you are still in my prayers. I hope you have a speedy recovery. Wooyd

blkbear I think you misunderstood the comment about welding the spike to a high carbon piece. I think what they ment was to split what would become the blade of the spike knife down the middle insert a piece of high carbon steel like a piece from a file or something of that nature, then forge weld the thing back together. After that forge the spike out into a knife and that will give you a blade with a high carbon center for a cutting edge and the "mild steel" or low carbon steel on the outside for flexibility. This would still preserve the complete style of the spike and give you a knife with superior edge holding qualities after it has been properly heat treated. Woody Woody

Very nice indeed. Woody

Railroad spikes are low carbon steel mild steel, approximately 15 points carbon max, even the ones marked HC which stands for higher carbon, not High Carbon only have about 30 points of carbon. The accepted standard for knife steel is at least 60 to 65 points carbon minimum. Email me I have about 20 pages in MS Word on various types of junkyard steel, railroad steel and various steels that are commonly used in knifemaking that Iwill be glad to share with you. On the other hand old leaf and coil springs are good knife steel. Woody

mixing the wrong grease with oxygen can cost you more than $81 use only a grease that is approved for oxygen service and don't guess at it. This is not the place to go cheap. The wrong grease + oxygen can result in fire or explosion. Woody

Peyton: In a word yes. Woody

I have a Canady Otto blower also. I took it apart several years ago and cleaned all the parts. The gears are not paper. I used a leather shoe lace to replace the gasket between the two halves of the housing. I also used a heavier grade of oil when I refilled it. I think I put in 90 weight gear oil. It has worked fine since, but it's a little hard to crank when it's really cold. Since I only use it for demos in the summer this does not present much of a problem. Woody

If you are going to wear safety glasses for grinding, I recommend either tight fitting goggles over them or a full face shield. I have also had a piece of steel taken out of my eye that came up under the safety glasses. Woody

Jim: My deepest sympathy to you and your family. I will keep you in my prayers. Woody

In the copper mines in Arizona as well as other places they line the beds of the haul trucks with T-1. It is very tough and wear resistant. They used to refer to it as T-1 Armour Plate. We used to get scrap pieces from the mines and use them to make silhouette targets for the rifle range. A high powered rifle with hunting ammunition would not dent them at 100 yards. Woody

You can't smith with what you want, but you can smith with what you got. All you need is something to get the metal hot enough to smith, something to beat it on and something to beat it with. Oh yeah and a pair of tongs come in handy too. After that everything else is just frills that make the job easier and as time goes by you will acquire many of them but never enough. Heat it and beat it, and have fun doing it. Woody

Make sure that any eye protection you buy, safety glasses, face shields etc are marked to indicate that they comply with the appropriate ANSI standard such as ANSI Z-87 for impact resistance and if you are wearing shaded lenses for protection from light radiation (Ultraviolet or Infrared) make sure they are rated for that as well and are not merely "sun glasses". The most expensive eye protection you can buy is still much cheaper than the cost of pain and inconvenience of having a piece of steel removed from your eyeball. Also remember that safety glasses protect you from straight on impact of foreign particles, but things can still come up under the glasses and hit your eye. Woody

Alan: I am very sorry for you loss, my prayers are with you and your family. Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord and may perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in Peace Amen Woody

A/O is awfully expensive fuel for a forge, also runs a bit on the hot side. You might be better off with a propane fired forge Woody

I buy "Pennsylvania Blacksmithing Coal" in Rapid City SD, (3 40 lb plastic bags) for $8.30 a 40 lb bag which makes it $24.90 for 120 lbs. the stuff is 13,500 btu per lb. Works great very few clinkers. If you are paying $42 for 50 lbs of coal you are getting ripped big time. Shipping is the biggest expense in the cost of coal. Check you local ABANA Chapter bet they know where to get good coal at a reasonable price.