Woody

What temperature did you temper the blades at. All that may be necessary to get the desired hardness is temper at a lower temperature. Parhaps you should do a hardness test on a blade prior to tempering to see what your initial hardness is that will give you a baseline to start from.

With that size of building you are hard pressed to find adequate space for storage so send most of your tools over to my house and that will free up enough space to aleviate your problem. :D

There is no Good Reason to do something Stupid. Why don't we start by putting a price on a human life, then if the cost of doing it right is more than the price of a life, we can go ahead and put someone at risk, if the cost of doing it right is less than the price of the human life, then we will go ahead and protect the individual.

I have seen that stir welder, awsome machine, I think it sells for around $20 million. Some of the bits it uses are $6000 each or more. They also have a process where using a laser and powdered metal they can put an M-4 edge 1/4 inch wide on a piece of mild steel. They got some really neat toys at the School that's why I help mentor their Blacksmith Club I get to see some really neat stuff at times. :D

Jimmy our condolences to you and your family. Eternal rest grant unto her O'Lord and let perpetual light shine upon her, may she rest in peace, Amen. God bless and keep all of you. Woody & Jackie

message me with your email address and i will email you the bellows plan, also there should be a blueprint on this site of how i constructed them.

Some Tarpaulins are canvas some are some other synthetic material or plastic. Any of them would be ok for a bellows but i would use the heaviest material available. Some synthetic leather upholstry materials would also be suitable such as naughyde. Using some sort of sealing material between the wood frame of the bellows and the covering material is esential to getting a good tight seal. A silicone calking compound works well for this, put a thin bead on the wood framing and then attach the covering material, cover with a thin flexible wood strip and tack into place. i have plans for a bellows if it will help you.

you can read the whole thing here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempering this is just one excerpt from the article, but once again there is no memtion or repetition that most of the knifemaking world is caught up in. "Precise control of time and temperature during the tempering process is critical to achieve the desired balance of physical properties."

Since tempering is a function of time at temperature, with that big hunk of metal i would be more concerned with how long it was held at temperature rather than the number of times it was heated to temperature.

hasn't anybody heard of Jigging Putty. it's a putty like substance that is used to keep heat from running to places you don't want it to go. Just pack the blade end in jigging putty and then heat the tang and let it air cool, that should soften it enough to drill unless it's an air hardening steel, then all bets are off. Hot punch it.

I have always maintained that it is ok to be incredibly stupid as long as you are the only one who knows. When you do something incredibly stupid and post it on an internet forum you let the whole world in on your secret. As for the sword, throw the ugly mess in the sandbox and hope the cats bury it.

God bless and keep you Jerry

if you have a hammer, an anvil, a piece of steel and a fire you can make about anything you want to make just heat 'er up and beat it till it looks like what you want then quit.

My favorite blade shape is whatever the customer wants.

I have had limited experience with M-2 but I was able to determine that the M is for Miserable and the 2 is for Squared.

Beth if you have time take a look at http://hansoncustomknives.com/demonstration.html the material in that story comes from a 3 day demo during Wild West Days at the Journey Museum in Rapid City, SD Yes they really do say those things.

PTree, a sorrow shared is a burden that is lightened, we will keep you and your family in our prayers and we pray that you all may find peace once again. God bless and keep you all Woody & Jackie

I make 'em because I like 'em and they sell for more money. Besides that, everybody knows that if you get the mix right and heat treat the Damascus blade properly it will cut the barrel off a machine gun and still be sharp enough to shave with. The perfect blade is a delecate balance between hardness and flexability. With extreme hardness comes excellent edge holding properties but also extreme brittleness. If the blade is to brittle it will break or chip easily, that is why we temper blades to remove some of the brittleness but still leave the blade hard enough to hold an edge and to obtain a degree of flexability. I think that if you check a Japanese Sword you will find that only the cutting edge is extremely hard the spine is considerably softer due to the heat treating process used. From the demos I have seen on TV the blades were also very flexible.

I would think 120 grit or 150 would do nicely

I like shiny knives and these are absolutely beautiful.

If you want to purge with CO2, once the valve is out and the tank has been thoroughly washed with soap and water and rinsed with clear water, put dry ice into the tank, a bunch of it, it will continue to sublime producing CO2 gas for a long time. Then cut with a sabre saw and you should have no problem with explosion. Be careful with liquid soaps, some if not all have an alcohol base. The fumes from Dawn Dishwashing Detergent will set off a flammable gas meter and in concentrated form it is transported as a flammable liquid.

To properly dress your hammer you need to know wheather the occasion if formal, semi-formal or casual. For formal occasions you can't go wrong with a Tux, semi-formal I would recommend a blue blazer, gray slacks, a pastel shirt and striped tie, casual.... bluejeans and maybe a western shirt with mother of peral snaps. Otherwise, you will need a grinder or a belt sander to round off the edges so they don't leave marks. polish it up nicely because what ever is on the hammer face will end up on what you hammered.

If spark testing were all that reliable and accurate, steel manufacturers would save all the money the spend on labs and analysis and issue a certificate of Spark Test instead of a certificate of analysis. If you want to judge the carbon content, heat the steel to just above critical temperature and then quench in oil. Then see if a file will cut it, if the file just skates over the metal without cutting it, it is pretty high carbon. Make sure you clean the scale off where you intend to test with the file.

message me with your email address and I will send you the list I have compiled over the years.

Uh Guys...... The wheel has already been invented and so has the forge blower. Time is money any time you spend building something that you could purchase rather inexpensively you are spending time that could be better spend making things that you could sell. My first forge was a double habachi with my shop vacuum for an air supply. First time I kicked on the vacuum it pretty much took care of the eyebrows. If you hook a leaf blower to it stand way back the first time you light it off. :rolleyes: