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I Forge Iron

duckrunner

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Posts posted by duckrunner

  1. Haha good question, Thomas, I don't see my blood line going any farther than me. Pretty convinced it's for the good of humanity... 

     

    But yes, it is a little low for me. My cousin built it to fit him and he's got a little longer reach than I do for being the same height as I am. Picked up an old 50# anvil for $40 from an old farmer so I'm gonna go cut myself a stump and get it at the right height for me.

  2. Yeah I know I need to work on that and I noticed it on that drop point and have been working more on hammer control and not torquing the hammer on the way down. I actually hit a little more on the top edge than anything. It's not going to be an abused knife at all so I'm not worried about the tip breaking. Mostly use it for cutting bale twine, opening boxes, that kind of stuff... No chopping, prying or anything crazy like that.

  3. Been hard at it fiddling around with the forge again... I think I'm on the right track here. I'm gonna need more leaf springs at this rate.

    4 1/2" blade seax, carved walnut handle, full tang I finished up this morning.IMG_20170211_123513529_HDR.thumb.jpg.07756f184f07a94a640f9b90af6d43a1.jpg

    3 1/2" drop point, leaving the forge marks in but took it to 1,000 grit to still shine. Casting the brass guard tomorrow, scales for the handle should be in early this week.IMG_20170211_211947609_HDR.thumb.jpg.7da38f611869e9f094df00a4460f4f3d.jpgIMG_20170211_212009713_HDR.thumb.jpg.672527eaca7355150522c57b7064360c.jpg

    6" Bowie I started today. Only stock removal was cutting the tang out. Plan on leaving the forge marks in it except the edge. Getting a steel guard on this one I think.IMG_20170211_194118449_HDR.thumb.jpg.5ba5def500a2c252b5ebf58e3126955a.jpg

    I sold my Jeep today, I'm debating whether I need to catch up on bills or go get one of those fancy store bought anvils with that money haha. I'm having way too much fun with this knife thing!

  4. 23 hours ago, Frosty said:

    Are you REALLY suggesting he encourage his Father to cut the cheese?! :o Now I HAVE to ask Duckrunner. Are you the product of a dysfunctional relationship with your Dad or is he a regular guy?

    Frosty The Lucky.

    Hahaha oh no we've got a great relationship, but for some stupid reason I moved back to where I grew up when I should be out there with him... I don't know if "regular" is the word I'd use to describe him, though.

  5. 9 hours ago, Benton Frisse said:

    Ooh I like this knife with the brass guard. Great work! 

    Thank you! I melted down casings from the last time my dad and I shot guns together to make the guard. He lives 15 hours away so I don't see him much anymore. Put a lot of thought and time into making him something nice yet functional. Really gonna be upset if he never even uses it as a knife lol

  6. 6 hours ago, Frosty said:

    Not funny? Oh don't worry you'll do or say something every now and then and we'll laugh along with you. ;)

    You really are coming along nicely, dressing the hammer makes a huge difference. Epoxy, especially the fast set kind doesn't like getting hot. About 300f will soften it enough to get things apart and not screw up the heat treat on your blade. Once you have it how you like use slow set epoxy for strength, you'll be amazed how much stronger 24hr. is than 1hr. You can even short the catalyst and get a stronger bond. 

    Frosty The Lucky.

    I think I'm funny, but not in an appropriate way.. people don't like taking me into public. So I'll keep my dark sense of humor off the family forums.

    Thanks for the epoxy tip! I figured the longer cure stuff would be stronger, but I had some of the 6 minute stuff from anothet project. Should've just left it in the drawer... Oh well, lesson learned!

    I appreciate the compliments, criticism and guidance. You guys ain't all that bad, you know that?

  7. My Kalamazoo belt sander came in yesterday so no more having to do the grinding and whatnot with my angle grinder. Dispite having a nice sander I still didn't get the handle how I wanted it. Some idiot put their guard on backwards with quick set epoxy on everything and it really screwed me up. Oh well, made due and finished this one tonight. Next one will be better, I hope.

    IMG_20170202_203312464.thumb.jpg.8201f2e93cbbfd6f097304bda89ff016.jpg

    Through some horse trading I scored a basically endless supply of nice wood through a friend's dad who makes custom furniture and cabinets... He also has an anvil I can borrow til I can find one of my own. So, this weekend should be fun!

  8. 2 minutes ago, C-1ToolSteel said:

    Nice progress! Looks like your hammer control is improving tremendously.

    I shaped the head of my hammer and it helped immensely! Took all the hard edges off one side and left it mostly flat, pretty much rounded off the other side. It's amazing how much easier those little changes made in the work. Can't wait to get my hands on an actual anvil and see how much that helps!

  9. 21 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

    Doubt the pickup held up very well in that location; now down here if you see a vehicle with *any* rust you know it's an out of state car...

    Haha actually the truck was in very good shape until someone backed a skid loader into it. I don't think it had more than 10k miles on it. Was just used to haul hay bails it's whole life. Doubt it even spent any time on a paved road. There was obviously some surface rust on the springs, but 30 seconds with a sander and it was good and clean. No cracks in the portion of the spring I have cut up that I can see yet anyways.

  10. I've played around a bit more since the last posts, made a couple more blades and finished my second one completely.

    IMG_20170126_180254773.thumb.jpg.d9780ff5da9c14c219621c283953805f.jpg

    Working on a handle for my third knife I'm giving to my dad for his birthday tomorrow, and I think it's turning out very nice. I cast the brass myself for the guard, boy what a learning experience that was lol. Since this picture I've finished the brass guard, stamped it and buffed it. Just don't have pictures of that yet.

    IMG_20170129_130810601.thumb.jpg.32ea9300ebe755b6a8280812e267a8fb.jpgIMG_20170128_213818945_HDR.thumb.jpg.a34a45267dc1b6472c9123ee613f203d.jpg

    I also made a small blade for a friend from a 12mm ratchet wrench and a file*.

    IMG_20170129_183721650_HDR.thumb.jpg.5bc560670ba4b6d88dc4d7db38eff649.jpg

    ***Removing the chrome from the wrench and forging outside since it was so nice here on Sunday***

    Frosty, I do like jokes I'm just not very funny lol

  11. 3 hours ago, Frosty said:

    Sorry if blunt in the face of serious danger seems harsh. Nothing we can say is as harsh as poisoning yourself for the rest of your life. 

    Had I known you knew the dangers of heating plated steel to forging temperatures and took precautions I certainly would've written a different post.

    You KNOW the dangers and posted pictures and descriptions of your work and how you did it WITHOUT mentioning the danger or a word about proper  PPE. You're encouraging folk who DO NOT KNOW how dangerous plating can be to do things that can and eventually will do permanent harm. Iforge has more than 50,000 members and a whole lot more reading without joining. I'd bet the experienced blacksmiths and welders reading number maybe 1%.

    You KNOW how dangerous the activity and method you encouraged is and evidently don't care enough to warn the innocent our there? That deserves harsh.

    Frosty The Lucky.

    Nothing wrong with a good butt chewing, I should have known better than to leave out the PPE disclaimer. I spent four years in the Marines so keep on with the xxxx chewings as you see fit, I've got a thick hide on me lol. Hopefully this will be the last time needed, though.

     

    Wrong,  here is another chewing, Watch the language, we are serious about th ToS   G rated family friendly topics and language.

  12. That is awesome... Yep, next set of commercial springs I do I'm keeping the old ones! My only worry is when these springs break it's because they're structurally worn out inside and fatigued. Is that going to be an issue with the final product or will the forging kind of fix it?

  13. Thanks for the comments and concerns guys, great feedback! I do know how terrible it sounds, I do know a decent bit on metallurgy and safety, though. I was a welder, went to school for it and a lot of what was covered was on safety and whatnot. My shop is very well ventilated and respirator was worn. A guy I used to work with made knives from wrenches and would leave the chrome on where the handle was going to be and filled me in. Might not sit well with you guys, but I'm confident I did well enough. Maybe I'm missing something though...

     

    The first blade is completely unusable, just gonna sit on the shelf so years from now I can look back at it and see the progress. The second blade is actually quite comfortable in MY hands, may not be to others... We'll see how it ends up after epoxy sets and I finish the handle...

    Again, thanks for the comments and concerns. Look forward to learning and growing from here!

    Here's an easier to see picture of the profile just after heat treat. It's not as curved as the other picture makes it look.. like I said, comfortable in my hands. We'll see how it ends up when the handle is 100%IMG_20170118_195145880.jpg

  14. New to smithing, actually just fired up my first forge on Sunday and have two knives, ok one and a half knives made. Gotta say, I'm hooked...

    First one, rushed through and had 0 idea what I was doing but got a decent blade shape with an absolutely terrible handle, but that's ok. IMG_20170115_204845017.jpg

    My second one went a little better. Kind of knew what to expect, got a better hang of how the metal moves, finessed a little more instead of smashing the hammer down like Thor. Little upset I told my buddy it would be for him, I think it turned out really cool! They're both made from an old CV breaker bar and I left the chrome on the second one until after forging. Wire wheeled it off and got this awesome pitted patina look to it. Still gotta get my handle finished up, but the blade itself is all done and I couldn't be happier!IMG_20170118_202854184.jpg

  15. So this is my first time building a forge, did a ton of research and lurked on here quite a bit and here's what I came up with. I call him Gene.IMG_20170111_175633176.jpg

    The body is an old air tank (9"wX16"l) I had buried in my camping gear. All the rest is from various other projects and random crap I've had laying around, minus the ceramic wool, a couple of the burner fittings and refractory I just got in tonight. 2" of whatever brand ceramic wool the pottery supply store had in Minneapolis coated with a 3000° refractory cement that's currently curing. Also picked up a 2,800° fire brick from the pottery store I'm going to cut in half for flooring in the forge.IMG_20170112_192552994.jpg

    Burner is a 3/4" reil design with a flap on top to control air flow, regulator came off a deep frier my roommate has... So I'm gonna need to get my own regulator before he goes to fry a turkey next Thanksgiving...IMG_20170108_160523499.jpgIMG_20170108_174150771.jpg

    I built this so I can forge small stuff, mostly knives and whatnot but also be able to stand it vertical so I can melt down brass to use for guards on said knives. 

    I know the burner burns, just hope it all works for actual forging! Any input, criticism and ideas are very welcome and appreciated!

    Few random pics through the build process...IMG_20170108_243936848.jpgIMG_20170105_190932965.jpgIMG_20170108_030700209.jpg

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