DavidF

Lol! I guess I should turn off the spell check. Let’s try again sconces. Or is it sconches?

Welcome Dave! Awesome scones and the progression in the blades is awesome to see. I may need to try the scones myself. Great inspriration for me

Cool Uruk Hai look! How long is it?

That turned out amazing! Incredible work. I actually really like the color of the bone. It fits perfect with the feather pattern and wood. 10 out of 10 on the blade and it looks every minute of the two and a half weeks paid off.

I think after reading the last post from Mikey, I will live with my current Vortex burner minus the fan and plan on a ribbon burner for my next revision. Thanks for sharing that background Mikey. Opened my eyes to a scenario I had not considered

Oh my word! It never showed any angles other than the hands. And I have to admit, I was a little bit jealous of the clear skin and lack of hair compared to my ugly stubs, so I feel a little bit better about that now! @jlpservicesinc, please accept my apology for falling into a stereotype. Man, woman, blue, white, extraterrestrial, or whatever, I was completely focused on the metal and the process. Thank you @Shady McGrady for correcting my blunder. SHE can absolutely move metal. I have watched the video a couple of times and will be attempting to recreate the process. I doubt I will get anywhere close to her results, but I will give it a whirl.

Thanks @MotoMike! Looking now. I may need to wait for a thaw. We had our first real snowfall this past weekend. We have had an unusually warm winter and I think I was getting used to it! If you are in the Illinois area, I don’t expect any sympathy. My last company was HQd in Chicago and the cold in that area feels about 10 degrees colder. I was there about three years back and it was single digits. I walked across the street from the hotel for dinner and actually called a taxi to go back. The only colder cities I have been to are Toronto, Boston, and Albany, NY. I don’t know if I would survive a full winter back east in the States

Dude can swing a hammer! Awesome video. Need to give this a try

Get feeling better Frosty! Sorry to hear you are not feeling well.

Awesome work. I need to try making some tongs. I am using a long set of vice clamps for now. I need to pick up some rebar and make a set. Mine will be caveman inspired too! I will probably use these images as a design template. Looks perfect for the stock I need to hold

Incredible! Great job. I love this piece

Very nice. I enjoyed watching both videos and seeing the progress

I am anxiously awaiting the results of this. I will try a computer fan add on if the results look promising!

Mikey, I have the same issue. Navigate back to page 38 and then refresh your browser in the URL address line. It is a bug and the platform (whoever develops the forum software) will most likely need to provide an update or patch. I also am a member of bladesmithsforum.com and it looks like they use the same platform, but they do not have this refresh/navigation issue. I will look and see if there is a way to report the issue, but I wanted to give you a temporary workaround. Let me know if you need more information on the instructions. Update: I posted a screen grab with the refresh button circled on an iPad/Safari platform. So in this example, if the last page is page 39, you can go back to page 38, but then when it doesn’t load, you just click the refresh button in the browser. That will get you back to page 38 as a work around. Update 2: I sent a message to the administrators describing the issue and the workaround. Hopefully, it is something they have already addressed and they can quickly patch it.

Oh man. Get feeling better Exo. Sorry to hear this, but glad you are ok

I was researching my ancestry and origins of my surname. I found that my last name, Ferre, had originated from farrier. The Fe is actually from the periodic table for iron. So I now understood that sometime in the past, I had a heritage for farriers and smithing. I started watching YouTube videos on the craft and became mesmerized. Watching the process of transforming a square piece of stock into something that had utility and was the pinnacle of art just hooked me. During the day, I design infrastructures for computing. A lot of logical, mind melting work. And the lure of doing something creative just took a hold of me. At first, I had the incorrect perspective that this would not require a lot of thought cycles. I would be able to do something physical and just lose myself in the process. As any of you can confirm, I was completely blown away by the science and math involved in this craft. The amount of learning about chemistry, physics, etc. really resonated in the things that I am passionate about. Then a show called Forged In Fire started up on the History channel. I couldn’t get enough of the show and also started finding more and more videos from Walter Sorrels, Man at Arms, Telly Slavik, etc. I began picking up tools, like a mig welder, drill press, belt sander, etc and set out to build my own forge. I have now built a gas forge, several knives, and some art projects. So what started as an artistic endeavor to satisfy my creative side, based on my heritage, has morphed into a full fledged addiction. I love building something from scratch as a craft that has a higher value than what can be produced by mechanical tools nowadays. It is the process and immediate gratification of being able to hold something artistic and of high utility that I find rewarding. And although the initial goal of doing something manual that I did not believe would take a lot of brain cycles was mistaken, I have found that the endless investment behind the science has also been a huge draw for me. I would not have thought prior that transforming metal by annealing, normalizing, and hardening would be so complex, but as the guys in this forum know, a smith could rob ably walk into a chemistry or physics class and be the instructor. So many parts just resonate with me.

Lol! Short of motorizing this rig, I think you have one of the fanciest and coolest setups I have seen. I love the big wheels. I would benefit a ton from having those wheels. I am holding onto my forge to jump over a 1” bump. I need to strap my forge down, but your design makes me want to pick up some wheels and do some welding. Funny how every time I see a new setup, I want to start a new forge build. But the wife wouldn’t be happy if I started over a month after I finished my first one. I wonder if I could sell the one I built and start version 2. This thread is going to get me in trouble because I keep seeing things I want to do! Do you think there is enough demand for forges that I can just build a bunch of designs and sell them? I think I could spend the next five years experimenting with the ultimate forge design. Maybe in a year I can justify building another one.

I don’t know if this feedback will be valuable, but after building my forge and working on tuning the burners, I would suggest the best path is to follow an exact build for a burner. I went with a design based on several different burners and what I could source from local stores. I went this route because I thought I would be close enough to make it work and I wanted to move forward quicker. When it comes to the burner, I am now of the opinion that I should have followed an initial design without exception. It would have been faster. But I also have learned more from tweaking and tuning what I have, so I don’t lose too much sleep over it. My advice is that the burner designs that are shared have been tweaked to very good performance. And if you want to have an immediately usable burner, the best path is to stick to the exact design that is proven. If you want to play with design and see if you can make something original, it will take some additional work and feedback, but you also gain more experience. In my case, my burner was much too fuel rich and it was choking a little bit even at high pressure. I ended up poking holes at the top to allow for a leaner mix, and it runs OK. I can heat up stock in a few minutes, but I don’t think I am getting to a forging heat yet. And one of my burners runs hotter, but my forge volume is not uniform from front to back. If I were to build a new forge today, I would go with a square body to allow better tolerances for volume and I would use Frosty’s burner design because it is (in my opinion) the easiest build for materials from both cost and availability. So my advice is to decide if you want to be able to get to forging as quickly as possible, use a proven design as it will get you to that end the fastest. If your passion is the fabrication of the forge and you want to experiment and tweak, you can try out some things that are not an exact proven model. I think you can make a good burner with adjustments based on recommended ratios, but it will take more time than following something that is already proven. I personally really enjoyed fabricating something based on concepts and that was more enjoyable for me. I was as excited to build the forge and burner as I was to start forging. And if that is what you are passionate about, then experiment and have fun. It is not a single answer for individuals, but a decision based on what you prioritize, forging as quickly as possible or building something that you design and tweak. Hopefully my experience and input help you decide the right path. Post updates and photos as you progress. I look,forward to seeing what you decide and how your journey unfolds! It is addictive! Enjoy!

It could have been thinner. I like the thicker knives, but maybe I need to try a thin version next

I completed my third knife. It is a Santoku for my mom. It is 1095 steel. It is a 7” blade and 5” handle. This was my first multi material handle. Learned a lot and enjoyed the process.

I ran across this image a couple days ago. It is something you could print off for reference. Or even better, get a screen in your shop and display it digitally!

Binesman, Frosty, and Mikey98118 are the authorities. Hopefully one of them can provide a recommendation based on the proper ratios.

SLAG, thanks for taking the time to educate me. I have also been discussing this with Robert in DMs. I have definitely been influenced by the feedback and will not be attempting to harvest anything from the batteries. I agree that the cost of the bar versus the risk from the batteries makes this an easy decision. I made the mistake of assuming the YouTube content made this seems feasible. I had planned to investigate a safer means of harvesting the contents, but as you mentioned, I lack the knowledge, skills, and equipment to do this safely. I won’t bother researching this since the cost of 15N20 makes any savings senseless (in fact, I would say it would be more expensive in terms of time and materials). Again, thank you and Robert for taking the time to review my post and set me straight. I don’t want to be on the IFI list for a Darwin reward! LOL!

BigB, you have a great set up. Why not use some angle iron or tube iron (plus a plate if you wanted to do that) to create a wider base and place some casters on the bottom? If I had your setup (especially your stand), I would fabricate a bottom to replace the three stand legs to create a platform wider than the forge’s shelf and put some decent sized casters on the bottom. You could have the mobility you want with very little work. I can’t tell if your forge is secured to the base, but it doesn’t appear like it, so I would pick up some metal strapping, run it over the top of the forge, and secure it to the cart (or they have strap you can cinch the ends). Awesome setup and easy to make mobile.

I love cao’s idea. I lack the equipment to do this as well. But I think we understand the answers based on the 2nd video. You can actually see the ball deforming the hot piece when it is first heated. As it cools, you start to see the bounce and I can’t observe deformation from any of the cooler strikes. Marc, the point with hot steel, cooler steel, and no steel is that the softer the stock, the more energy goes to deforming the stock. As it cools, less energy goes to deforming the stock and you see the energy going into rebound, sound, light, etc For the comment on Blacksmith’s energy, the point is that more energy is transferred towards the result of deforming the stock and the hammer rebound is non existent or negligible, although it does increase as the stock cools. To me, the carpenter comment is relevant. The energy deform different material, by driving the nail into,the softer wood medium. It is an exaggerated illustration of where the energy is transferred. A very good example for someone like me. For F&N, I agree there is something to be said for the marketing minds. I don’t think it is a great point since based on this thread, I would believe the harder face will decrease the overall work because it provides more energy to deforming the stock. It may be a minimal difference when the stock is first heated, but it should definitely be measurable once the stock is cooling and the energy is going into other areas like rebound from the stock, and most importantly, the energy that can be affecting a less hard face. i wanted to share my thoughts based on the results of the video and the theories explained. I hope I am “getting” it. But I do fall under the category of an arm chair quarterback that is trying to understand theories and improve my practices as a hobbyist. Shoot, I should have had a beer in hand to craft this response. I am a novice arm chair quarterback at best, but working at improving there as well