Medic8126

On 7/13/2018 at 12:45 AM, Jclonts82 said:

I would get a (eventually many) good file.

What would you recommend as a good file to buy. The only ones I have now are just harbor freight junk that I use for wood. I've heard that Nicholson files aren't so great since they started producing in Mexico.

8 minutes ago, Nobody Special said:

I don't see any pins, how are your handles held on? Carry on, enjoy forging!

For the top one I split a piece of wood and carved out the inside to fit the tang then epoxied the two halves together with the tang inside. For the bottom one I drilled a guide hole in a block and burned in the tang then added epoxy to make sure it couldn't come out. For the middle one I'm still trying to decide how I want to do it. I may go with pinned scales but I'm not sure yet. 

Anyone have any suggestions on what I should do for the handle on the middle one?

So here are the results of my first couple days of having a forge. These are the first 3 knives I made. I'm having quite a bit of trouble with the grinding as all I have is an angle grinder right now. Even having only done this a few times over the last couple days I have learned a ton and realized there is so much more I need to learn. Criticism is welcome as I believe it's the best way to improve.

1 hour ago, Steven511 said:

without something like ITC or Satanite your lungs are gonna have a bad time breathing in fiberglass dust. 

Thanks for the advice. I read about the dangers of inswool so I made sure to wear a respirator when I fired it. Today it's getting a coating of ITC.

Last night I finally fired my forge for the first time. It was supposed to be a quick test fire before I coated it with ITC-100 but I just got too excited and couldn't wait to forge something. So here is my first attempt at heating and beating metal with a rough flap wheel grind.

Well I finally built my first forge. The outside is made out of some stainless I had laying around. The inside is insulated with 2" of inswool with 1/2" of kastolite 30. I have an interior area of 4" tall x 7" wide x 11" deep. I'm using a simple forced air burner. I fired it up for the first time last night and today I'll be coating the inside with ITC-100.

Hello, I'm the newest addition to the forums here. I'm a medic in the Army. My dad and I have been wanting to try our hand at smacking hot metal with hammers and seeing what we can accomplish. Right now I am on leave and in the process of making my first forge.