junker

i just picked up a hundred somethen pound forklift prong (tong? skid? i don't know what it's called.) out of the local scrapyard for 30 bucks. does anyone know what the carbon content of these usually are, and should i go through buying hardfacing wire and doing that?

Elitist? HAH! This is just about the most non- elitist group of people I've had the pleasure of comunicating with. I've always found blacksmithing interesting, but it always seemed like some far off daunting thing that I could never in my lifetime achieve, and then I found this forum... without you guys (and occasional gal) I would never have had the gumption to attempt blacksmithing. Sorry to get all soppy on y'all but you guys rock! So I just have to give an honest and heartfelt thankyou to every1 on this forum... thanks to you I've found a craft I love and got to keep all my fingers - from a lifetime addict :)

Glenn... do u know the prices on the 2 you mentioned?

Ok so I have saved up about $300 in the quest for an anvil... the problem is there are no anvils in my area... the colsest ones I can find are in north georgia and of those the cheapest is around 230 and at 200ibs that's about a hundred and fifty dollar shipping seeing as I like in central florida. Any1 have any advice on what to do now, or are there any florida smiths that I don't know about who would be willing to sell?

Ok, so I have welded cable before... and made a couple of other simple welds... but this is my second try at welding cable and it turned out horibbly. The first time it welded cable into a billet I had absolutedly no problems... since I assume you canlt wet charcoal to make it stick the way you can coal, I just make a nice mound of charcoal od shove the piece in... usually I can get it just before welding heat and place it on top to finish coming up to heat. But for some reason, on this go at welding cable nothing seemed to go right... first off the steet heated faster than my previous try, so it burned... second the majority of the sttands in the cable didn't weld, only the very inermost... and third when I tried to re-heat for a second try the metal itself caught fire and ruined the entire billet... it almost looks rusted but a different color. Any advice any1 can give from these observations would be apreciated... and if any1 on here lives in central florida send me a private message so maybe we can arrange something.

For a lot of stuff you don't even need a teacher... I've had teachers in just about everything and they just seem to get in the way... I've only been doing this for less than a year but I'm already making passably knives and forgewelding... just pick projects 4 yourself that involve thing that you don't yet know how to do. That way you learn as you go and have a nice finished product that you can be proud of. Now don't get me wrong, a teacher could probably have you knowing all that stuff that you used in a jiffy and cut your work time considerably... but you loose out on the hard work and determination that truly make you proud of a project.

Not a whole lot.... and I generally weld without flux... I got it right on my second try and never could figure out how to do it with flux, I've only done it a few time since then and never had a problem. So if some1 could kindly explain the proper use of flux I'm wanting to give it a try

Can it be done and does it require anything special?

Wells I can most assuradly say I'm the atypical blacksmith... about 6'2" and 150.. pretty muscular... look more like a surfer/ swimmer than anything... course there's a good reason for that lol... but at less than a month from 17 I am deffinently a non- steriotypical blacksmith

Thanks for the info... got any advice for some1 attempting to make 1?

Is the blade ground from one side leving the other flat, or are both the sides ground so that the meet in the middle?

Thanks guys... got any more advice up ur sleeves? I'm working on making a straight razor outta some cable that I welded into a billet... just heated the cable to welding temp and twisted and then heated it again and flattened... cut it into 3 segments, stacked them, and welded them again... any advice y'all can think of 4 the completion of this project will be apreciated.... it's gonna be a gift 4 my neighbor for letting me use the steel he had laying around.

i just can't help but think... since it;s kinda like a sandwich... wouldn't the mild steel end up being the edges? i could see how it would work if you folded the crabon steel over the mild.... but i was talking like one piece in the middle and 2 carbon on the outside. i just think the mild would end up being your edges if you were trying to make a double edged sword.

ok, since the point of welding a billet is to get the flexibleness of lower carbon steels in the middle of a blade and higher carbon hardness on the outside, would it work to have the center of the billet mild or like a spring steel and the outside a very hard tool steel? just would like to know.

Ok this is all very informative... but why not just use light or not? New guy, if you're a boyscout you should know about it... for the rest here's what it is. Light or not is pine wood... usually an old stump... that has been left intact for so long that the pine resin that is naturally occuring in the tree solidifies. What's more food safe than something made by nature it'self?... extremely hard... incredibly durible... and doesn't rot

As far as I know it is just the wallhanger type. It's about 24 inches and no clue what type it is... it kust looks like something someone dreamed up one day... I was just wondering because it's pretty braud and I was wondering if I could grind of the fantasy looking cut outs and reforge it into a double edged shortsword.

Is this any good 4 a sword... I recently had one given to me with this stamped in the side

So if I'm making a knife (something like a buck knife) out of old lawnmower blades, what should I quench it in? Plain water, salt water, or oil... I'm quite confused. Advice would be apreciated.

Youtube youtube youtube... and I actually screwed up the design

So, based on the pics, is there any advice any1 can give me for my next pair.

So I'm not ready for swords... I'll admit that. But I was wondering... would it be possible to make a hickory handle to a sword that was wraped in wire so that it left gaps and then have leather showing in the gaps... (the wire wrapped like a spiral) would this even be possible, and if so, how on earth would you do it?

Sure they're a little rough, but other than a fire poker they're the first real work I've done at the forge... so I'm happy

i can't even begin to imagine how much easier it would have been with an anvil with a horn for the curves... all i have is an I-beam as an anvil... and only about 50ibs so it tends to bounce around and fall off the stump

they were originally 2 10in. sections of 1in. by 1/2in. bar. these things took forever... the first side i did took me about an hour and a half and the second about 15 minutes. here's more pics :p

alright, here they are. i know they're not pretty but they work.