Nathan Kraft

1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

Nathan, looks like someone is in your  pen!

Yes! This year will unfortunately be the only year I get to use the pen, as well as the luxury of the indoor heated barn. Next year I plan on showing a steer, which will mean being out in the cold twice a day every day for a couple hours at a time in the dark. Man, the lengths I'll go to to show livestock.

Back in summer of last year I posted some pictures of the panels we were welding in my FFA chapter’s shop for our barn. I doubt anyone remembers that but I told y’all I’d post pictures of the finished projects and it just occurred to me that I never did. Here’s a picture of my pen, I wish I could get a better picture of the gate from the front but the wall is in the way of me getting far enough back.

Finished up work on my necklace pendant I started a couple weeks ago. Previously had done only the twist, today I ground and drilled it then braided the string for it out of some smaller waxed thread. 

This may be something super simple I just don’t realize, but how did you get the design on the leather of those sheathes? Beautiful knives by the way! 

Just realized I forgot to post a picture of my key ring. Here it is! 

That's not the one I was thinking of, but yes that's a similar idea. Personally I would have probably made a fuller and/or a hot cut instead of the "heel," but then again charles has a heck of a lot more experience than I. Thanks for the thread LOL.

One thing I have seen and am planning to do with my railroad track is to make the end into a die anvil (been awhile since I read on that I hope i got the name right) in other words you stand the track on end and use the round portion for your main striking face, and on the thinner portions you grind tools like a hot cut, maybe a bending fork, there's all different things you could do. Now if only i could remember where I saw that thread...

And, as twistedwillow said, that is a very nice leaf!

Not quite yet, school got really crazy and Im just now getting enough time to start up in the shop again

I don’t know why it just posted that again, sorry my schools WiFi is being whacky. I do not have a post vise yet nor a London pattern anvil but I’m making due with the anvil I’m using now. It would be very nice to have a post vise though, and more visually appealing than my current situation (more parent friendly) 

Not quite yet, school got really crazy and Im just now getting enough time to start up in the shop again

Y'all, it has been a darn long time since I posted, and a long time since I got out in the forge. The other day I finally got out and did some work. I feel obligated to post about it due to my long absence, even though it's not quite on par with what i would like the quality of my work to be. I've made one of my new year's resolutions to get out in the shop at least once every other week and try do something weekly. I shall post pictures in a bit, but i started work on a new twisted square bar necklace pendant and I made a small leaf keyring. 

Yeah, it is quite fancy for a first truck, but we got a good deal on it. I’m super excited and the interior is even nicer to be honest. 

They ain’t the best pictures, but they’re what I have. We had to leave it at the dealership tonight because we had three cars and two legal drivers. 

Since we are (er... we were) of trucks, I quite literally just got my first truck, now I just have to wait til October when I can drive it... legally, that is. She’s beautiful and I got a great deal on her. 

Oh yeah, I definitely agree that it’s better to have a small animal first, it just sucks cuz I absolutely love cattle.

2 minutes ago, Frosty said:

I used to feed out little herd and flock before I hit the road for my morning commute. I was on the road by 4:45am. 6 days a week.

What kind of sheep are you getting? Meat, fiber, breed, etc.?

Yeah, if I went to a normal high school I’d be getting up around 4:30. Luckily, my school doesn’t start until nine, as opposed to the normal seven or eight.

Honestly, I don’t know what kind of sheep, other than that it’s for showing, and my ag teacher will help me buy it.

In my junior and senior years, I plan to show calves. However, I can only do that if I show one of my aunt and uncle’s cattle, as I don’t have 3000 to spend on an animal, even if I will get it back in the end. My uncle said he won’t let me show one of their calves unless I show a small animal first, and I have multiple friends who show sheep, so I chose them over goats. I also won’t have the income yet this fall to feed the calf.

Whoops, I forget not everyone is my age when I talk to people. The license that matters most to teenagers: drivers license. For fun, though, we shall say it’s a shepherds license. To be fair, it kinda is, as my mother won’t let me get a sheep until I can drive, cuz she “doesn’t want to drive me to the barn at 5:45 every morning” *joking exaggerated eye roll* 

Now that (the foam insulation) is a good idea. I may very well get odd looks but it’s better than concussions. I’m excited for October, that’s when I’ll get my license and then the sheep and then a whole domino effect will happen and my life will kinda start. 

Yeah, I’d have cut them longer too, but I wasn’t the one that drew up the plans, and I was out of town on the day they cut stuff. Also I’m the only  tall person in the chapter, but I still agree it would have made more sense to make them taller. Oh well, I can’t change it, might as well learn to get used to ducking

I do wear a hat almost every day. I hope it feels the bar, but with my luck I’ll manage to hit it just the one way that it just perfectly hits the bill of the hat into my forehead

2 hours ago, Frosty said:

How much head room is in the gate arches?

I’m not 100% sure but I think six feet, unfortunately for me I’m 6’2, and usually wear my cowboy boots with an inch and a half heel. Next year I’m going to be getting a sheep, and I’ll be feeding early in the morning (getting up at 5:30, in my truck driving at 5:45, at the barn at 6). I foresee many a groggy early morning head knock in my future. 

I wish I’d remembered to take some close up pictures of my welds. They ain’t the prettiest, but I gotta say: for my third day welding, they are pretty darn nice. There were only a couple that I really was particularly not proud of, but those were welding to hinges that had been powder coated when we bought them, so I had to learn to let the coat burn off and then go back over it a second time on the newly bare-ish metal, so I won’t fault myself too much for those. 

Yesterday I got to do some more welding in my ffa chapter’s shop. Y’all prolly don’t remember my post from a couple weeks ago, but we did more work on the livestock pens from that post. I also said back then that I would post pictures, and I have pictures now. The first picture is the fence panels we made in my previous post, and the second is the gates we made yesterday. I also got to play with... I mean... use some of our other cool toys like an industrial shear/punch.

I was going to get out and do some forging tomorrow, but my boss called me and now I have to work. I’ll be out of town all next week, but I’m hoping to get some work done when I get back.

Been a bit since I posted, but I finally did something in the shop! Granted, it wasn’t my shop, nor a personal project, but it was still something. Yesterday I worked with my ag teacher and one other kid building livestock pens for our ffa chapter. We spent a lot of time cutting stock, and then I got to do some welding for the first time! I totally forgot to take pictures, but some of my welds were actually quite pretty, and I was doing really well. I’ll make sure to take pictures for y’all when I can, even if it’s in October when I’m keeping my lamb in the completed pens lol. More specifically, we were MIG welding.

I’ve done absolutely nothing in the shop recently, what with finals coming up and school being crazy trying to wrap up for the year. However, I am very excited because in a couple weeks I’ll be able to get out and do some stuff during the day! 

2 hours ago, Chimaera said:

Think it's spring allergies or something else? 

It was some random stomach bug, just really bad fatigue and nausea.

I don't see why the lower layer count would affect the chemical reaction, unless you just meant the pattern wouldn't have the same affect per se. If that's the case, I know and I'm specifically going for a set of three parallel bars as the pattern for the ring. Thanks so much for the instructions! 

If i were to use the steel wire, would it not make gouges on the places where it was? And if i were to not use the wire what would the alternative be? I've looked but I am confused as to how people hold their mokume billets together.

In the shop: nothing. I’ve been busy with my new job and school and being sick. Ive tried to get myself out to the shop over the past few weeks and it just hasn’t worked out.

Using my 3# hammer as an anvil while laying on the couch too sick to walk: I’ve done some work on a ring. It started as a quarter, and I gently upset the edges over a couple hours and then drilled and am now filing the inside out. Of course there was grinding on the edges too.

Chimaera, I know you had mentioned awhile back that you use quite concentrated liver of sulfur for your patinas on your mokume. I was wondering if you know about what concentration you use? Also you don’t warm it right? I love the colours you get on your patina and I would like to try and recreate it with this ring, if that’s ok.