Bonnskij

Righto. Done whinging about welding, though it is the cranky season for me. More practice I guess. Did manage to weld some rebar onto a piece of leaf spring as a temporary handle and I've done some more work on my kitchen knife. Managed to marr my knife with a piece of steel that got stuck in my fine file shortly before finishing. Annoying...

I won some money and thought I'd buy myself a welder. Should have saved the money and bought some wood glue. That'd make for better metal bonding as well as my welds stick together...

Bit of progress on my kitchen knife. The heel is a tiny bit out of alignment so I'm going to put it back in the fire and correct that before I do anything else.

That sounds like a grat idea. Yes I'm working at welding temps. I was trying to follow along with Jennifer on this sites video of forging a wrought iron chisel, so I'm cooling parts of it in water and clamping it in the vise before hammering it from the top. (I only have a bench vise, but my old joplin is actually made of steel rather than cast iron, so it can handle a lot of abuse). I seem to be missing something though. Probably skill

Here's a couple of failures I'm currently having. And I'm frankly not sure where I'm going wrong. First up I seem entirely incapable of making the part of this wrought iron chisel thicker on the part directly before the tang. I can kinda stretch it, or it'll sort of fold over, but I haven't even been able to upsett it, and that's a bit upsetting. My nutcracker is crook as, and no matter where I try to twist and hammer, it comes out equally crook every time, and now it's starting to get a bit too thin for my liking... I am working on a couple of knives too, but so far I at least feel like they're going fine.

Those leaf spring sure makes for heavy blades! But as long as the recipient is happy, I guess that's all that really matters. Also not to mention they seem rather opposed to being shaped, so there's so much hammering involved. I guess I might be lazy, but I think I'll step away from leaf spring for blade purposes for the most part. Any savings in cost I make up for in expenditure on gas! As for work as of late; A friend of mine have just given me a whole tank ammo crate worth of tools, including ten hammers! I've been testing them out and marred my soft stump anvil with a four pound hammer, and in return the anvil marred my most recent knife blank. Yesterday I modified the hammer to a rounding hammer and today I cleaned up the anvil with the angle grinder. I'd like to make myself a kitchen knife. I'm also going to make a paring knife for my friend out of one of the files he gave me, so I've been doing some research and testing on ruined old files, not to mention studying up on basic hammering techniques... Here's the kitchen knife so far after about an hour of forging. I think the blade is about 23 cm. Going for something along the lines of a K tip gyuto. Any critique would be much appreciated!

I suppose so, but this one is a bit much forward in my opinion. Pretty sure my wrist would get tired well quickly but then again, my brush blade of choice is a leuku, and that is certainly on the light side for those kinds of blades. When I showed my colleague the initial dimensions of the knife I got the impression that he thought it a bit too small, so I made it both slightly wider and longer. And hey! He loves it, so what do I know? As long as he's happy that's all that really matters!

Nevertheless. I fear such force is still too much for my frame to bear. Perhaps I'll consider the other suggestion once my other mode of transport bites the dust. Aah, to be a child again and be able to make medieval weaponry without (too many) side-wards glances. Speaking of which. The patang is finally finished. To be honest, it is much too heavy and balanced too far towards the front for my tastes, but my colleague loves it. He says it makes him feel like home, and I don't think I can get a better compliment than that. That really warmed my heart.

After a jump from the 4th floor I doubt my boyish figure would still be maintained. I'd venture I'd be as compressed as the spring. And all that compressed mass would have to go somewhere. I built an onager for the traditional water fight between year 10 and year 13 students once. Not quite the scale of a trebuchet, but fun nonetheless.

And now I've just learnt that there are more than one sort of pyrite. And to think that geology was my strongest subject at uni... My brain must've been working in the background on what galena is, as I just got a mental notification telling me galena is lead ore. Sure is pretty though. Not a bad idea on the bar stools. My brain mainly goes towards catapults. I thought I could make a pogo stick, but seems you have to be about 500 pounds for that to work too, and at that weight I don't think having both feet off the ground simultaneously is recommended. The yellow springs were new one box, and I think the red ones were also new but without the box, so I think I was pretty lucky. Mainly punches and chisels for coil springs then? I could do with some.

Picked up some coil spring from the scrapyard. These two, plus their respective twins. Any suggestions to what I can make of them? Also did some more work on the patang. Approaching finished now. Really not a fan of working with big blades I've figured out...

That is odd, but at the same time it makes sense. Different approaches for the same result. I didn't expect that in geology though. Just finished up my bike chain axe. Here is the final result:

Now now. I don't mind learning a bit of geochemistry. Pyrite isn't deposited by water like other silicate based minerals is it? That's gotta be some of coolest fossils I've ever seen!

That sounds like some great fossil sites Frosty. Didn't even know fossils could be formed by pyrite. That's amazing! I'd love to get my hands on some opalised fossils, but that's just another pipedream I guess. I'd imagine not knowing the trilobite location is a bummer. Trilobites are certainly among my favourite fossils. How's this for a project by the way? Bike chain and rasp tomahawk. Or my Mad (M)axe if you will.

Makes sense that they're used for railroad ties. Gumtrees are used for that here too, but then again, that's the most abundant kind of timber here. Very heavy and very gnarly timbers. Unpredictable grain directions I find, so I often get a fair bit of tearout when planing. Haven't worked with blue gum specifically though. Wonder if it's one of the timber species that has high silica content so it wears edges quickly. Fossil hunting is great fun! Surprisingly few places in Queensland you're legally allowed to do it though. I am not a huge fan of the amount of rules and regulations regarding land around here. What sort of fossils have you found Frosty? As for work done lately: decided I'd fix up the axe haft instead of making a new one. Epoxy and Tassie oak dowel. It'll be a light usage hatchet, so hopefully it'll hold up. (Those are neither really small balloons attached to the dowel or a really big dowel. It's merely an optical illusion). And for my third round of forge welding: Some chain Damascus. I'm really enjoying this forge welding thing!

Marine fossils from what was previously the Eromanga sea. Didn't find anything spectacular, but a couple of fish skulls and bones. And here's a part of a jaw with a tooth still attached. I thought that was really neat! Yep, those eucalypts are certainly tough. Spotted gum has very similar physical properties to hickory, so it makes a great wood for handles. As a bonus it's pretty cheap. Assuming the blue gum was imported as a plantation timber? I imagine the climate in southern California is quite similar to large parts of australia, so would grow pretty well.

The family and I have been outback hunting for fossils. Fun times! Now back to real life (and the shop). Made a handle for my axe. Was going to use spotted gum, but had a piece of silky oak laying around that I thought would look nice though it might not make the best handle. Should've gone with spotted gum as the handle broke on the final fitting...

I like that idea Thomas. A set of shipbuilders tools is high on my wishlist. I would particularly like some traditional Norse tools, but some of the axes they used are much too daunting a project for me yet. Will a wrapped eye adze work well? Interesting info Frosty. I can't do much about my anvils at the moment, but it sounds like I have some hammer faces to dress.

That's exactly it. I would even argue that it's probably better to use just blocks of steel, as that would eliminate any uncertainty around anvil shape, composition and manufacturing process of the anvil and other things I may not be thinking of. But also as you say, the results could only be applied in general ways. A spherical anvil in a vacuum sort of situation, although that would be useful to cut through a lot of the confusion. From your anecdotal data I can gather that anvil hardness is in fact quite important for its efficiency in moving metal. How tall are your anvils? I should be able to add my own anecdotes to the list pretty soon with a tall but soft faced block vs a short but hard faced sledge head (although the slightly domed face of the sledghammer will obfuscate things somewhat). As for my forging lately. My axe/ Norse hawk(?) is taking shape. To the surprise of probably nobody (including me) though, the welds aren't great.

Aha. Clearly my Knowledge falls short here. I know nothing of mesquite trees, other than that they're great for smoking pork. Anecdotal evidence can absolutely be useful. I can get a bit too hung up on numbers sometimes. I like the experiment though. Maybe do some analysis of variance and see if there is a significant effect on efficiency from the hardness and mass in combination. That's probably enough for an experiment, but would be interesting to know how much energy is lost if the anvil is not securely mounted. I've seen a lot of youtube videos where the anvil goes for a walk. At least my hammer head does not move an inch from where it's placed.

I can't imagine you'd walk away from an accident like that and be the same as before. At least not after a long time. Took quite a while after my dad had a couple of accidents before he was the same again too, and one of them was without injury. I'm not sure i would like to moved down by a ten foot cactus either though. I've heard New Mexico can get surprsingly chilly winters. A lot of people will start complaining around here when the mercury drops below 20 degrees celcius. I'm quite happy in shorts and a t-shirt year round. Then again everyone will have to deal with my whinging at summer time so... Alright fellas. You have me convinced. I've dressed the cylinder and started drilling holes in a stump i found. Otherwise I'll leave the surface as is. I've been trying to do some research on what rebound, mass, hardness and things mean for an anvil, but it seems to be something to the old adage, that you ask a hundred blacksmiths and get 101 different answers (or however it goes). I wish there was some standardised test or research on what the properties of an anvil means for its efficiency in moving metal (if there is, I cannot find it) though now I'll have the opportunit to do my own test and compare a softer face, but higher mass stake anvil to my harder face, but lower mass sledgehammer head. Seems most smiths agree on mass being the most important, and work hardening is at least a principle I can understand somewhat!

Chris: Surface area wise it is only slightly larger and roughly the same shape as my current ALO, so I know (at least some of) the issue that I will face and can dress it appropriately beforehand. Rebound wise... Well it's quite similar to my current sledge hammer head, despite significantly more mass under the hammer, which is why I am considering hardening the face. Or am I wrong in assuming Rebound is a good indication of force transferred to the workpiece? Frosty: That was a lot more injury than I had imagined. I am glad you were able to walk away from that with your life. I'd imagine most people wouldn't, and the epitaph is certainly fitting. It sounds like your injury was around the end of my service. I'd love to have helped, but I don't know how helpful I would have been. We were taught to drive to avoid trees to make our approach unnoticed (as unnoticed as you could expect from a 1500 HP diesel engine anyway), despite that I earned the nickname "the tree killer", so I guess my driving mightn't have been up to par. I hope your injury bothers you as little as possible. I hope to avoid the club as long as possible. Though perhaps I am already in it. I'm sure I was more reckless at some point, though with less injuries for the effort. A knee that perpetually aches I can't complain too much about. A little older and a little more fatherly, I seem to have grown more worried about everything.

Picked up a few bits and bobs from a garage sale today. A few files and a rasp for 2 dollaridoos each. Biggest one looks to be a 350mm bastard cut. Solid steel cylinder that I'd like to turn into my next anvil somehow and a chain that I might try making some chain Damascus out of. Don't know yet. Also got some brass and a shorter piece of steel cylinder as an anvil for my other half who would like to try her hand at silver smithing.

Here I was having no idea what an Irish stand down was. Am I correct in assuming that's a bare knuckle fight with a tree? Well I'd be happy enough to walk after that too. Here's today's haul bytheway. A bloke was retiring and selling everything in his workshop. Couldn't believe all the people that showed up to the garage sale. Got what I wanted though plus change. A big steel cylinder / my new anvil. I don't know what grade steel it is. I forgot to ask. Might dress it and then try to harden the face of it. If mild, should I try to forge weld a piece of leaf spring to the face? Can my forge even heat that thing up to temp... Any suggestions? No idea what I'm doing with this one, so I'm all ears.

Probably in a very similar environment, but at a distance that would make transporting 55 tons of steel prohibitively expensive. Or perhaps not. I visited Petersburg once. One of the loveliest places I've ever been to. But I digress. Apart from losing control of a tank in the snow and thusly plowing down trees Willy nilly, my run ins with trees have been fairly uneventful. Think my dad have had a couple of close calls with trees (thank god for helmets) and the vengefulness is also well documented in the New Zealand documentary about a ring or something like that. Hope you didn't get broken too badly and made a swift recovery.