dlpierson

Completely agree about eBay, but a couple of bits of advice: 1. Be patient. The goal is get good wood at a price you like, not to quickly win auctions unless you really need that wood now. Most of what you buy will have to season for months+ anyway even if the seller says it's "dry". 2. Beware of stabilized wood unless the auction clearly says that it's processed by a well respected company or you really know the seller. A lot of the "stabilized" wood on eBay isn't well processed. 3. Take chances. I recently bid on three groups of rather questionable, poorly photographed scales from a seller I've had good experiences with. He said you should expect to get 2-3 sets of useable scales out of each batch. I got a good deal better than that at a max of $8 per batch. Took a risk and threw some of them in an order I was just sending off to WSSI (my first to them). All came back useable and some are really pretty -- I'll save them for something special. BTW: a lot of that WSSI order was 4 of the 18 boards of spalted silver maple I got for less than $2 a board including shipping. Results varied but I really liked two of them; one of the two was well worth the cost of having all four done. These days I *tend* to buy larger blocks and expect to let them sit for a couple of years before cutting into them at all. Of course I've accumulated enough wood so that the only problem is my patience...

Yep, pretty. The thing to remember about clay hardening is the the clay slows *cooling* of the steel under it (and thus near it because the steel under the clay keeps reheating the nearby steel). Basically the pattern you place the clay is a pattern that influences the hamon but doesn't draw it. Very much art, not science.

I attended a talk/demonstration by Ric Furrer on crucible steel a couple of years ago at Ashoken. As I recall he said that he has about an 80% success making a billet of steel and about a 50% success making it into a blade. Unfortunately the demonstration was one of the 20% but you can see a number of pictures on my Flickr page of the HI.

I'm finding the weight discussion here interesting. I just went from a 1 kilo hammer down to a 1 3/4 lb Nathan Robertson Czech style hammer. Didn't even consider a real Hofi hammer because my main goal as a beginner with insufficient arm strength was to go down to 1 3/4 lbs. It sounds like some of you might recommend staying at 1 kilo or even going up with a Hofi and learning a different hammering technique. That sounds a little hard to believe, but at least I haven't too many bad habits to unlearn. I have read the Hofi hammer technique blueprints on this site and am trying to apply them with the conventional handle on my hammer.

You did it again Karl. It's hard to keep coming up with new complements when every piece is great!

That's just sick! I've been wondering what the coil for heating flats looked like. Thanks a lot for showing it. One of these is very, very likely to be the next major purchase for my shop. Unfortunately that won't be very soon. There's this "major" part...

I like the san mai cable a lot. I don't really like the combined profile of the blade and handle. They seem disproportionate to me. The blade sticks out of the handle instead of flowing out of it.

Nice design; both functional and pretty. The twists definitely add to it.

Just a tip: I've moved to using Picasa for most of my photo maintenance. Free and very easy to use. Primarily designed to organize all the photos on your PC, it has enough editing support to handle most fix up needs too. They also have an online site to upload the photos to but I'm still using Flickr for that.

Salvaging a huge old grain elevator these folks have found something around 500,000 lbs of wrought iron. I've got a little bit of it.

Beautifully done feather! The blade is very nice overall too. It'll be a treat to see it finished. I'm especially impressed at some of the elaborate damascus patterns you make with power hammers. A number of very skilled makers have told me that a press works much better for mosaic based patterns but you seem to be a counter example.

If you look at this thread you'll see that it's Brian Brazeal's favorite steel for hammers.

200 pound Peter Wright - very good condition $400 100 pound Vulcan - poor condition $100

One more: Old World Anvils Press. I rather like the self contained and well shielded design of this one.

I believe that it's widely used on Chinese spears. A friend of mine who trained in China a couple of times told that's because its straight and grows all over the area he trained in so staffs (and presumably spear shafts) were free for the cutting.

That shear looks like a total monster!

Very impressive modern hawk.

SPLAT is right! That's really cool John.

I've been drooling about this little hammer because of some recent threads here. Just went over to YouTube and found some pictures of it at work: Forging a leaf Forging a calla lily Forging a leafing hammer

"Gypsy With a Hammer" sounds like a great idea! From Frosty's thoughts, a combined book and DVD might be even better if you're up for it. Some of the interactions at different shops might be best captured with video.

That's very good for a first attempt at file work. Good imagination too -- I haven't seen that liner pattern used before. Simple but effective. I like the whole knife. It's one of the cleanest, most modern looking friction folders I can remember seeing. Not that the more common rustic or ornate rustic styles are bad, but this is nicely different.

Here's a pointer to the two folks a lot of people deal with: Kelly Cupples 2807 Butterfield Rd. Yakima, WA 98901 509-949-5231 octihunter@charter.net http://elliscustomknifeworks.hightemptools.com/steel.html Aldo Bruno (The New Jersey Steel Baron) njsteelbaron@gmail.com Aldo is famous for his occasional mill runs of 1084. He also has 1095, O1, 52100, I've dealt with Aldo before and am doing so again. Never dealt with Kelly but have heard nothing but good things about him.

Maybe this will clarify it: scroll down for description of how to attach a ceramic platen.

Good point. I seem to remember some discussion about whether it's necessary to flatten the platen before gluing on a ceramic or whether enough JB Weld will fill the gaps without leading to the platen cracking. With a new KMG-1, I didn't have this problem so never thought about it much. In any case it's good practice to add some sort of little shelf below the ceramic so that a glue failure doesn't lead to lots of high speed sharp glass pieces headed your way! (that said, I didn't do that and haven't had a problem but please don't feel that you should follow my bad example)

Ceramic platen liners work well. I've been using the same one for three years or so with no problems. There are other sources but this is where I got mine.