Kdash

Yea I was planning to do that. There are some ceramic beads our mother made from an impression of our grandmothers jewelry. She used to give all the grandkids ornaments for Christmas. I am going to use those to make ornaments for them all.

Thank you, she hasn't passed yet but only has a couple weeks left at best. She wanted me to have them so I drove from Michigan to Southern California, over 5000 miles round trip, in my 20 year old pickup to say goodbye and pick them up. My daughter and niece has expressed some interest in making some things. These are mostly high quality beads, alot of natural stone.

I also just inherited my sister's bead collection. I can use some to dress up my sheaths but I had no idea how much she had.

The previous owner passed away but his wife said he had used it shortly before. It looks like the printer input has been upgraded. The old input board was in the case and had just a printer cable input. The one that is installed has printer cable, SD card input and its own power supply. It came with the water pump, coaxial fan and flex duct so I can install it indoors. There is an SD card with it so may have some usable files. I hope to check it out Sunday.

I need to look into that speedy stitcher. Here is my newest acquisition. A 40 watt, water cooler laser cutter/engraver. Was the perfect price, free.

I went all out for mine over the winter. I built a chimney style stand, welded rebar on the bottom of 5/16" plate, filled the chimney with concrete, topped the whole thing with mortar and set the plate in the concrete. Then I welded some 1/2-13 bolts to the plate and bolted my old Trenton down with angle iron. I also welded a piece of chain on the plate with a piece of flatstock on the other end to step on for a good hold-down.

Those dishes turned out pretty cool.

Thanks, i have done at least 30 spike knives now. I did some leather work in school. It had been almost 40 years. At least I still had my old tools.

I can't imagine life without pets. The cat in the bowl is Mocha the cat with the dogs is Banshee. The dogs are from the same litter. The black male is Garm and the brindle female Tala. Garm has killed 2 skunks and at leat 3 rats. He got one skunk without getting sprayed. The other one got him good. The skunk must have completely emptied on him since the body barely smelled at all.

At first I didn't but I learned about the super quench when I took a class at Tillers International. I have been using it ever since. I tell people about sharpening them more often as well. I figure they are mostly just a cool novelty knife that sits on a shelf.

I've done some stuff with spikes.

Actually im a chemical plant guy. Our main product is epoxy floor coatings and some other epoxy products like casting resin and tabletop resin. We used to make our own line of floor grinding products but that broke off into a completely seperate company.

We used it to make diamond infused 'hockey-pucks' used on floor grinders for prepping concrete for epoxy coating or polishing.

Yea. Its a 30 ton press. It is a good base. I dont need the heaters or controls. I think I have a phase inverter lying around to use the 3 phase motor. I'll need to modify the plates and make some dies. I should just need a spool valve. I can relocate the pressure gage and completely eliminate the control box. Worst case I'll need a bigger pump and motor.

They were clearing out a storage building at work and this appeared in the shop. I asked them what they planned to do with it and without hesitation they asked me if I wanted it. I just as quickly said yes. They will even loan me a forklift and trailer to get it home. I'm pretty happy about it.

It was suggested to me here to find a class to get a good working foundation. I took two weekend classes at Tillers International, a non-profit organization near Kalamazoo Michigan and thought it was great. They covered alot of stuff I wanted to learn. The first weekend was blacksmith basics and gave me some insight into what I had been doing right and wrong. The following week was a high carbon knife blade class and they covered everything to make a tempered knife start to finish. The instructors were great. They really seem to love the work and teaching it to others. I would reccomend their classes to anyone interested in learning the basics. I have enclosed pictures of what we made.

A few months ago I bought a 2 shelves full of items from a local museum auction for $25 each. It was online and some stuff was hard to identify with the pics provided. There was this one set of items I thought looked cool and bought the whole shelf just to see what it was. It's a pipe wrench. I have never seen anything like it.

Yea. I view them as novelties for the most part. I have some old tie plates also. They are cast so can't do much with them. Thought I might make them a sort of display plaque for some of the fancier looking blades.

I went ahead and signed up for 32 hours of classes with Tillers International about two hours away from me. 2 days of basics and 2 days focused on high carbon knife making. Not till mid September but I am looking forward to it. I will keep playing with spikes till then.

That makes sense, guess it is as it should be. Thanks for the insight.

Thanks, I have read that trying to 'fix' it is more likely to ruin it. I have no plans to mess with it. It seems to have a great bounce but I am not really qualified to judge it. The edges of the face arnt as crisp as I would like but I have a nice 600# plate steel welding table if I need a good square edge.

I have watched alot of videos but they have been more demonstration than instruction. A good high carbon knife making class is in September but I can take a basic class now much closer to home.

Ok it might be a rough looking 1. I just used a wire brush on it at the slash that made it look like a 7 isnt as deep as the rest. 1911 sounds like it could be right. It was my step father's grandfather's he is 91 now. I found a local Smith from the ABANA who offers a 4 hour beginner's class for $210. I think it might do me some good to take it.

It's a 703976

Yes. They are quite readable. It's just been yard art for the last 50+ years. I got the tongs at a local museum auction so they are probably late 1800s/early 1900s