Frosty

Now you tell me! Gee thanks. Frosty The Lucky.

Truth is a person with some basic skills will find cutting spoon blanks a LOT more work than forming them. You don't really need a swage / bottom die. Cut the blank and dish it on the anvil, bouge / plannish it with wooden or rawhide mallet over a small ball stake, a ball pein in a vise with a works a treat. Forks are even worse for the cutting blanks to forming and finishing ratio. Swages and bottom dies are almost more hassle than they're worth, ALMOST and don't forget you need a top die to make them less work than dishing. You still need to bouge, polish and finish. Electro polish if using stainless steel. SmoothBore's laid out probably the most practical bottom die for a production run of "matching" pieces. Concentrate on the handles and SELL the bragging rights. These ARE after all custom HAND forged utensils you know, that's worth a great deal. Frosty The Lucky.

That sounds like the problem Lil'smith. Don't worry there will be more to solve so keep us in mind. Save the failures and especially your first few successful leaves (or whatevers) so you can look at them as you progress and see how far you've come. Heck, you might want to go so far as date them so your Grandkids can show their friends where granpaw started out only to become a world renowned master smith. We LOVE pics posting a few is a welcome thing. Heck, we might even say something nice about you, you just never know you know. Frosty The Lucky.

I don't slide an edge lengthwise across my flesh, I wore it outside my T shirt it's just TOO sharp to wear against bare skin. A thing doesn't need to be sharp to be a weapon, a Louisville Slugger makes a fine crowd pleaser. A wrist rocket driven golf ball has effective momentum and range. Frosty The Lucky.

You should've seen the looks on the guys faces when they opened my carry on to find 70lbs. of obsidian. It made a pretty white blank on the xray. I showed them an obsidian point I'd knapped and they let me carry the point on the plane even though one guy sliced his finger "testing" the edge. Broken glass evidently didn't penetrate his consciousness like it did his finger. Say, wouldn't my Davis Creek Ca. Mahogany obsidian spear point necklace be a concealed weapon? Frosty The Lucky.

And if you're distilling your own you can use dry cow pies to smoke dry your malted barley instead of peat for that unique NM flavor Scotch. Frosty The Lucky.

Good grief, this is starting to get silly. Experience is knowledge and practice, the more practice the better you get. Because I say so! Drummer, you're washing out your bevel lines because you need more practice. If you can't analyze the failures you need someone to watch you and point out your mistakes. Pretty darned hard to do online from text only so don't feel abused because we can't guess the correct answer. Hardening IS heat treating as is tempering, normalizing, annealing and even cryogenics. Okay that's a stretch but falls into the category. Oh, don't worry, blacksmithing isn't going to die because someone who's spent decades learning the craft talks to a new guy like an adult. Being told in terse or even sarcastic tones is NOTHING compared to how the steel will treat you if you don't pay attention and learn from your failures. Even if you don't like the feeling of failure the steel doesn't care it's just refined dirt and was just as happy as a rusty spot on a hillside. Frosty The Lucky.

I love the steak flipper bottle opener FF. What's the critter head? Frosty The Lucky.

Steelflinger: Sounds like you're making the mistake of believing a gun is more dangerous than a blade. It's a common mistake made by people backing firearm control but lacking practical knowledge. No weapon is dangerous. People are dangerous. Carrying a sword in public has always been a status issue. What you call "honor code" is just ego and hubris. Duels were rarely, very rarely fought over honorable issues. Defend your honor sirra! I wave at my genitalia in your direction! School yard ego snit fits with deadly weapons. Most were only fought to first blood and so honor is satisfied? Blustery bully BS. I'm a practical kind of guy. If you can't avoid a fight take something that takes two hands to use. Semi auto or pump shot gun for close in and something around .308 for medium long range fall in my preference range. Pistols are last resort weapons. I'd prefer my 30 years out of practice martial arts skills before something like a . . . sword? I'd take you out with the pen in my pocket before you could get a sword untangled let alone drawn and presented. Or my pocket knife though I wouldn't open it. Frosty The Lucky.

Interesting fuller. Are the dies the same angle? Naw, it'd be a LOT more work shaping a bevel by driving it into a fuller. It'd be a lot easier and faster to just draw it down. Even finish shaping would go faster with a grinder or even a file. I have a couple wild guesses but can punch so many holes in them you could read bill boards through them so I'll hang out and see what someone says. I'm sure someone knows what it's for. Frosty The Lucky.

Ayup, a dog just wants to be with his/er person and make you happy. They do have a convenient schedule though, 24/7 is part of the deal. Just be careful of that ramp when it's icy you don't want to have to make her pull your wheel chair. You got that right on all counts Thomas. Libby was there to take care of me when I needed it most. Abby was there to help me heal. Falki is here to teach me patience again. Baxter shows me what relentless determination can do for you and is a great bed warmer. You bet I'm a lucky guy. Frosty.

Two 3/4 burners should do nicely in that volume forge. Your doors are WAY too large, close them up till the back pressure starts to log the burners down and open them back up a little. A little kaowool to seal the burners off in the holders can't hurt but for now I'd say it's the too big, wide open doors keeping it cool. Once you get a good air fuel ratio STOP messing with the chokes. With them closed like the first pic your forge is just a CO generator. Wide open it's probably just a scale reactor. While iron scale is good for making roses really red you can sweep up plenty at the anvil no need to make a scale reactor. Frosty The Lucky.

They're for cooking communion wafers. Frosty The Lucky.

AND Shoulder the leaf on a radiused edge or cold shuts will get em. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard B, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the Iforge gang live within visiting distance. How much fuel your forge uses is entirely dependent on how much you feed it. provided you're using a well tuned burner of whatever type. BTUs / second and absolute temperature is a factor of how much fuel air mix you burn per second in the chamber. How long the ribbon thingy lasts will have a lot to do with the quality of refractory you make it from. Frosty The Lucky.

Taking care of family is a GOOD thing. I like you better all the time. Frosty The Lucky.

There are a number of guys onboard in Utah and Arizona, I'll bet less than 130 miles. Then again what's 5+ hrs driving to solve a problem and spend time with another blacksmith? I've traveled 10x farther than that. I'd imagine different alloys react differently to most anything but it's going to take some testing to find out what acts how. I judge welding temp by to be at "sweating temp" or watery heat. The surface appears to have a shimmer to it like light flashing across water, it looks wet. If I let steel get to sparking heat I've screwed up but that's just how I do it. I clean, SHINY clean and flux the joint before I heat it. The hotter the steel the faster it oxidizes so I flux and close the join as cool as possible. Light on the flux, it ISN'T GLUE! Good flux is a joy. Set the weld with gentle dead blows, brush, flux, heat and refine it. Repeat a couple times. I test the set by laying one side of the joint on the anvil and see how it cools. If there's a sharp differential in color at the joint it isn't set. Brush, flux, heat and do it again. LIGHT, dead blows. Test and proceed as indicated. Frosty The Lucky.

John: (Boy is that easier to get my head around pronouncing than your web handle!) It'll take you far less time and work getting used to a different surface than trying to replicate one. Don't ask me how I know. Oh alright ask but it's an old story about learning from my mistakes instead of someone elses. If the face has chisel marks in it they're probably hammer out in use. You can gently tap them out with a smooth faced hammer reducing them to the point they don't effect the work. As Thomas says straightening or bending steel it will rebound a bit once you stop moving it. You need to take the piece past where you want it so it springs back to right. If you straighten at a high enough temperature the iron / steel has no rebound you run the risk of changing it's cross section, forging instead of just bending. Straightening hot steel on an anvil is a pretty tricky process that even experienced smiths mess up more often that we like. If the work is narrow enough you can straighten over the hardy hole but if it has sharp inside edges you can mar the work. I prefer to straighten on a wood block with a wooden mallet. You can do it this way at a pretty high temp without damaging the texture or forging the steel provided you aren't too heavy handed about it. A smart rap is usually more than it needs unless it's heavy stock. I make my mallets from yard, garage, etc. sale wooden baseball bats. I pick up the old discard bats in the $0.50 ea. range or sometimes make the seller toss them into the deal while I'm dickering. ALWAYS counter offer at yard, garage, etc. sales, the worst can happen is they say no. If down the road you need a polished surface it's easy to make a bottom tool with whatever surface, edges, shape, etc you need, weld a shank to it and drop it in the hardy hole. One of the true joys of the blacksmith's craft is making your own tools, few things feel as good as using a tool you've made with your own hands be it ever so humble. Say a b'ball bat mallet. Frosty The Lucky.

Naw, culpa non. it happens all the time we just need to get to know each other better, this is a good example of how useful jargon is. One last point, we LOVE pics we'd really like to see your new forge operating. Frosty The Lucky.

It's an art meaning everybody comes to their own terms with the metal. However there are some pretty solid constants. Getting the work sparking hot is okay, sometimes necessary IF you're working with wrought iron. However if you're working with steel sparking hot means it's burning, a shower of sparks to a hissy crackling sound means the steel is on fire, burning like a match. This is a B-A-D thing. Getting steel into the high yellow temps you get to the point where the carbon starts burning on contact with atmospheric oxy. this is commonly called "decarbing"(?) the steel and can occur below sparking heat. When you start seeing sparks it's because the steel has reached it's boiling temp and the little bits of spatter are burning on contact with oxy. It's not such a big deal with wrought iron, there isn't enough carbon in it to alter it significantly if it reaches the ignition temp for carbon. Any iron oxide generated at sparking heat is no big deal, there's enough silica in it to self flux and it just welds into a more refined bit of iron. Let's hope I didn't muddy the slack tub. Frosty The Lucky.

Dang IT my reply was disappeared! (mumble de grumbley IPS trash!) I was joking, I just shifted the emhasis in the sentence to alter the meaning a bit. I know you weren't loading frozen beef -3f isn't cold enough for a good freezer. I love puns and some of us get to playing word games, once you join in you're fair game you know. Welcome to the game. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Xulgiy, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the Iforge gang live within visiting distance. Please don't grind on that anvil the probabilities are much greater you'll do irreparable damage without improving it at all. 1/16" sway is insignificant it's not even enough to make straightening work easier. If you don't know how a sway makes straightening work easier you probably don't have enough experience to make a dead flat surface work for you if you needed one at all. That's not a put down, nobody is born knowing this or any craft, we all started and many of us have spent decades learning new things. We're here to share what we've discovered and help each other succeed and we want you to be a success. Getting in a hurry will set you up for failure as sure as believing what you see on Youtube. There is no, ZERO, need to try making your anvil perfect right now, it's not going to change for a decade or so unless you do something brutal to it. You can always thin the face plate if down the road you learn you need a flat face. Chisel marks in the sides are meaningless, even if you're just trying to pretty it up for a fire place decoration some scars lend authenticity to the art and trying to grind it to perfection will seriously lower it's value. That old lady's a tool not a decoration, she's earned every mark and still has several generations of blacksmith in her. Please don't ruin a grand old lady in a vain attempt to make a tool perfect. Perfect doesn't exist outside of an art studio. Frosty The Lucky.

In that view I believe we're looking at the hook not a screw slot. At first I thought it was a progress pic and a slot didn't make sense till it occurred to me what I was looking at. I could still be wrong and just convincing myself I'm seeing what I think I'm seeing. It's a trait a person needs to be aware of and try to be objective about not seeing what we think we're seeing. Then again it can be reassuring to find other people seeing what I saw. Of course we're probably both wrong, Mark's a good smith I seriously doubt he'd make a hanger like that with only one screw hole and vertical is the wrong direction for a slot to be useful. Of course I'm speculating here while I wait for Mark to fill us in on the lowdown skinny. Frosty The Lucky.

I like it, it'll look good. I can't tell from the pics but there ARE two screw holes. Yes? Frosty The Lucky.

Don't be silly, you can't make things idiot proof, idiots are too creative. Frosty The Lucky.