Frosty

It's beautiful Tim. I love high contrast, low layer count blades, they're so much more striking and it's an excellent pattern. All in all an outstanding knife. Frosty The Lucky.

Same thing here, we spend 12 years in school to graduate high school but there don't seem to be any trade classes in public schools anymore. To learn a trade you have to attach yourself to a company willing to teach you on the job, attend a trade school or find the rare apprenticeship program. The education system has been pushing college since before I started and they teach kids you can't be anything without a degree. What they NEVER tell students is a college degree doesn't mean you have a marketable skill, just the tools to learn one. Teachers are folk who've spent their entire live in school and have a vested interest in passing that philosophy on. We have to have teachers without them we're nothing, heck today we might not even make it as savages, we'd probably be food. Anyway, I know what you're saying and I don't have a solution. What I do have for you is this. I have NEVER been out of work more than a week longer than I wanted to be. I have marketable skills and am jack of all trades enough to pick up a new trade quickly. As revenge I've enjoyed making almost twice as much as the other guy on the crew who had HIS position based solely on the fact he had the right degrees. The last time the section geologist, (guy who signed my time sheet) told me how lucky HE felt to have A job and I needed to suck up his latest abuse, I walked out his door, across the yard and came back in 15 minutes to sign my resignation. I loved the look on his face when I handed it to him and told him I felt for his occupational insecurity, he should've developed a marketable skill. Half an hour later I blew the truck air horn as I drove past his office on my NEW job. The best revenge on folk is to be GOOD. Over here plumbers are at the high end of the earning scale. Believe me the president isn't going to do it himself if a pipe breaks or backs up, ain't going to tune the car, rewire anything, Couldn't if he wanted to. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. Put your general location in the header and we'll stop bugging you, that ad you might be surprised at how many IFI folk live within visiting distance. I spent I don't know how many years forging on whatever heavy hunk of something hard was handy. I was often silly happy if I had a piece of steel to forge on. I made a Rail anvil but that was in the last few years before I located a "real" anvil. It isn't the tools that does the work, without a skilled hand they're just highly refined dirt. It's common for folk just getting into a craft to think they need all the "right" or "real" tools but it isn't true. It's common to have your sights set on the perfect tools without knowing what you really need. I think most of us have been there, I know I have. If you ca hook up with a knowledgeable smith or club and learn from them. Even watching will save you much MUCH time on the learning curve, every hour working with a smith will save you days, weeks or even months learning on your own. I've done that too, I always learn something watching another forge, even the don't do THAT experiences are valuable, maybe the most valuable. Frosty The Lucky.

This is a tough one to negotiate. For low level public servants, making a judgement call can be a career killer if someone in mid management or above doesn't like it. So, it's always safer to say NO. Holding their feet to the fire can be bad too seeing as there's bound to be something else they can hassle you over. It can be managed but it can be tricky to do so without shooting yourself in the foot. Frosty The Lucky.

Yeah, construction needs to be armature and chased shell, fitted and welded. For a painted outdoors application I'd use stainless painted with an acid etch epoxy. I'm glad I read your post about who it's for before I commented about price, I've done a few worthy cause pieces and salute you. Frosty The Lucky.

Talk to the guy/gal in charge of public buildings and works. The market I think you have besides the one in a million citizen are public buildings and large corp offices. Libraries and public offices with a public image to maintain, say the mayor's office, city, state fed are my guess for markets. I'm thinking I'd approach the sell by pointing out what a fine public relations move buying art from a starving local artist will be for the official. Gvt. officers can always use a good PR piece to show how they're there for the citizen. As beautiful as your work is it's going to be a pretty small niche. Have you considered different configurations for the same basic subjects? For instance visualize a nice gateway with a trellis and your flowers on vines on it. Or perhaps a flowering vine covered lamp post. Just don't give up, don't break the bank but don't give up. Frosty The Lucky.

Very nice! I'm thinking first string wife, fiance, girlfriend, mother, etc. gifts. Well done in spades. Frosty The Lucky.

Very nice twist on the spoon handle. You need to work on the antler profiles though. Have you made RR spike steak flippers for deer camp? Steak flippers and toasting forks would be naturals at moose and caribou camps here. I ought to start hammering out a line eh? Frosty The Lucky.

Those will work Well done. Frosty The Lucky.

No, tungsten carbide cutting tools can't be forged though it may be possible to introduce some into a pattern welded or mokume billet. I think you'd be very disappointed it'll never be anything but flat gray. Practice making mokume billets with stacked quarters. It makes pretty presentable mokume gane items and is reasonably priced, $1.25 buys a pretty decent sized billet. Best of all you can make all your mistakes on something affordable. Once you have the process down you can start working with gold, silver, copper, etc. One pretty hard rule is never, NEVER put brass and silver next to each other in a billet, it'll make silver solder and just melt. Silver etches various shades of gray and looks well, especially for contrast or to accentuate other colors. Nickle is a popular and effective "silver" color that diffusion welds easily and keeps it's color very well. Copper and nickle is the billet a stack of quarters will give you. there are a number of folk here who do mokume and there are a LOT of instructional sites and material available online. Have fun, it's a very cool and valuable skill set to add the old mental tool kit. Frosty The Lucky.

Nice tamper and reading the reactions I'm thinking you aught to make a few on spec. Can't lose, if they don't sell you get the practice and they'll make fine gifts, even for non-smokers, they don't need to know it's a pipe tamper to like it. <wink> Frosty The Lucky.

I wouldn't get very carried away trying to clean that anvil up, you'll destroy it's intrinsic value, as it is it's still useable and has antique or even historic value. If you grind the face flat you will have removed virtually all the faceplate and make it less than a mild steel block as it's usefulness as an anvil. That old girl screams generations of use and history. the specifics of it's story may have passed with the smiths who used her but the evidence is plain to see so long as you don't wipe it out. Frosty The Lucky.

Glenn: Did you add the Spanish translation to my post? Too cool, thank you. Juanma: I enjoy welcoming folk to the forum, one of these days I'll just write the standard welcome up as a file or two I can attach but typing helps keep my fingers loose and nimble. Well, okay I like to talk to. Frosty The Lucky.

Soderfors anvils are cast steel and some of the highest quality anvils on earth. I have a 125lb. Soderfors, Sorceress #5 and it's the finest anvil I've ever used. I won't comment on putting that grand lady in the garden, it's yours. Don't count on someone not being able to get it out of your backyard it wouldn't be hard, loud or slow. I'm not going to speculate on the methods that sprang to mind, I hate thieves and I don't hate much. Frosty The Lucky.

I don't hate much but thieves are on the list. Please send him my best. I'll be hoping for a little instant Karma. Frosty The Lucky.

If you ever get this far please let me know I'd love to host you for some touring and playing with hot steel and hammers. Heck, I'll probably try to get you elected to office in the Alaskan club. They elected me president when I went to the bathroom ad won't elect someone else. <sigh> Oh I have it! I'll use my vast presidential powers and appoint you ambassador at large! I'll bet we'll be the only blacksmith club with a Slavakian office! Perfect! Frosty The Lucky.

Bondness is a perfectly acceptable word to describe stuffs stickytivity. Long set time epoxy is much stronger, I only use quick set epoxies where low strength Bonditude is okay and time is a factor. Frosty The Lucky.

Hola Juanma, glad to have you. Please put your general location in the header so we won't have to keep bugging you. Don't worry about language, we're blacksmiths not English teachers grading papers. Oh okay, there probably are some English teachers on the forum but I haven't seen one complain. <grin> I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work. Frosty The Lucky. ---------------- Hola Juanma, me alegro de tenerte. Por favor ponga su ubicación general en la cabecera, así que no tendremos que seguir molestando. No te preocupes por el idioma, somos herreros no profesores de inglés con una ley de papeles. Oh bien, probablemente hay algunos profesores de inglés del foro, pero no he visto una queja. <grin> Estoy deseando ver más de su trabajo. Frosty The Lucky.

Don't make a chore of it! Blacksmithing is FUN. It's pretty common for a person starting a new craft to set goals way too high, setting themselves up for failure. Failure effect us differently, some get discouraged, some get their backs up. Whatever do it one thing at a time. that goes for projects but more so for processes. I've been starting students out making nails to develop the basic hammer skills. I used to start them on leaf finial coat hooks but it generally takes too long for the first or second timer to finish. Even a lop sided wonky nail can take a new kid more than an hour to finish, especially seeing as how shop classes are gone, just gone. Kids don't have any manual tool skills so we have to start basic, basics. So, my advice is stop working on projects you can get worked up about not finishing. Work on skills, nails are good and a header can be made with a drill, you don't even have to punch and drift. Well, okay so you need to drift the down side of the hole so you can get the nails out. I like making nails because it gives a student practical experience in not only drawing an even taper but cutting ad upsetting the head, it's a really SMALL step to heading a rivet or for a ball end. nails are e fine doorway into the upsetting skill of upsetting. Start with drawing or twisting maybe till you get good at it. THEN move onto chisel work, say make rope or cube twists. Incorporating the last skill with the new one is good for both. Twisting is a good place to start as it's dramatic and pits your personal strength against steel. Sure pitting yourself against something symbolic like steel in an easy challenge is a cheap psych 1 trick but it's a lot more effective than folk think and you're in the doldrums so trick your brain into having fun. Stop looking at those as unfinished or failed projects. Look at them as a series of basic steps to polish, pick a step and polish the dickens out of it. When the basic processes get easy using them gets more fun because you're not having to focus on doing IT right, you can focus on the shapes you want. Frosty The Lucky.

Bless your heart Darlin, I hope your husband knows what a lucky dog he really is. I'm not a bladesmith guy, I'd be asking for recommendations if I wanted to start so I don't have any about bladesmithing. For general smithing I recommend Wygers book as they're great for making your own tools and equipment, the guy's a hero of mine. A last thought, if you get him TWO books for Christmas he'll REALLY owe you. <wink> Frosty The Lucky.

Laws and codes are public record, you're going to have to research them in your area. Then talk to the people enforcing them as there is usually a LOT of room for interpretation. Developing good public relations skills is really important, you not only have to be on good terms with the neighbors but that won't be an issue if you aren't on good terms with the inspector. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Dustin, glad to have you. I'd include my usual admonition about putting your general location in the header but you're moving so . . . I'm going to have to wait till you get moved I guess. <sigh> I'm also a little disappointed you included your name so I can't legitimately make up a nickname for you. Really, if you're Nomad we could call you Happy. Then again, real names are good. Glad to meet ya. Frosty The Lucky.

He passed away this morning. If you're applying enough force to cut a fuel tank you're applying enough force to make sparks. Fuel and air in a combustible ratio will burn if an ignition source is present, vapors will explode. Seeing as it burned Mr. Bush so badly (80%) he ran engulfed in flames and there was a fire ring I believe there was gasoline in the tank. This would mean the air fuel ratio was too rich to burn so it's RELATIVELY safe. The thing that gets so many guys is the oxy jet from a cutting torch, press the lever and you're injecting pure OXYGEN surrounded by a 6,000f flame into a tank full of heated fuel vapor. The shape of the tank and evidence at the scene leads me to think that's what happened. Not that my take on the "what" of it means much. I'll be saying a prayer for Mr. Bush, his family and friends. This kind of pain goes FAR beyond what Mr. Bush suffered, his family will feel the loss for a long time. As has been said today and for many years, if you don't KNOW what you're doing do NOT do it. This kind of mistake can hurt a LOT more than the person making it, think about a couple kids watching or if it'd launched the tank through a widow into the house. This kind of explosion can launch a fuel tank piece hundreds of feet. Ever shoot a "spud gun"? Frosty The Lucky.

Sam: Though it's been abused the damage isn't going to effect it's utility. It's a pretty common mistake everybody makes getting into a trade, craft, hobby or whatever, we want the PERFECT tools and try to get what we want before we know what we need. It's a human thing, no biggy. What makes the draftsman isn't the tool, it's their skills including eye, hand, anticipation, understanding the materials, listening to the customer, mechanical drawing and artistic drawing and maybe most importantly imagination and the stubborn nature necessary to make it happen. Put that beauty to work, there's nothing there to keep you from forging any shape you want. Nothing. It just isn't that badly damaged, I wouldn't do more than brush it off and build her a stand. I'd dearly LOVE a high quality anvil in the 300lb. range. I have a decent 206lb. Trenton but it was "repaired" and has suffered for it. The edges were evidently chipped full length and the "repairman" welded them up and ground them off. The thing s/he did that damaged it was NOT keeping the grinder flat to the face so both edges are tipped for 1 1/2" to the edges. It's a real PITA using an edge for much needing a square edge. Also the original heat treat was damaged and the face is all marked to heck and gone with missed blow marks. She still gets used regularly but she's second string and for no better reason than someone TRIED to repair her without knowing what to do or the skills to use the tools properly. Maybe my experience with a "repaired" anvil is why I'm so vocal about NOT welding on an anvil unless you have no choice. Brother you have a CHOICE, please leave that beautiful lady be and go to work. Frosty The Lucky.

Love it Steve! I'm experiencing giddy sweet anticipation about the LOOK I'm going to get from the guys when I grab a handful out of the forge and munch down. Thanks for the recipe, it's going in the book. Frosty The Lucky.