April 16, 20188 yr Luke and Eli finished these AMAZING swords a couple days ago!! These kids are 13 and 15 and doing better blades than folks twice their age. Remarkable! Luke (left) forged a damascus blade from 15n20 and 1095, and forged mild steel fittings with caribou. Eli (right) forged an 80CrV2 blade with copper and walnut. So proud of em! Stupid me forgot to get close ups... haha
April 17, 20188 yr Wow is an understatement. That takes care of my ever wanting to make blades! Frosty The Lucky.
April 17, 20188 yr Nice. I love the " Hollywood style safe distance stance". Looks like they're ready for the big screen.
April 18, 20188 yr Man, thats awesome. They do good work, which means you must be a good teacher, Theo. Good on you for getting the younger generations working with their hands.
April 18, 20188 yr Awesome Theo! Wow, if I got to forge and make a sword at 13-15yo. I'd have been in heaven. Best I had was a bit of stainless bar stock I used to go thrash weeds down with. "The Pirates of Brooklyn" has a good ring to it.
April 18, 20188 yr Pirates of the Cari-B-rooklyn It started in a small blacksmith shop with much a din about nothing, or so the neighbors thought. Though the din went on for days and nights, until it reached a critical mass of swords and shop apprentices. Without notice, they spilled out onto the streets, brandishing forged steel, lured by the call of the sea, distant horizons and visions of lost treasure and general mayhem. Making their way down to the waterfront, they commandeered a vessel, determined to sail it to a fabled place known only as Pittsburgh, where they'd heard tell of another band of pirates bent on usurping their hard fought claim to plunder and conquest on the high seas.
April 18, 20188 yr 6 hours ago, Daswulf said: Awesome Theo! Wow, if I got to forge and make a sword at 13-15yo. I'd have been in heaven. Best I had was a bit of stainless bar stock I used to go thrash weeds down with. "The Pirates of Brooklyn" has a good ring to it. Been in heaven Das? As in killed each other? That would've been me and my friends, "safe" distance = home doing chores? Frosty The Lucky.
April 18, 20188 yr Couldn't have been as bad as the time we used ocean fishing line and sticks to make bows and arrows and were actually shooting arrows at eachother.
April 19, 20188 yr Oh? Phil Dike, Dennis . . .? and I being the little kids on the block got picked on a bit. Oh NO we weren't pests, NOT US! Anyway, one of us saw a ballista on a TV program and we set out building one. There is plenty of really springy wood available and nobody cared if we whacked the wild holly so we gave that a try. No range no matter how hard we pulled. Our Fathers knew what we were going to be able to make and had actually given the okay. Well, the owner of the wrist rocket suggested we use surgical tubing and we were off collecting bottles, saving allowances, etc. to buy a roll of surgical tubing. We replaced the prods, holly, bamboo, ash, etc. that just wouldn't throw a rock more than 15' with a 2" x 4" and much experimentation got it positioned so the pouch stayed in the track. Seriously, how much damage could a couple 10 yr olds do trying to throw potato size rocks with a ballista, it's not like they can cock a real one. Well, if you stretch doubled surgical tubing loops and hook them to the pouch one at a time you can throw a potato size rock almost 2 blocks. Our Dads didn't JUST take it away, no serious punishment we had permission but no more throwing devices for us. I don't think they ever took anything for granted again. Frosty The Lucky.
April 19, 20188 yr Only launchers my friends and I made with surgical tubing were slingshots and a water balloon launcher. We were always on the look out for the perfect forked branch.
April 19, 20188 yr First tinkertoy set, first day; I made a ballista that would throw marbles. When we moved away from that house; the den ceiling still had a goodly number of perfectly round dimples in it....back when I was in single digits; I didn't make black powder cannons until I was in my 20's and could pay a machinist to put proper breech plugs in them...
April 19, 20188 yr 5 hours ago, ThomasPowers said: I didn't make black powder cannons until I was in my 20's My older brother made a full scale blackpowder cannon in metal & wood shop in the early '50s. cast bronze barrel bored to the size of a soda/beer can filled with plaster of paris, with a steel banded breech. We took it to an old abandoned rock pit and fired it many times. What happened to it is a whole other story.
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.