AKA a brown cow 

 

Never heard it called a Brown Cow. 

May be local usage; my wife grew up with that terminology (Kansas?)

Chocolate ice cream + root beer = a brown cow

Knocked these out recently. The tomahawk(ish) is 4.5” OAL with 2.75” edge lenght. Second one I have done, I like this ones shape much better than the first. Made from 3/4” sq mild steel with leaf spring  forge welded for the cutting edge. 

The second item was made for my wife to help hold up her hair. I expect it will see more use when my two boys are older ( pointy things and young boys usually don’t mix well in my experience).

Been turning out a few of these treble clefs and made one today from 10mm wrought iron. It was a rod from an old bed. Wrought is not my best friend and I thought it would be dodgy drawing the point for the curl and the hook. Took it up to almost sparking heat and it wasn't a problem. (I made sure I did it after the demo though, just in case!)

Pic 1: Wrought below, 8mm mild top.

Pic 2: I like the texture of the wrought.

On 1/5/2018 at 3:18 PM, ThomasPowers said:

AKA a brown cow 

 

My grandfather had a drugstore with a soda fountain when I was a child.  Yep, a root beer float is a brown cow.  A Coca-Cola float is a black cow.

I made another bottle opener today and did my first corkscrew took a few goes to get it right but looks like it works.

I also made a drift out of 25mm.

Made this toasting fork last night, with a rubics twist handle. I am happy with the twist seeing as it was my first. Starting stock was 8” of 5/8” sq.

Not in the shop; I went to an SCA event yesterday and sold on the 50? pound vulcan I picked up a week ago and then packed the ACW Mountain Howiziter anvil I had found recently for shipping out this week.  Going to a good home; IFI's own David Einhorn who wrote the book Civil War Blacksmithing!  Now to figure a way to get the remains of the original stand to him...

(4 anvils in the living room plus three outside the rental house was getting a bit much....)

Finished the welding on my guillotine. Still have clean up the base with the portaband and angle grinder, and then cut and grind the dies (armored car leaf springs from @Lou L). 

Looking good! I would really like to see whatcha' make with it!

I worked on my Dial a hole anvil today. A bit more drilling, fabrication and welding to go but it's going to work great!

I added an oval for Tomahawk heads and such. I hope to have it finished tomorrow.

 

14 hours ago, JHCC said:

Finished the welding on my guillotine. Still have clean up the base with the portaband and angle grinder, and then cut and grind the dies (armored car leaf springs from @Lou L). 

 

That there is a serious tool... You must be really strong to be able to move it to and fro from the anvil...    Nice build.. What do you figure it weighs?

Finished this little guy up. 2# carving axe , mild steel body with a 1095 bit insert 5 inch cutting edge, white oak haft 

I like that axe Nick that will work well for me on the atv time to make one.

2 hours ago, jlpservicesinc said:

Nice build.. What do you figure it weighs?

It’s currently about 19 lbs (not including the dies), but it will lose a bit more when I trim it to fit the hardy hole. 

I made a new tool for making a feather. It is made from 1045 then hardened.

 

2 hours ago, jlpservicesinc said:

You must be really strong to be able to move it to and fro from the anvil...   

It’s designed to go onto my portable hole, which isn’t as tall as as my anvil. That’s on purpose: I don’t want to have to lift it as high, because I’m not as strong as you!

Nice.. it looks beefier than that in the photo.. 20lbs or so isn't bad..      It is amazing how working hard every day and having a good gene pool can really help out..

Well, it's resting on the portable hole, so it looks bigger than it is.

Used the burn barrel at work to test some metal strapping to see if would harden. Used a mud puddle right by it for the quenchant. Muddy water isn’t the greatest but it worked well enough. The wide bands our bundles of pipe are held together with didn’t get brittle hard but tough hard so I’ll take some home to see if it’ll harden better with a more proper setup. The bands holding the cross ties together we ordered are hardening brittle hard so there’s something good there to go with my bandsaw blades I’m getting. 

I went antiquing yesterday and ran across something I had to have...the biggest pair of boxjaw tons I've ever seen! They were a great price and just looked cool. I love the square bar spacer on he left side of the box. I wonder if the use for them changed over time, or if someone got tired and didn't fine tune them. I put a normal pair of my tongs next to them and I just laugh. I hope the original user had a power hammer.

I'm trying to stock up for a local blacksmith event in February, so I was busy making all sorts of things this weekend. The crosses are a new design that I made for a custom order last week. They blew up my facebook page, so I had to make more. I was afraid the rivets wouldn't hold tight enough to keep the arms from moving, but they are nice and snug. I did some out of copper and some out of brass.

Made more of the usual copper earrings and bangles since they are always popular.

Did my first square band ring. I really like the look of a square scroll as apposed to a round one...quite different feeling to work too. 

Forged out my third brass ring. This one fought me all the way. The leaf tip cracked off and the stem broke in half while forging, but I just changed the design and kept going. I used a 3/16" brass filler rod to make it. I tried using some 1/4" brass that Littleblacksmith gave me, but I couldn't get it to go my way. He's made a leaf out of it so far, but I can't seem to get it yet.

I also saw this little guy while antiquing, but it did not come home with me. In case you can't see from the cruddy picture taken through the display case, that says $69 for a little Purdue paperweight anvil.

Sounds like the recent going rate for anvils. 

Got some time to work on mortise and tenons today. Built a 1/2” square drift out of sucker rod with corisponding monkey tool and a narrow drift for the key to secure the tenon. Didn’t think to take any pictures but you’re not missing much. Did get a couple of a little set hammer I built to help with the tenon forging.