Nice chain John, perfect for a plant shop. Me being the natural smart Alec I am, my first thought was poison ivy leaves for a keep OUT chain. Not the thing for a plant shop of course, still . . . 

Welcome back to the anvil Billy, now BE CAREFUL! It's way too easy to reinjure yourself when you start feeling better. Nice looking shelf, how many bottle of home brew are you trading for? 

Frosty The Lucky.

20 hours ago, BillyBones said:

. For 2 weeks i could not even walk the pain ran from my lower back all the way to my left knee. I have just now been able to sleep in the bed again and not on the couch with a heating pad. I was in sheer agony for a while and would not wish that pain on my worst enemy. Anyway fin

oh herniated disc is worstpain on can get its not all about pain when it comes to discs its it that it make person unable to walk, you get weaknes from spine down to toe.

I used decompresion therapy where they buckle you to bed and stretch you with one wire that is attached to belt holding your waist.

Its computer machine that calculate how much force it need to pull your body

 

Edited October 7, 20241 yr by Mod34
Removed duplicated content.

Glad you are on the mend Billy. Nice shelf!

I helped out my local club by demonstrating at a Flywheelers event on Saturday. It was a blast! This crowd really appreciated the art of blacksmithing. Pretty steady flow of people asking questions, watching, buying things made by club members and asking us to make things to sell on the spot. The club made over $200 and the event coordinators want us back next year and that we could have as much space as we needed, just tell them and they'll mark it off. So very different from other events we've been asked to demonstrate at.

A few personal highlights: 

• All of my leaf keychains sold and more than half the leaf necklaces. These were left over from the previous event.
• All my S hooks sold within an hour of making them
• None of us 3 had a vice so I showed the guys how I learned to twist using tongs. I couldn't remember who I learned that from but it's a very handy trick for moments like these! They were very impressed with that. Basically, you use a pair of tongs that will hold the piece and has reins that will fit into the hardy hole. Pushing them into the hole basically works as a clamp. Then use another pair of tongs (or twisting wrench if available) to grab hold of the other end and twist. I've also done it without putting the tongs into a hardy hole and just held on. But it's harder to get an even twist that way. 
• A pair of my tongs busted a rivet and we pulled together and managed to get them fixed in fairly short order. One guy had the 1/4" round I needed, the other guy had a rivet header tool. The hand held one, not the bottom one. Again, no vice. So one guy held the rivet header tool on the anvil, the other guy held the tongs in place on the tool, and I got the rivet started. 

Anyway, it was the best experience I've ever had in my admittedly limited experience with demonstrating. I think this is the 5th time I've worked with a club demonstrating at an event.

Sounds great Shain. Always great to get through a rough time And have your work appreciated. 

I forged another skull tonight for practice.it is out of 3/4" square bar.  Admittedly a few deep in cool beverages. It could have gone better but is ok in my eyes. I tried a few different things that didn't work out so no loss in experience of what works and what works less. Still worked out. It Is a skull lol. 

Compared to one I did before in the same size stock. 

Every one would be different anyway. It is all in the mood and how it goes with the punches and chisels. Tried the nose punch for 1" stock on it and wasn't impressed. Need to make one specific to 3/4" stock. 

Anyway, another made and fun to do. 

Sounds like a great demo Shaina. The ones where things go wrong and the demonstrators solve the problems real time are THE BEST! It gives the sectators a good feel for blacksmithing as an art rather than set steps.

Your skulls are suggesting emotions nicely now Das. Mr. Spock's lifted eyebrow of the left and an expression of contemplation on the right.

Frosty The Lucky.

Nat, that looks like it would feel amazing. 

Frosty, hopefully a whole bunch. She is getting pretty good at home brewing. She made a braggot, a cross between beer and mead, a while back that was also quite good. And to think this all started by me giving her my granddad's dandelion wine recipe. That will be uncorked at Christmas. 

Das, i am really liking your skulls. I need to try something like that sometime.

Thanks Frosty, Billy. Ive never had dandelion wine before but have always wanted to make some. I have a recipe in a book I got. Most I've done is make hard cider. 

You should give it a try. Maybe start with half inch square bar. The basic form of the skulls isn't hard. The punches and chisels are just reshaped to suit the shapes you want. 

I've made dandelion wine a couple of times, and I like it a lot. Basically a sweet white wine with a sort of vegetal funkiness and a bit of effervescence.

I used to make it every spring. The trick to getting rid of that funky flavor is to make sure you get all the green off the flowers and you are only using the yellow petals.  

A note to anyone wanting to make it, make sure you collect your dandelions from a place that is not treated with pesticides and the like. 

Got a recept?

1 hour ago, BillyBones said:

get all the green off

That's true; now that I think of it, that's what I did on the last couple of batches.

Das, a few pages back you put the shapes created by the first few steps of your skull process and the very first photo showed form of the back of the skull offset to one side.

To get this form, was the bar upset, forged back to width and then offset with half-faced blows and rounded?

I'd like to give it a go but just wanted to get a ballpark idea of the easiest/most efficient way to do that first step.

Cheers,

Jono.

Hefty, good question. I was going to answer and it wasn't feeling/sounding  right so let me either do a drawing or a physical example with photos in a little bit to best explain it. 

In all I am not upsetting the bar. I am taking a length, enough to round over into a ball and first forging it into a 90° over the anvil edge then forging it back into the bar with back hits then downward on the face. After it is folded back around into the bar then I start tilting it to round it out either half on the anvil or with the skull facing the anvil on the stick. 

Man, I apologize, i might be better showing than describing without the visual. I am a better visual learner myself. 

 Anyway no upsetting in a sense. 90° then fold back around to the bar. 

I started too late getting pictures on the process last night. 

No worries. I think I get you but I'm happy to wait if you're able to do some photos or sketches.

I appreciate it!

Jono.

 

This is the list of forming the skull. Bend a portion over the edge of the anvil. Flip and fold it back to the bar. Set on the diagonal and round out the back doing the same over the edge pounding back into the anvil side. Occasionally throughout the process laying it flat on its side to flatten it. 

Spend as much or as little time as you want rounding out the skull form. 

After that you fuller just at the base of the bottom of your rounded skull to start where the teeth and cheeks go. I use a spring fuller. Other types of top and bottom fullers would work. 

From that point you set in the vise and start working the eyes, nose and mouth. 

I really hope this loads in order lol. 

Start the features with a center pinch then use other hand made punches, chisels and fullers to define the features. 

The more you keep it hot the more movement you get, but if it cools a bit you can hammer in the starts of the next features to follow on once you get it hot again. 

Wire brushing as you go softens it some. I didn't have my good butcher block brush here when I did the final one shown. It was lost in my trailer so I used some softer wire brushes. 

Also I do some extra peining on the skull dome while it is in the jig. 

I'll try to get some better photos or even video and give it it's own thread. 

Wow, thanks Das! That's heaps of detail!

I hadn't noticed in the earlier photos that the steel is doubled over and there is a visible fold. This made the process much easier to understand. Thanks!

Jono. 

Love the skulls Das!

I'm getting ready for a demo/festival booth, build inventory. Had a set back heat treating a tomahawk tonight:

It actually cracked in the temper, from both the top and bottom one opposite sides, even cracked through the bit. I’ve never had a crack happen this way. The only thing I can figure is that maybe I quenched at too high of a temperature. I had two others come through just fine, even the one I was worried about. (That one was a bit of redemption. It was from a drive chain billet that I previously deemed a complete loss…) I’ll get pictures of the finished one before too long.

Keep it fun,

David

Good Mourning,

Looks like 'one for the Wall'. The Story Wall!!!!!

Neil

Aric, thanks so much for providing the explanations on your skulls! I've been enjoying seeing them, but didn't have much of a clue as to the steps and stages. I'll bet these pix inspire a bunch of people to try their hand at this! The progression uploaded in good order but I got a good chuckle at the difference between last two: and just like that, magic happened! Or, like an old physics prof used to say "quite easily done" after he'd worked through an explanation at the chalk board. 

--Larry

Glad that helped Jono. 

That is funny Larry. In honesty, I had started taking pictures After the first steps on the last one I finished so I started another one last night just to get pictures of the first steps. The last two pictures were from the previous one.

I'll be more thorough through the whole process when I do the explanation for the thread. 

It's like the auto body training videos where they make everything look so easy and just show them removing the parts, not the wrenching and cussing of trying to get to all the bolts or trying to cut all the welds free. 

 

Goods, that's rough when you put all that work into it, but it can happen. 

Well Das, i for one will try to do a skull this weekend now. Thanks.

Great Billy. Let us know how it goes. 

That's a tough failure David, I feel for you.  I'd be thinking of putting it on display and inventing stories about just how hard it was to get it to do that. Of course humor is how I deal with pain but that's me.

That's a pretty good story board Das. Building the knob for the skull is virtually identical to building a ball end for things like a vise handle. It's WAY easier than upsetting a ball end.

Frosty The Lucky.