I got the tomahawks done today:

I’m pretty happy with how this one turned out:

It was from a failed Harley Davidson drive chain billet about a year ago. A bunch of passes at welding heat and it all worked out.

I also worked at a local festival demonstrating yesterday and among a couple give away leaf key chains, I forge my first frying pan and a bbq fork to match it. (Fork still needs some clean up.) 

Now I have to forge out a Rr spike spatula to go with the set.

Keep it fun,

David

 

Wow!! I always love to see your work David! It is something to aim for!

 

Also, maybe this should be a PM, but I see you are in Indiana. My in-laws live in NW Indiana. Dyer to be exact. Would you entertain the idea of a meet up/lessons? 

Looking really good David. What's the stripped handle? I also particularly like the incising you did on the lower two. A spikula seems to be a logical addition to the set.

Frosty The Lucky.

Frosty, the striped handle is curly maple. I ordered a selection of different handles. The others shown are walnut and osage.

Will, I’m willing to help out, but Dyers would be about a 4hr drive. There are other smiths in northern IN with skills much better than my own!

Keep it fun,

David

Goods, with that nice of work the spatula should be a piece of cake.  On the ones I've done the biggest help was someone to hold the flatter to finish it out. 

Started work on a two-branched candlestick that a friend commissioned as an iron anniversary gift for her husband. 

Concept drawing:

 Basic forging of the various elements:

 Next step: assembly and adjustments. 

2 ways how not to make snailhooks.

First was to hard to hold to forge out the eyes

Second one i folded it double (to short) and it is hard to make a nice looking roll.

So next time will be good (also to refind the eyes at the end better, i forgot my small springfuller)

Goods, some awesome tomahawks, And I like the skillet and fork too.

JHCC,  that will be a real nice candle holder.

Snail hooks! I'd have never thought of that.  Looks like it would work quite well to hang a gravity feed paint gun.

Assembled and adjusted (and finished):

I hade started playing with Christmas ideas.   I know it's a bit late but I have a craft fair on November 2nd.  Last year I made a bunch of tapered icecicles and decided to revisit that idea in a larger size.  I decided to go for a split and twist and forged the hanger hook.  I'm rather happy with the result.   I torch colored it and have several layers of clear on it to protect those colors.  I think I'll be playing around with this more. 

For a while I’ve wanted to be able to forge nails for demonstrations. Last night I finally got around to making a nail header:

Made from half of a Rr clip.

Keep it fun,

David

John, a very nice design and execution, the couple will treasure your candle holder!

Gewoon, love the snails!

Chad, very nice icicles...you're giving me ideas!

David, I appreciate the extra effort to make a tool handsome as well as functional!

--Larry

Larry, I’m doing this as a hobby and I don’t have to worry about making a living from the time input. For me every time I light the forge my goal is to make something better than the last. (That doesn’t always work out…) I’m not fast with anything, but I’m usually happy with the results. I really need to work on keeping the forge finish nicer. That will save time filling/grinding. The header only took a little, but that’s not the norm for me yet.

Keep it fun,

David

Practice makes perfec.... eh it makes more of a thing sometimes. Not trying to bore anyone with the same thing but I do need to practice I think. Funny when I just bust something out randomly it seems to look better to me. Maybe trying too hard. 

The demo will probably go fine with coffee instead of beer. 

Tried out a new nose punch. Not impressed. Needs some work. 

Still dig any of them. 

Getting this kind of thing right kind of gets ahold of you doesn't it? Das. One of the things I like about them are the differences. Skulls never look just alike anyway.

Have you tried pushing the eye sockets out and forward by punching the cheeks and temples?

I found punching the temples and cheeks really defined the eyes and nose forging wizard heads. I ran into trouble getting a good ball punch made for the eyeballs. It really got a hold on me though, I must've beaten half a dozen RR spikes into the rem bucket. Good times. 

Frosty The Lucky.

We are always our own worst critic, Das! I love the look of all of your skulls. There are variations, but that is part and parcel of handmade.

E.G. the one on the right in your last picture is very Homer Simpson. Does that make it worse than any others? No! I think it makes it better! But, others may prefer others of your variations.

Cheers,

Jono.

Frosty, yeah it does get a hold of me. Mainly because I want to get it into muscle memory. 

I had thought about working the sides and cheeks as well, I just havnt tried it yet. That will be an experiment for another time. The temples could improve it too. Good thinking. 

Thanks Hefty. 

That one does look like Homer Simpson since you mentioned it lol. 

There aren't any I don't like. One of my problems is doing them mainly at night when I'm already tired from work and kids. I kind of just push through it when maybe I should be taking my time more. This last one the teeth were a bit rushed and it shows. Plus the nose punch needs some work. 

But yeah, our own worse critic haha. I do still like them all. 

 

I spent the evening trying to see that darn meteor and making Christmas items.   Specifically small ornament hooks.   Figure why not, some people get silly about their decorations.  Also tried to turn the split ornament I did the other day into a heat shape.   I split and drifted the piece before folding the top back over itself.   These are my first 2 attempts.  I like the second attempt. 

A little tweaking and some practice and the heart hooks will make nice gifts. You have the ornament hook in the first pic down nicely.

Comet, Chad, not meteor. Meteors hit the ground, comets just orbit and when they get close enough to the sun to start boiling frozen gas the solar wind blows it off into a tail that points away from the sun.

Frosty The Lucky.

Comets are pretty cool. I have seen a couple. I saw the one that passed a few years ago that the last time it was seen by people on earth the Egyptians were building the pyramids. I think that is kind of cool looking at something and knowing that the last time someone saw it ancient astronomers were tracking it on clay tablets. 

I thought the tail went towards the sun. 

Having lived most my life just outside the gates of WPAFB and the Wright bros. being from Dayton aviation and space are pretty popular things here so i have always liked space. 

Fun fact there are more astronauts from Ohio than anywhere else, the state is so boring people are willing to leave the planet to get away.  

48 minutes ago, BillyBones said:

the Egyptians were building the pyramids.

Another fun fact: The number of years between Cleopatra’s lifetime and now is less than the number of years between the building of the pyramids and Cleopatra’s lifetime. 

I knew better Frosty, just was tired at the time and picked the wrong word.   Every time I've tried to see a comet I didn't know where to look or what time to look so this was a first for me.  

Also thanks for the comments,  I think I may carefully try and split the tip of the heart a bit more to get an even taper or cheat and grind it down.  Either way I'm making a few more of those and the split icicles tonight

It wasn't till later I realized there's a much better way to describe / explain comet tails. They point away from the sun like a shadow, literally a dusty shadow.

We haven't seen this one, it's below the trees from the 2nd floor at our place. There's an excellent spot about 100 miles up the Parks Hwy. we might make a night of it, there's a nice lodge close.

Hale Bop was clearly visible here as it crossed almost overhead every night. I was surprised how blue it was. There have been a couple others less memorable they're vague in my head.

I pick wrong words all the time, everybody does but being a TBI survivor I do it all the time. I also go into "instructor" mode too easily, I try but can't stop. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

For me the ADD will get me in the middle of a thought and

Most of my artist friends from the .list days had a saying to describe the member's general ADHD, "Ooooh SHINY!" Right now I can't think of what we used to say about being OCD, maybe it was the combination of being ADHA and OCD.

I found one sure cure for learning to deal with little things like these. I don't suffer from them, I enjoy them.

Frosty The Lucky.