I made six more of these this morning.  They're a hit with the wife, and she's giving them away to all her friends.

I need to make a couple of those gnomes, they are great.   

Made a spring cutoff from some coil spring for when I'm making nails.   It sits in the pritchell hole and I can just swat it out of the way when I finish up the head using the hardy hole. 

That’s an interesting idea.  An original idea, or something you came up with in your own?

A quick little experiment: it occurred to me that an old failed attempt at a Brazeal-style hot-cut might work for a repoussé stake. Turns out I was right. 

And the moral of the story is, don’t throw anything away. This has been sitting unused in a dusty corner for almost a decade, waiting for its moment to shine. 

It's inspired by the spring butcher John Switzer did on his channel a while back.  While I was in the shop Tuesday the idea was starting to develop and yesterday I got it mostly forged.  Tonight I riveted on the round for the pritchell and got it aligned.  A couple quick hits and it's through 3/8 inch round.   

A very blacksmitherly improvisation Chad, well done! I wonder about making a shear for a table top nail station sometimes.

Or waiting the moment when You shined it John. Play that flute!

Frosty The Lucky.

I can’t see how you have the cutting edges set up. Is there a stop so you don’t separate the nail from the bar entirely?  

Not yet, I was going to file a round into the bottom blade to create a spacer.  I'll take better pictures tonight,  or if anyone is interested I'll do a picture story board.

12 hours ago, JHCC said:

This has been sitting unused in a dusty corner for almost a decade, waiting for its moment to shine. 

"How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

As though to breathe were life!"

"Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods."

(Fun fact: I once used the middle of these three lines as the "self-assessment" part of my mid-year review at work.)

Oh come on, you didn’t have the courage to use all the lines? I think a mid year starting with “death closes all” would line up a handsome promotion!

My DKE12 hydraulic forge press needed this jig to keep the operator (me) from over-squishing a work piece as it is drawn out.  The nice thing is I can easily make stops of different thicknesses by changing the top horizontal pieces while keeping the 3/8" square bar vertical pieces.

Melted socks- if you weld a cross piece on the 3/8 bar you can remove the whole assembly at once and never lose one.

 

Good idea, Ridgeway.

Between my DKE12 hydraulic forge press with the new kiss block jig and my DKE66 power hammer, I drew out these reins with no problem.  Didn't take too long either.  Obviously, I didn't bother to do the volume calculations on how much of this 3/4" 4140 round bar I'd need for the reins.  I need to cut off 8" or so.  I just started with the 12" round bars I got off eBay and let 'er rip.

These pickup tongs will be shaped like pinchers; I don't know what the correct terminology is.  I'll hopefully finish those tomorrow.

Textured and flattened the trim pieces for the Viking shield:

 And played around with some stake repoussé tooling:

Have you made tooling for figures or just fluting?

Mine was much smaller, made from garage door spring. I only messed with it a little, didn't pursue it. 

Frosty The Lucky.

I’ve got quite a lot of tooling that I made for regular repoussé, some of it indeed made from garage door spring. 

So far, I’ve only done the fluted test piece (more playing around than an actual test, to be honest), but I’m planning to use these when doing the decoration on the yarn bowls, among other applications. 

NB: I had to finish these up by grinding rather forging, as I ran out of propane. 

Repousse is a whole different thing in steel, let alone steel that heavy.

Any ideas for decorative shapes like hearts, stars, deltas, etc.? 

Frosty The Lucky.

Lit the coal forge and finished my pickup tongs.  Compared to one of the first Ken's tongs I made years ago, it's pleasing to me to see progress.  I didn't even draw out and round the reins.  

Saturday turned out to be a very busy day. In the morning, I went to the other end of the region to install a barrier on the highway at a bathhouse. In the evening, I went to Gatchina. My wife and I stopped at our favorite pub. We quietly downed five liters of beer, although my usual limit is no more than half a liter. And then there was a night stroll through the city on New Year's Eve.

On 12/19/2025 at 7:26 AM, JHCC said:

I once used the middle of these three lines

What, no Sons of Martha? I'm overly prone to an occasonal kipple.

Parts of it seem especially apt:

"They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose. They do not teach that His Pity allows them to leave their job when they ****-well choose."

Your work is as masterfully beautiful as always Alex. 

Looks like a beautiful walk in Gatchina amongst the lights. 5 liters! Deb and I couldn't get outside that on a party night. I'd actually enjoy half a litter on occasion. 

Maybe some day we can tip a glass together.

Happy New Year and a Merry Christmas.

Frosty The Lucky.

Alexandr, Looks like a lovely time. 

Made a small latch for one of the upstairs rooms. The cats have taken to pushing the door open and wreaking havoc in it. 

Punched the mounting holes in the shield boss and added the runic inscription. 

(The inscription translates to “Michael’s shield”, to compliment the “Michael’s sword” of the original commission.)

That's going to be great encouragement as Michael battles the cancer John!

--Larry

 

The first time I did Ancestry, they reported back that I was 54% Scandinavian.  I'm like, cool, I'm a Viking.  Then years later, when they asked me if I wanted to update results, they reported back that I had no Scandinavian DNA, just crappy old Scotch-Irish. which is what I was always told by my grandparents.  The third time I updated my results, they reported that I was a bearded dragon.