What did you do in the shop today?

[Daswulf]

Nice batch of stuff John. Good looking spatula. 

Robert, I like the batch of charcoal you get After a session.  it's nice you can close it off to smother it. 

Nice work MacLeod. The nieces will love those pendants! 

GolFish, since it is a test weld there are other tests you could run it through to see if it breaks. Tho it looks stuck together from here. 

 

 

[CrazyGoatLady]

JHCC, GFH and Macleod, you guys are posting nice looking stuff. Makes my little spoon look poorly... First one I've ever made. Still needs work. And the bowl is probably not big/ round enough. Made from about a 3"piece of 3/8" round. Just scrap and it decided to be a spoon for my little nephew. I stamped his initials in it. 

[Daswulf]

Thats a good looking first spoon. I find spoons really enjoyable to make. I'm more up and down on the forks. I get really bummed when I botch the tines.

[CrazyGoatLady]

Thanks Das. I'll make a fork to go with it.  That'll be a first also. First time I've used the letter stamps Thomas Powers suggested I get. I keep forgetting I have them. Spoon is a little out of line and the handle needs a little more bend towards the bowl. Does anybody have the problem of not seeing things wrong until you get it to the house to look at it or is it just me? 

[SLAG]

CGL,

Placing the spoon, or other work,  on a piece of cross hatched (squared) paper will show up a bend in the item.

Seeing it,  after it has time to cool off is a good idea.  (you can work on another project while it cools down).

Also, seeing it in a well lighted room will also help.

Regards,

SLAG.

[CrazyGoatLady]

Thanks SLAG. I'll try that out. Part of my problem is I don't see as well as I used to. I have to wear my glasses when I'm working now and I'm still getting used to that. I probably need to rethink my lighting set up also

[Glenn]

CGL Stamp before you bend.

Lighting in a shop is important so you can see what your doing. You can put a couple of flood lights aimed at the work area and keep the rest of the shop with less brightness.  

Locate a piece of welded wire fencing and cut a section small enough for the shop. Paint it white and keep it handy for, as Slag suggested, checking alignment or symmetry.

[CrazyGoatLady]

Thanks for the pointers Glenn. I think I'll try again tomorrow and I will do some things differently. I did remember to stamp it before I bent it. My hands shake real bad when I go to punch or chisel cut things. I don't know if I'm nervous I'll mess it up, but it keeps me from doing those things much. One reason I avoid veining leaves. But my letters came out good and I was pretty happy about that

[SLAG]

Glenn  &  CGL.,

An easy to get,   stand in for "welded wire fencing" is hardware cloth.  It can often be found in big box hardware stores,  (like Ace, Loews etc.),  or a tractor supply type 'rural'  store.

Look for the quarter inch size.

I hope that additional information helps.

Good night folks.

SLAG.

[Jasent]

Looks much better than my first spoon

[CrazyGoatLady]

Thanks Jasen. I bet yours was just fine. 

SLAG, I have lots of scrap pieces of hardware cloth. Thanks! And goodnight to you too

[Daswulf]

I've looked at things I've made later or the next day and noticed that it wasn't as straight or even as I had thought when I Thought it was finished. 

 Another reasoning to this could be fatigue, tiredness, or that you've been trying to just "get it Done."  

I do a lot of later night forge work, and most is after a full time day job then time with my daughter before we put her to bed, so often towards the end of a session I might try to just complete a job when I should just set it down and pick up on it the next time. But then it'll occupy my mind the next day lol. Good thing about the steel is you can take it back to the heat and correct most little issues.

Then again, most people don't see the little flaws in my work that I see that drive me nuts and want to start over.

 

[CrazyGoatLady]

I hear you, Das. Sometimes I think I should probably just stop sometimes and then pick it back up later and see it with fresh eyes. I have this thing where I think I just have to get this done before I quit. I wasn't done with this anyway because I still have to clean it up and season it. Will canola oil work? Thanks for listening to me yak everyone. I start second guessing myself and y'all are very helpful in storing things out. The artist in you sees the flaws in your work Das. I'm the same way

[Dax Hewitt]

CGL I think we all suffer from blindness. Things look great in the forge (or whatever else you are doing) but once back home you notice a little flaw, then another and then another. The more it niggles at you the more you notice them. 

[CrazyGoatLady]

True statement Dax. I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels that way. I've been looking at this spoon for a couple of hours now and it's bugging me so much, I keep thinking I may go back out and fix it although it's 12:45 A.M..... 

Sorry about your beard catching on fire. I was telling my husband about it and he shuddered. His beard is very important to him too 

[Potato-Demon]

19 hours ago, Conrad.blacksmithing said:

I would suggest to not start out making knives. You want to make things like hooks, bottle openers, leaves and other small stuff. All of these build hammer technique and skill. The difference is knives require hammer technique and this small stuff builds hammer technique.

I would do other stuff but I don’t have a proper anvil so I’m limited in what shapes and stuff I can make. Makes sense, I’ll try some more fire pokers I guess.

[Daswulf]

Potato, you are only limited on knowledge on how to forge different shapes and such with what you have. It's not about the anvil, but about knowledge, practice, and improvising where it's needed. 

[CrazyGoatLady]

 Potato, You should do what you want and can do. No disrespect to conrad blacksmithing is meant by that in case it's taken that way. You just sounded a little deflated in your post. If you are enjoying something your making, that is what counts. And ditto on what Das said

[Potato-Demon]

6 minutes ago, Daswulf said:

Potato, you are only limited on knowledge on how to forge different shapes and such with what you have. It's not about the anvil, but about knowledge, practice, and improvising where it's needed. 

I guess that cavemen probably used two rocks to do it... What I meant was it’s difficult for me to do much with limited tools and not much experience.

[CrazyGoatLady]

But your doing it! I didn't have much to start out with and I felt kinda the same way. I felt I didn't have the right tools or enough tools or know enough to do anything. I had a track anvil and just went to work. Now that I am pretty well tooled up, I still tend to not use very many. In fact, some things I thought I had to have, just sit there most of the time. Don't get discouraged. Keep it up and have fun with it. Here's the closest thing I have made to knives. I hammered in the bevels and work hardened the edges. And some hand filing. Important thing is I enjoyed making them and it's a little practice toward if I decide to make blades.  

[George N. M.]

Dear CGL,

Actually, the design is pretty cool.  But, as you know, horse shoes are pretty soft steel and even with super quench probably won't get very hard.  However, you might make them out of a higher carbon steel and fabricate a horse shoe style grip by fullering a nail groove and bunching square holes.  Same vibe but a good blade.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[CrazyGoatLady]

I had a friend that wanted a knife and I told him I didn't make them. So as a lark, I made him a KSO from a shoe. He still liked it though and I made a couple more. I am sure to tell folks they aren't good for much beyond a letter opener. I just wanted to convey to potato demon that even though his knife is rebar, it's still good practice I think as long as you understand it won't harden. Which I'm sure he does. But that's a good suggestion about making an actual knife handle to look like a shoe. One more to file in my memory bank

[Glenn]

CGL The hand shaking can come from lack of secure support for the item being stamped, the stamp, and being new to stamping.  Hold the item being stamped securely with a hold down on the anvil or other mechanism.  The stamps are usually small, so use vise grips to hold them with confidence.  They have to be perpendicular to the stock to make the best impression. Only one good whack with the hammer works best. A light hit means you will want to make a second impression to clean up the first one. Good luck with that.

Practice means stamping a lot of things with several (3 or more ) stamps.  Use a base line guide to get the bottom of the stamps in line. Clamp the aligning tool to the stock being stamped, rest the stamp against the tool and make a good impression.  That only leaves spacing to worry about.  

Practice by laying out all the stamps to be used. Use a (dare I say it) stamp pad and paper to get a feel for spacing, etc. Then stamp into wood to be sure that the impression and spacing is right.  Modeling clay works well as a practice media.

[Jasent]

7 hours ago, Potato-Demon said:

 What I meant was it’s difficult for me to do much with limited tools and not much experience.

You have everything you need except the experience to know it.  All that’s needed is something to heat, something hard to beat on, and something hard to beat with.  

Don’t fall in to the trap of “I can’t do that cause I don’t have this”

If there is something you want to make but don’t have the right tool, you first make the tool. If you don’t know how then first research how to make that tool.  

Ive made just about every tool in my shop and there is a pile of failures in the scrap bin.  

To this day I still don’t have a “real” anvil and have no desire to get one. 

 

You can can do it, there are just a few more steps to get there

[Daswulf]

8 hours ago, Potato-Demon said:

difficult for me to do much...

Limited tools is no problem. You obviously have the necessities. Experience comes with doing it. It's just the "know how" or knowledge you need. It's out there, often for free if you search for it. It's all a process, learn something, take it to the forge and build the experience, or build the tools.