What did you do in the shop today?

[Goods]

I finally got to working on the hatchet today:

It’s on it first round of normalizing, but I’m not real happy with it. It’s going to take a lot of clean up. I may decide to start over…

Take it easy,

David

[Donal Harris]

It looks OK, Goods. That is what grinders are for. No need to start over unless you are looking at something like this. 
 

What don’t you like about what you’ve done?

This is my mallet. Made it from a bois d’arc limb a few years ago. Put a new handle in it at the end of this summer. The new handle wasn’t fitting well and rather than taking the time to do it right, I drove in a couple of shims along the sides. Wasn’t watching what I was doing and drove them in too far, splitting the top of the mallet. Thanks to Glenn’s advice on the other page about wooden mallets, I now know what to do to keep it from splitting further, or at least slow it down. Use a strip from a copper pipe around it. 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Came home this evening went out to the shop an realized I had left the forge outside that I’ve been waiting to dry out the clay liner in for the last 3 weeks… uncovered… in a thunderstorm all day long…

guess I’m gonna just have to wait a bit longer now lol

[lary]

Made this hook and crummy tongs  The color of the hook doesn't show up well in the picture. Not satisfied with either one. Some days everything go's great, others I can't make a rivet turn out wright.

[Donal Harris]

So, is that a Vevor with the area around the Pritchel hole built up? If so, how do you like it?

[Goods]

DHarris, I have a couple problems:

After I split the end, I tried to draw out the edges so they would blend nicely. Unfortunately, the didn’t blend as nice as I would like. The two big issues are when drawing the scarf down, I tapered back up the hatchet too far. Do, there is a weird thins spot behind the bit. The other big issue came from the split basically getting cut at the base, which I didn’t notice till I was almost done blending in the weld. The bad thing is, I don’t think the weld is very good on the other side of that split. I don’t think mig welding everything up and grinding it back is a very good way to go… but that’s about the only way I can think of the make it work. I’m open to recovery ideas!

Twisted, what’s the green tinge from? Christmas lights?
 

Keep it fun,

David

[Glenn]

DHarris, fill the crack in the mallett with glue, then clamp it to close the gap.  Band both ends of the mallet with copper to reinforce the wood.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

No pictures but all week, I have been live trapping pack rats and re-locating them. So far I've caught 4 rats and 1 chipmunk.

[Chimaera]

Relocating? You’re passing up a good dinner!

 

Got one of my full tangs finished up with a bit of mahogany. Got one with cherry rough shaped, and a cute little stonewashed hidden tang with walnut, brass and antler glued up.

[Rojo Pedro]

Nice work everyone. I started a dishing hammer from an old bolt I found, a seax from a lawn mower blade and a little pendant.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

2 hours ago, Goods said:

Twisted, what’s the green tinge from? Christmas lights

No it’s the yard light slash shop light, im not sure why but any pictures I ever take outside the door at night has a green tent to it,

[Shainarue]

Rojo, that pendant looks hot off the forge! 

Everyone else, I feel some camaraderie in today's theme of oopsies. Must be something in the air. Although, I don't agree with some of the claimed "crummy" results, lol

I worked almost all day yesterday and about 3 hours today to compete an idea I had sketched out and played out with playdoh.. and it resulted in rubbish. I won't post it to the winter challenge but I will show it here. 

Takeaways: I'm getting better/faster at drawing out. I strongly dislike forging rebar and I think the remaining bars will be saved for welded sculptures (when I finally have money to buy a welder!) Don't hammer thin metal cold. I knew that. I always know that and I do it anyway and then get mad when it breaks, lol 

 

[JHCC]

No time in the blacksmith shop, but several hours helping out in the yarn shop. Lisa’s first Black Friday and Small Business Saturday went very well. 

[Chimaera]

Finished up that little hidden tang. Now it’s time for a sheath. 

[Donal Harris]

 

9 hours ago, Goods said:

DHarris, I have a couple problems:

I see now. Your hatchet is something similar to what a good friend of mine refers to as a “30 footer” when talking about cars. Doesn’t look half bad when looking at it from 30 feet away, but when you get up close, you can see the rust spots, body filler, and orange peel in the paint. 
 

I have made a total of of one camp axe and it was made from a section of thick leaf spring, meaning no forge welded bit. So this is just me guessing.   You could chop it off and try again with new steel for the bit. But what I would do is cut the top off below the level of the crack. I don’t really like a lot of curve on the top of the head anyway. The area in the bottom circle I would fill by MIG welding. This should allow you to then finish the head into something which looks good and is functional. But you are right. You are going to need to grind a lot of it away. 
 

This is a photo of my only axe to date. I can’t truthfully say I did it though. It is more an axe forged by Brent Bailey last year at a workshop after our club’s annual conference. I would say maybe 75% Brent and 25% me. The shape though is pretty close to being what I consider perfect. The top is basically flat. The toe does extend up a bit, but not much. The bit extends out beyond the toe and heel a little, but the curve isn’t pronounced. The ears are there, but aren’t overly large. My only real regret with it was where the beard meets the ears. That junction where they meet is not sexy at all. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a real Brent Bailey axe or hatchet, but that is what I was shooting for: sexy, but not flashy. Sort of Mary Ann vs Ginger.

[Glenn]

3 hours ago, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

im not sure why but any pictures I ever take outside the door at night has a green tent to it,

That may be due to the type of lighting and the color bias of the camera.  Fluorescence lights have a green cast, incandescent lights have a yellow cast, mercury vapor have a weird cast, sodium lights are have a very yellow cast, and etc.  You can avoid or correct some of this by using the white balance feature on the camera.  They make a color meter for cameras that will give you a read out of just what color you are dealing with.  Another meter can be used to measure Kelvin temperature of the light.  

 

Stores such aa jewelry stores and grocery stores use use this this information to make their product look better to the public.  

Many times the human eye will adjust and auto correct for color.  Some people do not notice, other people MUST change the color temperature of the light to avoid problems such as headaches etc.

[lary]

9 hours ago, DHarris said:

So, is that a Vevor with the area around the Pritchel hole built up? If so, how do you like it?

So far it works good for drifting holes up to about 3/8 inch. Sent the other one (anvil) I worked on to an aspiring blade smith family member as an early Christmas present a couple days ago. This way it will get treated to a different style of smithing. So maybe get a different opinion. It's a small enough area off to the side so doesn't see heavy forging. 

[Chimaera]

DHarris- was that welded or drifted? Looks great either way. I’d really like to make a hatchet but the last time I tried was a disaster and I don’t feel like reliving it.

[Goods]

DHarris, yes, my plan is/was to have it straight across the top of the hatchet and 3” blade width. It was right there when I cut in for the bit, and grew quite a bit when scarfing and welding. I’m hoping that the split at the top will get cut off when I do the shaping. I’m not sure about mig welding the depression, I usually end up with a lot of porosity when using my little flux core welder. I’m considering trying to forge weld a sliver of the same material over the depression, but I’m not use if I can pull that off and that is a lot of effort I can put into just starting over. I’ve got some more thinking to do  before my next session.

Keep it fun,

David

[BillyBones]

Made a few church keys for Christmas presents. These are the ones that came out as acceptable. used an anvil bick to open up the loops, lots of swing the hammer from the side and my fore arm and wrist is feeling it now. Tried a couple other different ideas for one but they did not work out so no pic. 

Edit: After reviewing the photo it looks as if the round punch spot is not extending into the ring, it does and they work well. Just a small punch and it is just enough to grab but not rake the lip of the bottle. 

Edited November 27, 2022 by BillyBones
clarification

[bluerooster]

I've been thinking about making a cone mandrel that fits the Hardy hole for stuff like that.

[Donal Harris]

It was punched and drifted. I made both the drift and the punch at the workshop. The little small punch I made from a piece of tie rod is not it. That picture was taken a couple of months ago to show what boiling does to rusty tools. The small drift beside it is the one I used. It was too small though. It was only used for the first two passes. To finish I had to use one of the other student’s which was fatter. I used a power hammer to punch the hole, but we drifted it by hand. 

I don’t think you would be able to fill in the depression by forge welding a small piece to it. It would likely just get too thin. 
 

 

[bluerooster]

Well, I started drawing out the cable billet today. It got to the point where the cable "handle" was no longer trustworthy so I cut it off and welded a piece of 3/4" square stock to it for a handle.  It decided that it wanted to be a blade of some sort, and I decided that it needs to be the best slickest most polished blade that I've ever made. So I stopped drawing when it was about 7/32" thick, and within a 1/16" of my desired width. Then grind to spec.  I now wish I'd made it longer, and thinner.   Spent all afternoon grinding, got it clean, and straight, and it's still too thick. I only want about 3/32 at the spine, 5/64" at center, then taper to the edge. 

I could have thinned it by 3/32" which would have lengthened it by nearly an inch. Resulting in both longer tang, and longer blade.

 

[Donal Harris]

15 minutes ago, bluerooster said:

I've been thinking about making a cone mandrel that fits the Hardy hole for stuff like that.

Rather than a cone mandrel, I made a bickern? from a jackhammer bit. 

And all those 16ths and 32nds reminded me of modifications I helped my dad make to his smoker over Thanksgiving. He made a math error and we cut a piece of pipe a half inch short. Had he not been using Freedom Units, it was probably one he wouldn’t have made. When working at home I’ve been toying with moving to metric. I saw in one of Jennifer’s videos where she was using a tape that was marked with both. I ran across one in late October and have been using it. Makes the math a bit easier. 

[Daswulf]

It was tree getting day. The rain stopped and the sun came out long enough for us to get to the cut your own tree place and for us to pic and cut a tree. Then we had a microburst. As soon as we got the tree back to get it tied and stuff and paid for the skies let loose with lightning rain and hail with heavy winds. The workers and I got pelted and soaked. Fam was in the car safe and snug. Then it quit and after some more rain on the ride home it was done.got the tree up and decorated.