It followed me home

[Rojo Pedro]

Real nice Das. I can see those selling well

[MacLeod]

Das, they are very nice. Great horse heads, and great finish on them too. Mine always look like fish hope you’re well pal.

[Daswulf]

Thanks Rojo, MacLeod, I am doing ok. They do sell well. I tend to make them from new shoes as the old used ones I tend to get don't work well for this. The only specialty punch I use is the eye punch I made. The others are variations of chisels and rounded head punches. 

Mac, then make them fish and maybe they will look like horse heads haha. 

Made one once and chiseled out a horn to make the heads unicorns. I should try to refine that and make more like that.  Then again, don't unicorns have cloven hooves?

[Chad J.]

Thanks for the tip Das!  I have plans for trivets and wine racks.  I haven't successfully made a nice heart yet but I now have plenty to practice with. 

[Daswulf]

Trivets and wine racks would sell well too. 

Have good fitting tongs as well. They can bounce around in some operations when forging. I have box jaw tongs that work better for holding one end when I'm forging in the middle section.

[JHCC]

Unicorns are (in traditional mythology, anyway) horses with single horns in their foreheads.

However, for a total mind-bender in the real world, check out the pioneering work of W. Franklin Dove and his "Unibull":

[ThomasPowers]

Ahh not always the body of a horse.  There were some variations with deer like or goat like bodies and some had the tail of a lion and the beard and cloven hooves of a goat.  The spiral horn is fairly standard and was often faked with a Narwhale tusk.

[JHCC]

When I was working in the art restoration studio, some client gave us a narwhal tusk to be cleaned. That got taken care of rather well, but then one of my coworkers was carrying it across the studio and accidentally make contact with the ceiling fan. Ivory shrapnel EVERYWHERE.

[NoGoodWithUsernames]

Oooof, I have a feeling several people had a VERY bad day after that... 

[JHCC]

I had a lot of bad days on that job, but fortunately, that day was not one of mine personally.

There was also the time that a representative from a well-respected and VERY expensive international art shipping firm showed up at the door with a porcelain vase in about ten pieces. His client had purchased it in London and shipped it with them to NYC, but it got smashed in transit. 48 hours later, it was on its way to the client's apartment, and you would never have known it was broken. Our glass and porcelain repair lady was a genius.

[Daswulf]

Irreplaceable objects and accidents don't go well. Lol. 

Mad scientist created a unibull eh? Don't see that every day. 

[Charles R. Stevens]

There was a guy in Victorian England doing the horn bud transplant trick on Saan goats. 
 

John, I thought pitting my fingers in the fan pulling on a shirt sucked. 

[JHCC]

These came in the mail: some carbide burrs and a collet-locking ring for the die grinder. 

I’d ordered the burrs because the new grinder takes 1/4” shank bits and my old ones were 6mm (about 3/64” too small). Unfortunately, these turned out to have 6mm shanks as well, so I decided to order a 6mm collet. That way, I’ll be able to use both.

[Daswulf]

Those die grinder burrs are very handy. 

[George N. M.]

John, just out of curiosity, what did you do at the art restoration firm?

GNM

[JHCC]

I was hired as the staff woodworker, but I ended up doing everything from building furniture from scratch to gluing back together the pieces of an onyx clock that had gotten tipped over and smashed; carving alabaster lampshades; turning vases into lamps and turning lamps back into vases; gilding; taking apart, cleaning, and reassembling crystal chandeliers; making brackets to support glass pieces that were being glued with adhesives with 48-hour cure times; making a display case for a set of Native American antelope-hide playing cards and another for an elk, another for a seventeenth-century Chinese court robe, and another for a Japanese painted fan; building display bases for small sculptures; turning an ebony base for a glass bell jar to cover a reliquary of St. Rose of Lima; restoring the silver mirroring on a set of monumental Art Deco architectural wall panels; rebuilding the frame of a Louis XIV settee that has rotted away to the point that it could no longer hold upholstery tacks; and lots and lots of other things. It was an experience. 

[Will Brouwers]

Just your every day, run of the mill 9-5 job....

[Wandering_R0gue]

Picked these up this afternoon. Best price: free. 

4 six-foot pieces of Grader blade. 

Now I gotta make something from them.

[ThomasPowers]

Making twisting wrenches and bending wrenches is a known good use of grader blades.  Not good for blades or where a lot of grinding is required, for some reason abrasion resistant alloys tend to resist abrasives!

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

They make good bases for other things like sculptures and scrap art.

[Scott NC]

  I found this at the flea market today.  Mayby I'll wear a splash to the barn dance tonight.    Haven't been having much luck lately at that fleabag flea market. 

[Frosty]

Mother gave me a bottle or aftershave in an anvil bottle years ago, didn't smell bad but I hadn't shaved for at least a decade at the time. I doubt it was Avon, Mother . . . disliked Avon anything.

How does it smell?

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  Like it could lure female smiths from miles away.  I may use it sparingly, I am over-run as it is.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I love Old Spice's saying.

"If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't exist".

[JHCC]

A coworker gave me a bottle of the Avon blacksmith cologne a while back; the cap is the shape of a hammer. I have yet to actually wear any!