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Howdy.. Well it has been an interesting last bit...took a bit of maneuvering , wheeling/dealing and being creative to stay afloat with minimal (if any) studio time but now that things have turned around and orders are once again coming in..I am BACK!! I did get some serious writing done on book IV as well as figure out how to get a bigger chuck of that wavy feather pattern I have been worklng on..here is the reult of one blade for the cover photo of book IV.. I am keeping this one for myself. 31" blade, double fullers, file worked spine..(wore out 3 files do

Pots are serious business, and I don't even like clay ;-)

Matthew, from what we can tell at sites that produced crucible steel in the old days, the old crucibles were mostly one-shot deals. If they lasted long enough to produce a single good puck that was enough, then they were crushed and used again. I suspect a lot of the very early development (WAY pre-iron age) of metal casting was luck, in the same way as when the Navaho started casting silver in the 1700s they discovered that old pottery shards from one abandoned pueblo in Canyon de Chelly made decent, if small, crucibles. Not that the wootz producers were using old potsherds necessarily, but

Mac. That is a tremendous amount of work and information you have given to a person you have never met.Thank you very much.

That is excellent information, sir. Thank you for sharing that hard-earned knowledge. It is much appreciated.

Giving you a simple recipe isn't that easy. I was not making wootz but was trying to make large, first stage direct reduction pots, similar to the process described by Needham as in use in Shanxia, China in the 19th century. First, I talked with potters. After numerous clay trials I gave up on potters as being particularly useless and began reading patents. I followed them back through 'patents reference by' until I arrived at formulas I understood. Then I moved forward in the patent search trying out new formulas and recipes. Once I had a reasonable handle on the technology. I was able t

Back to the tsuba. It took me a while to decide on the actual design for the reverse side. I knew I wanted 1) a mirror image of the moon, waxing instead of waning, and 2) a young bamboo to contrast with the mature bamboo on the obverse. This is to tie this katana to her sister blade, a wakizashi I made last year that featured a young and a mature bamboo on the sides of its habaki. I worked on the mirror moon and clouds while still mulling over the young bamboo design: My issue was that a young bamboo meant thin shoots and slender leaves,

I think I've asked this before, but I'm having some trouble figuring out where to put the pivot hole in a folding knife blade. Is there a rule or some sort of tutorial around? Geoff

Here is another tool making video you might enjoy:

Mr. Schneider, I have shown you the little I know. I have given my opinion of the use of modern coatings on crucibles. I'm sure you will develop your own recipes from research and experiments. I am a tradesman, not a teacher. Good luck with your endeavors.

Just a couple of broad strokes. In high temp wares, clay is often your enemy. Yes. I know, it sounds stupid, but if you think of clay as a 'green strength' binder that holds together the more durable materials until they solidify at higher temperatures, you're getting my point. Try to keep the clay content as low as practicable. All they clays I used , whether Fire Clay , ball clay or Kaolin are all high Alumina clays. In some trials I tried high iron, terracotta type clays. In low %'s , some made reasonable non-ferrous pots but most just melted at stoneware temps. And

bastards; all of them.

OK it is a go I have to gather some copper and just found a #6 crucible ( Graphite )..I will post the result. Lost wax . Jan

Short update of this project. I needed more bloomery iron so I had to prepare an iron bloom I smelted some time ago. A few weeks ago there was an opportunity to use a historic water-powered hammer in Gdańsk in Poland. The forge exists in this place since 1597. It was really great experience to use 250 kg dies. The 12 kg iron bloom has been flattened really fast. After heating and forging more than 6 kg of iron left. Below I link the video of this process.

Well... failure is always an option. Had a failed forge weld in my feather pattern. For only my second attempt at damascus, ill take it. Got my shed a little warm, 2" pvc pipe was across my lofts on both ends. Smh.