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https://www.npr.org/2022/05/13/1098545920/kansas-man-finds-ax-tree-root-handle-reddit-thor Looks like a nice steeled iron head from ca. 1850-1860. And yes, it's real. I've seen that happen with pierced objects in the ground. Roots go where they can!

Thanks, Jake! I do many things to keep the pins from happening. I gave up on soapstone, too messy and too slippery except for fine work on nonferrous. These days it's three strokes, bang the tip on the vise, a quick sweep of the card (actually one of those toothbrush-sized wire brushes), check for pins, dislodge with Exacto blade. Of course, if a big pin happens I feel it instantly, and remove it at once. This particular wrought seems well-behaved. It's a 1.25" tie rod from a large building in Maine, as I understand, and is quite clean. A test etch didn't look nearl

I am currently working on a project for someone who likes to do a bit of wood carving, spoons probably being her favorite thing to make. In the past I’ve lent her my general purpose hatchet to split, hew, and roughly shape blanks, often from green but sometimes from seasoned wood. It does ok, but being a pretty general purpose hatchet I figured I might try making a dedicated tool for her. The stock I’m going to use is found steel with a personal significance, which means I’m limited to a starting blank of either 1.25x0.375 or the slightly larger and thinner size it started out as, with an inla

Always something new to learn. Those channels are good. I get the shutting off the brain bit. Though sometimes I wish I was resetting passwords or fixing the email servers again. Still code a bit, when I'm not exhausted. You can only dig so many holes before you just stop giving a *bleep*...

For some strange reason, I just got the idea to redo the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch as "Four Archeologists".

Other way is after the basic forging and prior to HT, curve it laterally around the horn of the anvil and then clamp it in a vise when cool and cut it in with a half-round file and then straighten out the blade. You should have a nice nail nick tapering in width towards each end, no problem.

First I went back to the vise, removed the dye with acetone, and went over the whole inlay with a smooth chasing chisel to drive the silver into all the undercuts and barbs, followed by the ball end of my chasing hammer to really make sure. Incidentally, this also work-hardens the silver so it's less likely to peel out of the inlet while filing it flush. Drawfiled flush: Tomorrow's guild meeting day, so that's it until next weekend. I had time to do a few more inlays (this one took 1.5 hours start to finish, including cutting the silver), but

Once it's all down to depth, undercut and internal barbs raised, it looks like this: I talked about that in the "Why I'm always recommending files" thread too. Final check to see that the silver plate is a snap fit into the inlet: Looks good! Now for the nerve-jangling part. Take it over to the anvil, pad the horn with a bit of leather, and hammer the silver into the inlet. Hard. If you screw up, you have to start over. I usually use one of the larger forging hammers for this to get maximum coverage of the silver for a one-shot

Today, I inlaid a sterling silver plate into the spine for my signature later down the line. That's a die-sinker's chisel, flat ended, made from O-1. Much more aggressive than my little 1095 and M42 gravers I used in this thread: Same idea, though, and I still use the gravers to clean up and undercut.

After I finished the bowl, I brazed it to the head with Harris Safety-Silv 56. And forgot to take pics again. I could have sworn I had some looking into the eye, but oh, well. I used ATP-641 antiscale to protect the eye and as a resist for the braze, because it's a pain to file that off of wrought. Here's the bowl as of a few minutes ago:

Forgot to mention, the machine in use here is a 1941 Atlas/Craftsman 12-48 lathe with a milling attachment. Darned handy, but way too long and underpowered. 6" swing over the ways, 48" bed, unless I have the back gears engaged it'll take a max cut of .020 in steel. But it's what I have. Anyway, I then drill and tap 3/8-24 NF, still in the lathe for precise alignment, but hand turn tapping only. Then I roughed the bowl from the wrought. 2" long, 0.8" diameter. First I turn one end down to 1/2" to fit the counterbore, then I cut a fat 1/4" of that down to

The next weekend, April 30/May 1, I turned the bowl from the same wrought as the hawk body. Somehow I don't have pics of that process, but I do have how I chose to mount this one. You may have noticed in the filework layout the little centerpunch mark where the hole is to go atop the eye. I drilled a 1/4" hole, then used a 1/2" aircraft counterbore with a 1/4" pilot to counterbore for the bowl to be inset. I usually do that for hammer poll hawks.

So: Forged on April 16: Materials are wrought iron and 1075. Ground, drawfiled to 6" mill smooth, and heat treated on April 23: Filework laid out on the eye, cuts started and finished, all with files, April 24:

Recently a forum member found a block of beryllium copper. Luckily he was smart enough to ask about it before using it, and in the course of the ensuing thread other hazardous things that look innocent enough were mentioned. Another member suggested making a sticky thread about such things, so here it is. Feel free to add your own, after all this may save someone's health if not their life! Beryllium copper, aka beryllium bronze, is sometimes found in junk shops. It is usually marked BeCu, and is most commonly used (at least the way most of us would find it) to make non-sparking tools

To further this list, @Austin_Lyles has mentioned in another thread not to quench in used motor oil. There are various reasons for this but from a safety perspective we are concerned about possible contaminants from the engine. Used oil may contain heavy metals and other contaminants that can vaporise during the quench causing lung damage. If you cannot afford to buy quench oils such as Parks 50, you can use canola, peanut oil, etc.

How to Start... A beginners & newbie info thread The Age old craft this forum is about seems to attract more guys as it used to for some while. Thus in the past months we have seen an increasing number of "How to Start", "Where to begin" questions posted to this board. I believe the great thing about this very community is the will to help each other, to advance and to share. However the "downside" is that if a question will be asked too many times, people could get annoyed by and not answer, vanish, or answer the question "halfhearted". All options which I would not desire. This commu