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Ok, so perhaps this isn't as sharp as people here are used to, but I'll give it a shot anyway.. I've recently (this week actually) decided to start a little side-hustle in connection with my knife-making - seeing as I need to practice my engraving skills, and would like to get paid doing so. So I've decided to dedicate 1 week a month to making one piece of jewelry, while utilizing the remaining 3 weeks for my knife project. So - I present to you all the first week's result - the "Compass": Stats: Width: 29,2 mm Length: 63,7 mm Thickness: 4,8 mm Vekt: 27 gram It ended up a bit thicker than I had initially wanted, but... I'll make the next one around 3 - 3,5mm thick I think. The piece is made out of a forged piece of railroad steel, engraved in a deep relief with some ornamentation many might be familiar with.. In the middle of the ornamentation I put a 2mm blue sapphire. I also put in some 24kt gold in the corners, and engraved the traditional wheat-pattern sprouting out from the top and bottom of the piece. The bail is made from a piece of 925 Sterling Silver. The bevels around the edges are mirror polished. Total work time: 24 hours from first hit with the hammer, to the last polishing touch... Tomorrow I'm putting this up for sale at the equivalent of 615 USD here in Norway. I have to say, I haven't felt this nervous in quite some time. Fingers crossed! Enjoy what is left of the weekend folks, tomorrow it's back to work!

Last month I had the great pleasure of heading to Zack Jonas' shop for a week long messer intensive with Peter Johnsson. As a guy who generally works alone, the workshop atmosphere was a delight. With some long hours I was able to get the metal work finished in NH. I secured the grip panels and made the scabbard on my return to CO. The messer is 8670 with forged 1045 fittings, blackwood scales and German silver pins. It was important for me to have a complete object that was a true reflection of the work done in class, so I really limited after class work to a day mounting the scales cut in class, 2 days of scabbard work (sewn leather over wood with a wool lining) and then marking and sharpening the true and false edges.

The tittle pretty much said it. Been a while since I did my signature mustard patina, I believe it makes a nice contrast with the synthetic ivory handle. Bolster is copper and wrought.

Someone once said everybody gets 15 minutes of fame. My began with the latest issue of Blade magazine.

Just finished this 1080 / 15N20 eyed crushed W's with stainless fittings.

This sword is another one that has been sitting around unfinished a lot time.. I made the Wootz in 2019, forged the blade and got it fitted up in early 2020. for Peter Johnsons scabbard, little did we know that a month latter we would be in lockdown. In the class the sword was assembled but far from finished. .. it sat for a long time as other projects took precedence. I wanted to get it done last year for blade but the week I was going to start the scabbard fittings at Matt Berry's place he got covid so I panned it for another year. It seems this year things worked out so .. I finished it out for my table at blade show next week (11Q) Wootz blade, damascus fittings, sterling silver backstrap over ray skin. scabbard is felt lined wood core with linen and leather wrap and sterling silver mounts.

Howdy! The rumors of my demise are unfounded,,,I am still here to the chagrin of my enemies and the delight of my friends...what a ride we had..All started out with getting rear ended by a drunk driver...well that gave me some soft tissue damage in my neck, shoulders and upper back..No fun.. and as the weeks passed I couldn't feel my hands..I mean at all..Well the Drs at the VA did some x-rays and it seems that the impact of the accident moved some shell fragments that were in my neck and things went downhill from there..They were pressing right on my spinal cord and well several surgeries and infections later..I ended up being laid low and not being able to do much of anything for way too long. As Mr Baggins asked : "Don't adventures ever end"??. No heavy work..no real light work either at times while I was trying to beat the infections (that kept on coming back and that means another surgery and starting back at square one...)..and rest and not do any more damage. However..I am on my last few days on these new meds and they are kicking arse on the infection and I am now able to get back to work on a limited basis for now..Still no heavy lifting or hammer swinging yet...but in two/three weeks I should be able to get back into this hammer and tongs..FINALLY.. So all in all you will see my cantankerous self popping in from time to time... I'm BACK!! JPH

This one was sitting around Half finished for several years. I first made it as a sample piece for a western sword class i was teaching at NESM figuring on finishing it out for one of the shows that year.. well I didn't do any shows and got over whelmed with commissions and it sat. A customer saw is wanted it so it got finished out! blade is 350ish layer random pattern 15n20 /1080 the fittings are a lower layer pattern weld (30 ish layers) the pommel and nut are set with Lapus in silver. It felt really nice in the hand around 2LB total weight 30" blade 36" overall. MP

Had the forge lit for something else, used the remaining heat to HT a hawk head.

this is the other half of the billet from the Ashoken Nights chef i donated to the whiskey tasting fund last ashoken, Pictorial mosaic blade, bronze bolster figured Koa handle. T his will be on my table at blade show 11Q MP PXL_20230515_175348736.mp4 PXL_20230515_173014378.mp4

I had two opposite visions for the KITH this year, so I decided to make both, and let whoever gets my entry decide. The first one started out a bit rough: I believe the first or second puck from the left is what ended up as the edge bar. I re-melted it from some wrought iron round bars. Meanwhile, the other knife needed somewhat more precise treatment. I chose to take a warikomi approach for this knife, the body is from a link of small anchor chain, opened with a chisel for the hearth steel edge. Here’s where the blades stand now, the right is made from MagnaCut. I don’t have as many pictures of it yet, but I have something a bit… different planned for the handle. That’s it for now, thanks for looking!

This is a big one.

In preparation of this year's KITH I wanted to see how viable scissors might be.... This was an Experiment with all mild steel, and It had goods and bads...maybe after a few more pairs I'll feel comfortable giving them away, lol! After a quick case hardening in water they cut Receipt and phone book paper fairly decent, so I 'm happy with that for a first try. (they also close all the way, I just suck at pictures, lol) Notes for self: -Bow shape matters! A Better heat source(not a hand-held propane torch) and possibly dies to shape around are needed. -Don't make Left-Handed Scissors if you're not left-handed!! -Geometry for the blades appears to be SO much more important than I thought(I thought the pivot would be the tricky part, silly me).

This is a subject that opens a very large can of worms.. Money, commissions, running a business, balancing life and shop and mental health in and around the business/ shop.. it is all connected. talking about it is very good but there is no right way every one needs to find a different path, one that is right for them. I have been full time as a smith for over 20 years. For a long time blades were a side business the main being railings/ironwork. Around 10 years ago I made the switch to blades only. Well that is a bit of a misnomer, I have multiple revenue streams almost different businesses. First are the knives and swords I make on commission and on spec, I teach in our school, make and sell tools , I also teach out side of the shop and a number of schools, do paid demos, have a patreon and write a column for Knife magazine. The last 5 years have been the most successful I have had from a financial/ business stand point. Even Covid only shifted things around rather than put a real hole in my income. (to be honest part of that was PPP loans but even with out I would have been ok) That said my commissions have become the most time consuming portion of my work but the least success full from a financial standpoint. Before the pandemic I limited my books to 3-6 months out and would not take orders past that time, when the lock down started I took extra orders and pushed out to a year. (figuring a bird in the hand) once a design was settled I took 50% deposits. Several things happened to mess this well laid plan up, my 1 year of orders is out about 3 years right now, fist once lockdown opened back up I had other commitments, shows out side classes demos all of these needed time scheduled out of commission work not to mention several tool repair projects that lingered and took a lot of my time. My mental heath started to take some strain from the perceived expectations of those high dollar commissions (much as Gerhard mentioned) as well as being late Made keeping contact with the clients become difficult. All of this was coupled with some health issues that have slowed my ability to complete work. Nothing life threatening , but several years ago I developed a auto immune disorder after getting Lyme and it has left me with all sorts of fun symptoms that come and go. Just when I was just able to start moving forward getting the auto immune in control I caught covid at blade.. that turned in to long covid and set off the worst auto immune flare I have ever had.. last winter was hard. I finally delivered the sword that I took and order for in April 2020 in march 2023 a full two years after I planed to have it finished. I had started that sword in dec 2021. I offered several times to refund the client but he refused, I did so in part because financially the commissions have become unimportant, the rest of my income streams are by far the majority of my income yet the commissions slow every thing else up and take up far to much of my time. I have one more commission left on the books and likely that will be my last, if a take any others it will be something I want to make and short term and with in 3 month start time. That said the rest of the guys in the shop have gone a different route. They are out 3 maybe 4 years now. how they work it is $100 non refundable deposit gets you on the list when your name comes up they finalize details and costs they then ask a 50% deposit , remainder due on completion. Will all of those commissions pan out? no but then they made $100 for nothing and they can then move on to the next person in line. This have the advantage of not having the pricing be invalidated by rising costs from the time the commission started until it is built, as well as allowing for rising price points/ labor costs. I know of several makers that ran into that trap with long back logs and deposits. I know of one maker that was in the situation of working on orders that the total value was less than the deposits on new orders.. his price point in the 3 years had tripled not a great situation to be in. I know if this happening with dealer orders as well, unscrupulous dealer, filling a makers order book then artificially pushing the second market value of the makers work up.. locking them up for years. just something to think about. MP

Drat! They started through hardening those cheap files. Just broke a new one that I wanted to bend, as the previous one is worn out. If I spend very little on files I want crappy files that bend!

I mostly stopped taking commissions for the same reason. But like Joel, I'm not doing this for my living. Someday perhaps, but not now. That said, I stopped taking deposits after the first few times I did it. I find if people give me money, they think they own my time and bother me incessantly about when it's going to be finished. So then it's back to pricing. I give an estimate up front only after detailed discussion with the customer, including sketches and engraving ideas, with the caveat that everything is subject to change, and most importantly that schedules are off the table. I do try to give a general timeframe, but I refuse to meet deadlines for my own mental health. Pricing tomahawks is relatively straightforward for me, because I've done enough to know how long and how much effort each variation can take. I have a per-inlay charge in my mental spreadsheet, based on whether it's poured pewter in wood, silver in wood, or silver in steel or iron. Wire inlay adds, and the fancier the engraving the more it costs. Pocketknives and swords give me pricing trouble, though. I always seem to underestimate my time on both. Not that I charge by the hour, but my time does have value, to me, anyway. I've only had two commissions that didn't pan out. One was a machete-sized langsax hilted like a viking sword. Between the order and completion the customer got divorced and couldn't afford it anymore. The other was a pipe hawk in which the customer specified a certain head from a picture in a book. I did that, so far so good. Then he wanted an extra-long curly ash haft. I had to make that myself since Dunlap didn't have any in stock at the length specified. I explained how that added to the final price and the guy was fine with it. Then he started asking for inlays. I drew up sketches of everything he asked for, including what would have been a pretty cool two-piece handle inlay of an ear of corn with brass corncob in a silver husk. He said "I want that, on both sides of the handle!" I told him what the price was to do it, and I never heard a peep from him again. It's been sitting unfinished on the shelf ever since. One of these days I'll finish it to my own taste, without the corn inlay. Once I had to refuse one I'd have liked to do (a fancy gladius), because the guy needed it in two weeks and I had several hawks in line ahead of him. Back to the specific question, high-end custom work: I explain to the customer about the timeframe, lack of deadline, and that every time they ask if it's ready that adds $50 to the total. That usually works to scare off the ones who would be trouble to deal with, even the ones for whom $50 is chump change. I don't take deposits, Payment is only due on completion, and if there is some reason the price is higher than the estimate that gets explained the minute it happens. When the price of silver jumps, or if a requested material is unavailable and the substitute is much more expensive, that sort of thing. The price doesn't go up if I screw up and have to remake a part six times, that's on me. I try to be very specific about what can and cannot be done, and why. Sometimes that can be because I don't want to do that. That last thing was the hardest thing for me to come to terms with. I grew up in a service industry, and it was drilled into my head from birth, and fully ingrained by age seven when I started working in the family business, that you do everything possible to make sure the customer is satisfied, even if it eats into the bottom line. "No" was never an acceptable response, and everything had to be done as fast as possible without sacrificing quality. Needless to say, this is not a workable business model for an artist-craftsman who wants to enjoy what little mental health he has! I mean, I still try to be fast, but that's for me, not the customer. It's a work/life balance thing. As far as dealing with the customer goes, I keep it all via email. That way there's a written record of everything we discuss. Some people don't like that, but I insist because it prevents those unfortunate misunderstandings when one party thinks they heard something that the other party did not say. Then you have to be very clear in your writing. And that works both ways! I have had a few where I thought the guy wanted X only to go back through the records and find he actually wanted Y. After I'd already made X, of course. If there was a phone call, I send an email to confirm there is a mutual understanding of what was said. I also say not to call me, but some people just can't work that way. All that said, for both of us, people have an idea what we can do, and ask for custom work based on that knowledge. It is indeed nerve-wracking when the price gets way up there, but think of it this way: They trust us to do the job. It's on us to make sure they know what we will and won't do from the start of the discussion. As long as both parties are fully open about how things are going to be, it usually turns out fine. Of course, there's always the guy who wants a copy of a certain piece, down to the exact measurements, and then complains when he gets it because it feels heavier than he thought it would.

Going down the memory lane and not spending enough time in the shop lately, I realized I never posted the end-to-end video here.

Howdy: While my health problems laid me low I was able to (with a lot of help from my son) get two pieces done..It sucks cause I could do that in a day before this hit but be that as it may. The down time allowed me to get some serious text work done on book IV and that is good..so..here is one of the two..The other one will be listed for sale.. Crucible Damask...1.6%C, 0.0015% V and 0.002%Cr by weight. Blade length is 7 3/4" One piece of my "Fossilized Bovine Ivory" grip with phosphor bronze mounts and studs. Overall length 13 1/8" Didn't turn out half bad. My son did the melt (he was the brawn..) under my verbal instruction (I was the feeble brains) and well the puck turned out fantastic and the knife came out pretty good as well..He did all the heavy work ... and I did what I could do with my limited abilities at the time. all in all...not a bad reult. JPH

The surfactant speeds it up even more than dish soap alone. All liquid quenches go through three phases of heat removal: Vapor, nucleate boiling (this just means bubbles forming where water can touch, or nucleate, nothing to do with particle physics!), and convection. In plain water, you get the vapor phase when the hot steel enters the quench first, which is the slowest way of removing heat since it's literally a jacket of superheated steam that prevents the water from cooling the steel as fast as possible. When the steel cools enough for liquid water to actually tough it, nucleate boiling starts. This is rough on steel, because of all the little bubbles starting up all over the surface and removing heat unevenly, and this is where it's most likely to crack. Once the steel is at and below the boiling point, convection, or direct heat transfer from steel to liquid water, takes over and cools the steel quickly to the temperature of the water bath. Adding salt reduces the time spent in the nucleate boiling phase of the quench, which both speeds the quench and lowers overall stresses on the steel. Adding the dish soap and surfactant eliminates the nucleate boiling completely, as the doctored water is now so fluid is jumps from vapor directly to convection, with the now-superheated water forming bubbles AFTER it leaves the surface of the steel. This is such a violently fast cooldown it pretty much work-hardens the steel, which is why it is only used on low carbon steels like RR spikes. If you quench, say, 1095 in superquench, it explodes. Steels with enough carbon to harden in plain water can't take it. Not ordinarily, although they do heat the water first to reduce the shock. Obligatory mention that the tamahagane steel they use is VERY shallow hardening and needs a fast quench to harden at all. It will form a hamon (temper line) through quenching alone because of how shallow-hardening it is. The traditional claying of the spine is done to do two things: 1. it helps control the edge of the hamon, and it does this by 2. interrupting the nucleate boiling phase at the edge of the hamon, (giving that first crisp edge), and slowing down the quench speed just enough prevent surface hardening under the clay once it's past about 1/16" thick, which allows a wider transition zone from the martensitic edge to the ferritic or pearlitic spine, leaving that frosty band of mixed pearlite/martensite/bainite/ferrite that shows up when properly polished.

Got a chance to do some rough grinding on the ko-tanto. I got the edge centered up and the bevels started. They still need drawn down the to edge but I'm going to use stones and sandpaper to convex the single bevel a little slower than my grinder would. I dunked it into the ferric for about 10 minutes and it showed some very cool grain structuring that I struggled to get a good photo of, lol!

Thank you! I do think it’s telling that there are specialists who primarily make habakis. Not much progress on these blades, but I did finish the sanding and start the etching process for the tanto: It still needs a bit more work to get the hamon to pop in more light conditions, but it does come out quite well in the right light.

There are WIP photos down in the Way's "what did you do in your shop today" thread, but since it took me a while to find them I figured I'd add them here. The first layout lines, with the guided cutter pictured above. You can see how it's kind of uneven. This is before I used the equalling cutter. Oh, and forgot to mention this is the 22 line per inch cutter set. They come in 18, 20, 22, 28, and 32 lines per inch.

My father always used to tell me mine would be the FBI's most wanted. Ha!! shows what he knew, I never got caught.

And the guard is shiny, and nearly impossible to take a photo off under a desk lamp Now on to finish the larger bit of the assembly.

For some reason I am reminded of one of my favorite photos: Owen Bush's house, spring 2011, I don't remember who took the picture. Maybe Grace Horne? Left to right: Peter Johnsson, Tod of Tod Cutler (his last name is not cutler, btw), I don't remember who's holding the camera, maybe Eli Sideris? Jeff Pringle, Petr Florianek, Jeroen Zuiderwijk, Josh Burrell, and me. Hard to believe that was 12 years ago...

I just made a tool to carve the 4 parallel lines on the backside of the seax sheath, based on one of the Groningen sheaths. It looks comparably crappy, so I'm happy with it I will wet the leather on the sheath a bit more when I do it for real, to get deeper carvings.

I've started on a sheet for this one. I skived some cow hide down to about 2.5mm. The piece of leather was a bit smaller then I thought, but I'm going with it. It's now formed and glued with fish glue. Stitching, riveting and decorating will be next. I need to make some tools for that.

This has been a total cluster-f%&* I couldn't find any talent to help build, or just build the house. Even the contractors who told me they would be interested in giving me a quote finally either said "too busy to take this job" or they just stopped answering emails and phone calls. So we had to switch gears and went the Modular route. We designed and ordered what they call an "off-frame modular". This is a factory-built home built to building codes rather than a manufactured home built to HUD standards. That means it has 2x6 walls, 2x10 floor joists, and serious insulation. The only problem is that the foundation is 32 feet wide and the widest they can build the house is 31 feet. That means that with an 8-inch wide stem wall, the house only bears on 2 inches of block. So it took some creative engineering design to attach a ledger system to the inside of the two long walls. We went out last month and attached the ledgers and built the center bearing wall. This is the engineer's fix. First bolt a pressure treated 2x10 to the stem with 5/8" bolts at 6" on center (o.c,) Then screw a 2x6 ledger over that with 2-1/2" #8 wood screws at 12" o.c. staggered and screw a 2x6 pressuretreated plate to both ledgers with 3" #8 wood screws at 12" o,c. staggered. He also wanted the center wall sheathed and bolted down to the footing. Truly serious overkill. Last Wednesday, they delivered and set the house on the foundation. It took about 3 hours to get the house halves into the site, pick them up with a crane and swing them onto the stems. I shot about 50 minutes of video and sped it up so you can see the process in 5 minutes.

Dolabra in works. This just after machine forging - and off course I run out of gas. Now I need to flatten the eye, define the mottock better, planish everything by hand + heat treat....I think another 3 hours.

Looks better with silver wire.

Finally got a shaft put on my first spear head. You're right @Alan Longmire, does give you a feeling of power . Used white oak for this one.

Blade magazine August 2005.... Toast Cutter contest I was a newbie making a few stock removal blades for fur trade era rendezvous and this contest started on Knife Network forum. Thought of a design and entered the contest,story here.. http://www.knifenetwork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24127 There are still a few photos online of the other pieces made and I don't know if Coop still has the others.

Thing is, it's not a scrapyard, per se, it's an "antique" store. Three rooms full of stuff. Right now there are a ton of dividers and calipers, and probably 100 wooden planes. Everything from smalls to furniture. Today we got the chain, including a single link that has been torch cut that weighs 50lbs, 2 vintage bocce balls (lignum vitae I believe) a nice hammered copper candle holder, and some industrial outdoor lamp shades. Great place . g

I've been busy making and other issues so I haven't posted much. Here are some of my latest builds. This has a Curley maple handle. The handle one this one is maple burl with an antler piece between the 2 burl's. The owner of this is a bear hunting guide. It has a bear stamped into the sheath, the handle is black walnut with a bear claw pin. I also did my first airbrush shading on the sheath.

No forging, but got a good, sturdy work bench built with my neighbor. The shop is almost complete!

I couldn't think of a better place to put this, but definitely wanted to share this. Every year the Steel Founder's Society of America (SFSA) puts on a competition for college students to cast an item and test it a-la Forged in Fire (complete with @Ben Abbott and David Baker as judges). In the past students have made a bowie knife, Viking style axe, "Thor's Hammer", Celtic sword, and now African Spears. Here is a link to this year's YouTube livestream (there are big gaps, so be prepared to skip through to see the good content). The audio isn't great at times, but you'll get the idea. And here is a link to the edited down version.

Feeling a bit defeated, had 5 days away from work due to public holidays and I'd hoped to get more done. Built the stand for my new forge, mostly, just missing a shelve that I can weld in when I know the final position of the fan. Ribbon burner is basically holding everything back, and I'm very unsure about how to proceed. Building the frame took longer than it should, but when you're working outside on the ground with an angle grinder and little DC welder it's not fun........not to mention the gut getting in the way By Saturday I realized I had to shift priorities, finished drilling the rock and made the stand with a helping hand from my buddy's new coal forge which we'd put some finishing touches on. Not a bad result, but my imagination outclassed my abilities, much bigger hassle than I expected and not nearly as organic a result as I'd hoped for. Sharped a knife so it was ready for next weekend's market, and realized I need to stop kidding myself, I don't have nearly enough space around the 3 grinders, will have to rethink the layout.

A quick example of cutting grooves for ladder pattern. This pattern looks best in the 250-400 layer range. These bars were 300+ layers and I drew them out to about 3/8" thick, or a little less. The grooves are laid out on each side so they are offset (mostly) Here is a very short video of cutting the grooves with a 3/8" carbide burr in a rotary tool. https://youtu.be/utwxggtAf-I

Well, you can find both actually, since my neighbour often has the BBQ on But yeah, whenever f.e. a postman walks by, it often gets a lot of interest, and occasionally even pictures taken On average 10% tin (but can vary quite a bit), and with later bronzes also a some lead. But lead IMO doesn't improve anything, which is also why lead content was lower in swords. Arsenic and antimony were mainly included in the early coppers/bronzes, when there was little or no tin around. It's said that arsenic wasn't added, but arsenic containing ores were used to produce the arsenic bronzes.

Shade 5 is way too dark. Shade 2 or 3 is good for forge work, or, just don't stare into the fire...

I recommend infrared filtering protective eye glasses for working with a forge. I'm wondering that if I had used them more I wouldn't be facing cataract surgery next month but it's at the point of having the surgery or going blind. Wish me luck. Doug

Progress.....

Sooooo Some of ya saw this tacked up waiting on a real welder. I just got it back. Now I can make the lower anvil....and a way to remove and replace dies and dies themselves. I think I am gonna buy some flat stock and plate top and 2 up right pieces together. I am not the greatest welder but I dont think I can hurt it =) I think some 5/16 3/8 plate gussets between the up rights and 2x2's couldnt hurt either. Any sugestions,thoughts.....,predictions. lol

I made a quick little something for a little boy.. though't I'd throw it in here. Made from meteorite iron (Campo Del Cielo) inlaid with 24k gold. Seeing as my first pendant eventually sold earlier this month, I will be making another one at the start of the next. Until then, have a good week!

superquench.pdf When I made this years ago Shaklee wasn't handy. I used a surfactant from a local farm supply, intended as a wetting agent for use with herbicides. Never heard such a scream as this stuff causes.

Me too, I'll be at the same spot as last year.

I've discovered that many left-handers struggle to use left-hand scissors. They have learned how to twist their left hand to use right-hand scissors. When presented with left scissors, they hand it back to me saying it won't cut. It's happened to me multiple times. I have to show them the correct way. And manufacturers are making left-handled scissors that put left-hand bows on right-hand scissors.

I'll let you know if I ever get to that point. Seriously though, once you've established your reputation and get to a certain price point, it really cuts down on demand. If I was still making pipe hawks for $250 I'd be completely snowed under. Now that I'm starting at $1K plus, the market is far smaller and the customers much more discerning and easier to deal with. For me, that translates to only a couple of pieces a year, which is fine since I don't do this for my day job. It would be a different story if I needed to make a living at this game. Then I look at Tod of Tod Cutler, who somehow manages to crank out a gazillion reasonably priced period pieces while still doing high-end commissions. And running a YouTube channel on top of that, among other things he does. I don't know how he does it, but we would all benefit from watching his recent video about the level of quality needed to meet specific demand: Despite the title, he's really making the point that if you choose to make a living at piecework, you have to understand the limits of pricing versus fineness. And he makes me feel bad about how quickly I can turn out a crappy sheath versus a decent one...

Wouldn't be a problem if it did. The core is single use only. So if it got crushed after the bronze solidified, it's just even easier to take out.

The black sand is magnetite, which reduces to iron, and, if carbon is present, becomes steel. The glass is not a flux per se, it is just an oxygen barrier that floats on top of the liquid steel. There's very little use for lime in small-scale homemade steel production. If you're after cast iron, or if you have a particularly refractory ore like titaniferous magnetite, a handful or two during a short-stack bloomery smelt will help the slag run, but otherwise it's not much use at the scale we tend to work. The goethite/limonite ores most of us like to play with are naturally rich in silica and are self-fluxing when smelted. Hearth melts (like the title post here) start with iron or steel and simply remelt it through a reduction zone in charcoal to make a higher carbon steel than the feedstock. The slag that develops there is from the ash. Crucibles make things weird. You can do an open crucible reduction from ore and charcoal to create steel, but that's not easy. Most people are trying to make Wootz or its analogues, which start with cast iron and some organic material. Traditionally this was done in a sealed crucible, but adding the glass serves the same purpose. A few people even use a little modern tech when making crucible steel, such as adding a bit of aluminium at the end of the melt to degas the steel. Lots of ways to make small quantities of steel of varying carbon content at home. If you want to start making freaky alloys using rare earth elements, then you need to go to the thermite reaction. Note that is not for the faint of heart or those with neighbors who are easily concerned by blinding light and clouds of sparks! Or the occasional BOOM! if you get the mixture wrong. The hearth method Kreg is doing is a rediscovery of an old Norse technique first written down by Ole Evenstadt in the 1700s. It bypasses the usual cementation/carburization method of making shear steel, which is a nice thing if you're low on resources and need a small amount of steel fast. Plus it's fun to do!