Leaderboard

Hi all, after long working, i am happy. Here the finished Seax. Ruggero

Today i casted some bronze horse heads for a new piece in my rohirrim inventory. I hope it will be done soon

And the result.

A few weeks ago a kid (I say kid, college senior doing an honors thesis, probably 21 or so ) came to my local guild meeting to ask if anyone could help him with a sword. His honors thesis involves hand-making everything that appears in a portrait of a Scots nobleman of the mid-18th century. He's already made the shoes and belts, woven the fabric for the hose and jacket, made the hat, and all sorts of other things. Since he also makes flintlock rifles by hand, and as such proved he's no idiot, I agreed to see what he could do with the equipment I have that he needed to help with the sword bla

Making four knives for a customer who insists on having laminated full-tang slabs of G-10 topped with bone. Dilemma: I want to slant the front edge of the slabs back at 45° and can only accomplish what I need after they are glued together. I can set the work rest on my grinder to 135° to get the angle, but I would have to grind bone side down. The bone hasn't been flattened and there's no way to flatten it in true parallel to the flat of the G-10. Fix: I made a real quick jig out of 3/4 plywood so I could screw the slab flat and then grind upside down.

Got this lot all finish ground so some hand sanding to come

Yesterday I finished up my Argentine grill build. I have a Pitmaster customer who gave me some guidance.

Hi Guys, i just finished my seax. Last thing to do ist the schoulder belt. Ruggero

Don't know how many of the newer people check this thread, but I'll preach to the choir a little bit I'm a Christmas forge-baby, and unfortunately I built mine befor I ever met you fine folks. Like a great many people probably do, I looked at the ceramic wool and said "surely that will fall apart in a day without the proper magic to keep it safe" and went with soft bricks because they seem like such an obvious choice if you don't know better. (At least I knew the difference between soft and hard bricks). After getting here and learning that my forge was sub-optimal, I chose to sti

A short and handy langes messer just finished. 750grams with the pob just shy of 5cm from the guard 52.5cm blade and an overall length of 72cm Blade is 6mm thick at the shoulder and 2.5mm close to the tip Laws between medieval towns and cities varied quite a bit as to what size of blade you were allowed to carry but most I have found have been between 54-58cm so this would have suited the travelling merchant quite nicely to avoid trouble with any town guard Though probably not exactly historical I went with olive scales as I just love olive wood. Let'

Shellac might work as a binder. Worth a shot, anyway! I think the EU in general is very strict about borates, among other mostly-harmless-if-used-as-directed substances. Meanwhile, in the US we can buy a 2.14 Kg box of borax at the grocery store for about $3.50... I could ship you one, but as you said, it would cost a fortune. DHL is $58, FedEx is $80-$100, UPS is $100-$125, and, while USPS international is as low as $50, they transfer it to Deutche Post for delivery on your end, which would make us both liable for dealing in regulated substances. DHL would be the b

A few more in the works!!! The 2 bottom ones are serialized ar 15s and the top one is an 80% ar10 in the raw that will be chambered in 6.5 creedmoor

As usual, what Jerrod said. If you're using an anti-scale compound or a muffle tube with a bit of charcoal in it, decarb isn't an issue. Somewhere around here I posted some pics of what soaking and subsequent normalizing does to grain size in W1. A five minute soak at around 1600 degrees created table-salt-sized grain; one normailzation took that to a decent size, three made it fine as silk. The basic rules of heat treating straight carbon steels are few and easy. 1. Do not soak, no matter what you saw on YouTube. 2. Always normalize 3x after

Hello, i would like to show you my last work. Blade is made from wrought iron, mild steel and my favourite K720 and the handle materials are bronze and subfosil oak. Ihope you like it and i will post its "brother" very soon .

Ariel Salavierra was doing it back around 2004. Dunno if he was the first or not. It is a cool effect, but it's basically just a big braze joint. Not ideal metallurgically, and yes, it does increase corrosion via galvanic reaction, but keep it clean and dry and it'll outlast you. Drop it in wet dirt for 100 years and all you'll find is copper foil.

This is one of two knives that I made out of my first san mai billet. The core is 1080 and the sides are 1080/15N20 93 layer damascus. The handle is stainless and desert ironwood. The blade is 4 and 1/4" The handle is 4 and 1/2" I discovered I don't forge very evenly, and that it's very important to forge san mai evenly. Overall though, I'm pretty happy with my first attempt. It is going to a fellow knifemaker so he can make himself some sandwiches.

Today was spent in someone else’s shop. Layers of 1084 & 15n20 drawn out and twisted, twists drawn out, cut into sections and surface ground, final stack has 5 layers total. a twist core with 15n20 on the sides and then another layer of twist on the outsides. It’s been a busy day

Some very cool things are happening tomorrow

I'm finally going to the medieval market in Compiègne now in the end of November so hoping to finish at least two or three more to take with me to showcase

I etched it anyway.

Minor update. I finally had some shop time and had a bunch of stuff to get sanding on, and this was one of them. I got the bevels and flats to 220 nad set my plunges and shoulders. I also had to straighten out the tang. This is do while setting the guard shoulders using the file jig tool. Set the carbide faces toward the tang to make the shoulders and put the mirror on the blade side. Get the blade reflection nice and straight and you will have the shoulders square to the blade centerline. Then you can grind & adjust the tang to also sit centered.

Just finished this small narrow sax. Wrought iron and silver steel for the blade, box wood bolster and bog oak handle, carved with a bind rune for the recipient and a geometric border. Riveted copper draw ring with bronze bail. Tooled leather sheath with copper and bronze fittings. let me know what you think.

When did the first one end? A fine looking knife sir!

My first reaction is the angle is too steep. That's why it doesn't cut.

Sorry to hear Josh. If it were me I’d want to be buried with that dagger. Folks in Valhalla would be impressed.

Wayne, its about 11000 miles from you to me. If I take 40 pounds of your refractory, will you deliver for free?

That is quite stunning Josh, sorry to hear about it's future owner.......

I just take a pinch of borax between my fingers and throw it in the crucible. If you know anyone with a business licence they can order borax for you online, at least here in the Netherlands, it is just banned for consumers. Afaik it doesn't matter which kind of business.

Ace Hardware, Home depot and of course, Amazon all carry them.

I keep forgetting about those... if you search for one, call it a standard bull pin. They come in many sizes, and are indeed handy drift material.

And the new ribbon forge at full power.

The bits look like a modified version of these: The center point is shorter and the spur is longer, with the center point still a bit longer than the spur. And you won't need the flat cutting part for the circle and dot. If you score an old one (these are a 17th-early 19th century pattern) and cut off the flat, you can use them to make center-hole bone button blanks as well.

I haven't gotten to a place where I can see the video yet, but the anvil looks fantastic.

I carry an slim bladed lockback folder, Joshua might know exactly which one :). it use it mostly to open packaging and getting rid of splinters, where a big blade would be unwieldy. As I live in a urban area, the most important characteristic of an edc for me is that it looks non-threatening, carrying a fixed blade is frowned upon here. For a more outdoors lifestyle a bigger knife is handy.

And it still resonates and remains relevant. 42 years later, how 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' has endured : NPR

In my experience- yes. I have a graphtec 24" vinyl plotter. I've used it a couple times as etching masks. I use automotive/sign grade vinyl. I've also done sandblasting, and cerakoting with it with a "high temp" vinyl.

Two of the new design Heavy hunters all done. Blades are 5 inch of .170/4.3mm with the first one being a new personal knife with a lovely piece of exhibition grade walnut over CB buffalo horn on the 1075 high carbon blade. Second one has OD canvas micarta over orange liners on a NitroV SS blade

Ideally the vents should go out of the mold well above the parts (typically out the top) and not be connected to the sprue at all. It is even possible (but not at all best practice) for the vents to not go all the way out. What you end up doing there is pushing the air out of your sprue and part cavity, and forcing it into the vent, which will build up pressure (in steel this would be ferro-static pressure, in water hydrostatic, in copper cuprostatic, but I am not sure if there is a proper term for bronze but I would guess cuprostatic). This requires a certain amount of head pressure (densi

Perhaps for some, but in many parts of the world, Rwanda comes to mind, EDC is a machete.

Yesterday I was able to get in some time consolidating this most recent melt and some odds and ends. This is a little stack of all more of the high C pieces collected from my worse earlier pucks. This is all of the material from my last run flattened out. Minus the cast iron and a few small/low quality bits, it totaled about 1100 g at this stage. This is where all of my “bars” are at this point. That billet from earlier I though was failed got a bit nicer after four more folds and is now at six folds. The big crusty one has a large piece almost crack

From what I can see from the video, the motor is way too slow, the spring isn't doing anything at all (it's supposed to be a large compression spring that pushes the arms apart with great force), and the ratio between the arms and the toggles is way off. Not trying to be a downer, but that needs some work. Edit: Jaro posted as I was typing. He just built one of these that works, so listen to him!

Tried something different that I've been interested in. San mai with A203,copper, 15n20,copper with a 26c3 core. Needs a little more grinding and I need to figure out etching better.

They were the best, for certain very specific uses, prior to 1760. Wootz in particular has some interesting properties, but it is not inherently superior to any modern homogeneous blade steel. Read that thread Jerrod linked, it will reveal much. Jerrod is, by the way, a professional metallurgist. Tamahagane is just steel. Nothing special about it, it's just cleaner than most bloomery-derived steels of the same time period due to the extensive processing of the bloom. It does show a pretty microstructure when polished properly, but it's basically fancy axle shaft steel. It can'

It isn't. Modern steel is definitely superior. Wootz is difficult to make and work, but looks nice. It was better than other "steels" centuries ago. What we refer to as damascus now is much easier, and often has a look that pops a bit more, as well as being able to control the patterns very well.

When I'm doing small fullers, like 1/2 inch or so, I tend to take a piece of dowel around the same size diameter or slightly smaller, and cut a slot in it. Generally the dowel is say 3 inches and the slot goes about half of the length. You can then insert a long strip of sand paper and then wind it around the dowel, and use that to sand the marks away. the fuller here was ground to 120 on machine and then hand finished starting with 220 on the dowel, took no time! For smaller fullers this is a super easy and effective way to finish them.

BTW- To anyone who is hesitant to "Hijack" the thread, don't hesitate to ask questions, offer alternatives, or side subjects. That only makes the thread better. I'm mostly interested in the sharing of knowlledge and that is a two-way street. So bring it on!

On to the accordion cut part of our show. No, No, No......not that After surfacing all four sides, I lay out the cuts using small templates I made from some copper sheet. I started these cuts with an angle grinder and a cut off wheel. (I really need to get a better bandsaw....)

Today was my flex day from work, so it's also a forging day. Beautiful weather for it too. high around 85*, cloudy and raining off & on most of the day. A few days ago I got prepped and took those three long bars and made nine short bars. These had the mating sides surface ground. Then I spray them with magic welding lube. Stack them in a 3x3 square. Weld them back together. Forge them on the bias to put 5 of the bars across a face. And draw them back down to 1 inch square. This is now in

Puukkon Historia is not exactly new, but there is a sequel that came out this year along with an English book by the same author. I believe they may have done another run of the original when they printed the second version as both are currently available on Adlibris. The English book has an introductory section talking about the history of the puukko starting from the Viking era to the present followed by a section with photos of knives from the collection of the Finnish National Museum grouped by type/region. The book was written by a knife maker and it shows. Each entry has most i