KPeacock

Af far as sharpening goes, you might just try to get a bit of hollow into the blade. even if it isn;t terrible pretty. When i sharpen mine (all of which are hollow ground) I rest the sipne and the blade ahainst the stone. i use a pretty fine arkansas stone and just sharpen it carefully. resting the edge and the spine allows me to get a consistant edge the whole length of the blade. then a quick few rubs on the strop and its...well...razor sharp. This is the biggest advantage to a hollow grind that i can see. I'm certainly no expert though.

when removing a beard, I often use a straight razor to shave with. I'm unsure of the relative quality of it, but it was produced in Solingen, Germany quite a number of hears ago. It is very easy to shave with assuming you're in no rush. If you're in any type of a hurry, you're better off grabbing a mach 3 or something similar. I've also foudn that it is easier to shave when using high glycerin soap and brush as compared to store bought shaving gel/foam. Good luck! I do think i have the patience to try and make such a refined cutting edge. I'm much more at home with hatchets, machettes, and axes at my current level of skill.

my wife stumled along a picture of a forced air burner test I was doing and scolded me for it. There was a threat of supervision while I'm out "playing with hammers," but thats about as close as she comes to my garage. It's been like that since we got married. the garage is my place. I don't mess around in the house and she doesn't mess around in the shop.

I just lucked into a few SCBA tanks that firefighters use while in fires. The department upgraded to high pressure steel tanks and have not used the low pressure tanks of "the old days." I was given a few of them and really don;t need as many as they gave me. I know for sure that i will not be using two of them. I'm not sure what shipping costs, but I'd be more than happy to ship them to someone that wants them. I think they'd work GREAT for a vertical forge. the necked end as a base would allow for a slag drain. Thats my plan when i try making one into a forge in the near future. I do not have dimensions of them, but I'd guess about 6 or 7" in diameter and maybe 24" in height. follow link for picture similar to tank http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...I7DGUS%26sa%3DX

This is an awesome knife. At some point donw the road I'd like to make one similar to this. I like the rugged and unrefined look of it.

They sure do have some good pizza there. I had forgotten all about that place. I'll be back to MI in a month or so for some late doe season hunting. I might have to stop in and grap a pizza as I cross the state. My folks live on the west side of the state and the in-laws live on the east side. We almost always stop in EL for a bite to eat and to visit with any college friends that might happen to be in the area.

Folks, Last night bas a bit chilly in the garage and the thermostat is hard to reach because someone parked the boat right in front of it. It was easier to open up my ice fishing chest and grab my propane heater. I started it up and then it dawned on me that this is nothing more than a fancy burner on top of a venturi system. I quickly slid the burner off and then put a straight pipe on it with an air inlet hole. My pipe was copper as thats all i had handy, but it worked. Simply light and you're ready to go. These are available in sizes from small to large and in configurations of 1 to three burners. It seems to me that this is basically a pre-made forge burner. They can be purchases at sporting stores, fleet farm stores, even at wal-mart. It's something to look into. Included is a link to the site of the big name manufacturer. I purchased my heater years ago for about half the price. I think mine is "day-glo" brand. http://www.mrheater.com/productdetails.asp?catid=42

Where in Lansing are you located? I grew up outside of Lansing between Potterville and Grand Ledge. I also went to School at MSU. I"m back in Michigan about 8 or ten times a year for hunting, fishing, and visiting the family.

I've noticed this. It seems that all of the forge pics I've seen simple let this stuff sit there. Thats all good and well, but Thee has to be a better way. perhaps thats just the engineer in me trying to reinvent the wheel though. I'll likely flip a coil and try one of the aformentioned methods. The worst case scenario is that it doesn't work and then the forge will function just as everyone elses does. I just see it as a waste material building up. We don't simply fill a toilet and empty it when it's full. We plumb the stuff we don;t want away from our home. I see the forge as the same thing. Why not plumb it away? I'll be happy if the idea works, but I'm not going to count on it. I'm far too green on all of this to pretend to have a better way. It would be ncie though

I'm starting to think beyond the basics of making ym forge. I have most of the materials gathered. I still have to obtain the firebricks and the castable refractory. Once I have those pieces, I'll begin welding parts together. I want to have my bricks before welding so that i can cut doors and weld shelves in locations that allow the firebrick to be easily positioned. I've been thinking a bit about flux runoff. It is my understanding that this fulx is bad for the kaowool. The solution to this is to use a castable refractory to protect the kaowool. What happens to this flux after repeated use of the forge? I doubt it disappears or evaporates. Could one build a drain system of sorts to drain this liquid off? I'm envisioning a slightly dished floor in the forge that drains into a 1/4" hol that is plumbed out the bottom of the forge. It seems to me that this would work, but would likely clog up. Could this drain then be drilled out to re-open it, or would teh cooled flux be too hard? Alternatively. if the base of the forge cavity was slightly concave and sloped towards the open end it stands to reason that the flux would run right out the front of the forge and into/onto whatever device i weld up to collect it. Have any of you attempted to fabricate a similar feature? Any input or thoughts are appreciated. I'd like to make my first gas forge as user friendly as possible. My second forge is also in the design phase. I have constructed one forced air burner that works well and I plan to use on my first forge. I also have two venturi style burners that "work" one appears to be usable as is. the other makes an impressive flame, but has served it's purpose as a learning tool. It is not useful as is. It will take a bit more trial and error to get it dialed in. I do not have a lathe to make the parts as I want to, so I do a lot of welding. it's much harder to adjust a welded joint than unscrew a threaded joint.

I've opened up the live chat link a few times and nobody has been in there. Is this an unused feature? is there a certain time/day that folks tend to use this feature?

If it works for the crock pot, it should work for me. Thanks

Sweet fancy Moses. I just called to get a price on kaowool and was a bit shocked. I was expecting a price somewhat similar to standard insulation. Maybe double the cost or so. After hearing the local price I elected to bid on some through ebay and just buy my castable refractory and bricks through the local retailer. I plan to use 2" thick layers of kaowool for both forges. Have any of you tried using an adobe type of liner? I'm guessing that this is not as effective as athe kaowool. but it seems like it would work well enough. Any thoughts and comments on this? one wouldn't have to worry about flux damaging the liner :-D

Without the needle valve, I was able to produce and maintain a flame and vary it's coloration a little bit. There MAY be pics of this if I can figure out how to post them. If they don't show up, I'm sorry. This was produced at about 5psi running through a 1/8" inlet hole. I decided to try it with a hairdryer as the blower. I had my doubt regarding the flow rate of the dryer, but this was all done on the lowest setting and seemed to be enough. I had the gate valve on the air supply mostly closed. This is built to duplicate a forced air burner I saw online a Indian georges knives. The only difference with his and mine is the fact that Mine has a 12" mixing tube where his is 6." I can't imagine this would change performance much. This is a picture of the flame itself... Here is the layout... Here are the bits and pieces that will become the forge...

I licked out on a site visit today. I'm a mechanical/civil engineer that does building inspection all over the midwest. Today I was out to a large construction company in St. Cloud and they do a lot work in the undergound piping side of things. The shop foreman told me I could take whatever I wanted to out of teh scrap bin. They are all cut off pipes, scrap plate steel...etc. I got some random pieces of plate to use as ends of my (not yet built) gas forge. I alos picked up a couple pieces of thick walled steel pipe. One piece is 8" diameter but about 16" give or take a bit in length. I didn't put a tape on it. The other piece is 6" diamter by 12" length . I plan to use 2, one in thick layers of kaowool along ith some castable refractory and hard firebrick at the base. The insulated pipes should have an interior volume of about 200in^3 for the larger pipe. The 6" pipe will only have a 2" diameter opening with 2" of insulation. this seems a bit small to me, but would probably work grat for smaller blades. Any thoughts on which one to start with? My inkling is to set the larger pipe up with a forced air burner and get that operational. then I can tinker with the smaller one and a venturi style burner. I'm not sure how to guess at what size blower will be adequate. Will a hairdryer supply enough air? I can use an electric leaf blower, but that seems like overkill and I have a hunch I'll be chiking it way down with a valve to reduce flow. ideas or comments? I plan on putting the forced air burner together tonight. I I don't see any reason why I wouldn't be able to assemble it. I do not have the small needle valve. I'll make an attempt to get it running right using a gate valve for the air supply and a variable pressure regulator for the fuel side. When I get a chance to stop by the welding supply shop I'll order a valve.

I hadn't considered the possibilities of a hybrid burner. I've got a venturi style unit put together that needs a bit of testing and fine tuning. I might just as well try a hybrid set-up after I get it working. Before I start buying parts just to have them i want to get a few ideas tested out and then weld them up into the finished product. Ultimately, the amount of gas it consumes isn't a real big factor in the design. I'm looking for simple and effective with consistant results. I recognize that a fair bit of the consistancy rests firmly on my shoulders. I'm clearly not in a position to claim that i have the skill set to weld with consistancy, so I'd like to get the equipment set up to eliminate as many problems as possible. If nothing else, I get to do some tinkering and fabricating. This will give me some time to toss ideas around in my head before I just grab a hammer and start smashing hot steel. I'm at the point where i can view this as a fairly safe hobby, but i can see how this could rapidly spiral into addiction.

You've just sold me. Considereing my somewhat less than vast experience i nthis field, I'm going for simple and effective. My concern is with the welding itself. I got some GREAT procedural advice while down at Mike's place over the weekend. Now I just need a way to get the steel to that temperature in a more controlled manner. I don;t mind burning through a lot of propane to do it. I still have the charcoal for the heat and beat process. It looks like I'll be stopping by the hardware store on the way home to get a few more fittings. and random parts. thanks for the input,

you can litterally build anything to suit your needs. My first attempt at a forge was a brake drum from a large truck. i welded some legs on it and an air inlet out of 2" black pipe. i simply lit some charcoal and poured it in. i used an extra hairdryer that my wife ahd to force air into it. it worked well, but got too hot on the outside. I used 6" stove pipe as a kind of liner so i could make an adobe wall to insulate it a bit. i still have this forge, but i use it only for melting down aluminum and lead and what not. its too tough to get an even temperature along a blade. The next set-up I made was very similar to tim lively's forge. (google "tim lively forge") this works geat for forging knives. I have had a hell of a time welding with it though. Now this is due primarily to my lack of experience, but I have come to believe that solid fuel forges are not the ebst way to go. I'm in the process of fabricating a propane unit. For the charcoal forge, you really just need something to hold charcoal. once you have that, force air into it fro mthe bottom. use a leaf blower, hair dryer, floor drying fan..etc. anything will do. A lot of folks have used old gas grills. check on Craigslist in the free section. they're listed in there all the time. Good luck,

perhaps this has been covered before, but wouldn't a weed burner work just fine for a gas forge? You can get them cheap at 20 bucks a piece. most of then havea flow control valve on them as well. I'm thinking something similar to this. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/disp...temnumber=91033

I believe I'll try both methods. As soon as I got back from Mike's shop I started cutting, tapping, welding...etc. I cobbled a venturi style burner up in about 30 minutes only to find that my propane tank was nearly empty. I'll be filling both tanks in the enxt day or so and I'll test it out. I think I'll also test out the forced air set-up as well. Depending on how the tests go, I'll pick one or the other. I think I'm leaning towards the forced air at this point, but I don;t have any good reason for this. All of Mike's stuff is venturi style and it sure seems to work out just fine for him and the guys working in his shop. Heck, with the equipment he's got in there one of the guys manage to weld and draw out a billet a few times over and have working pattern welded stock in a few hours. I'm anticipating a few weeks of work to get to that point. I'm hoping that I'll have things a bit more set in my mind by the time the weekend rolls around. Thanks for your input and advice.

That looks pretty similar to what I'm thinking of. From what I've gathered reading through posts here and elsewhere, is that this forced air type of setup is no dependant upon orifice size. it is more dependant on pressure delivered via pressure reducing valve. What do you have your PRV set to and what is the final opening size where your propane is mixed in with that forced air? BTW, nice video. I feel bad for it, but I got a healthy chuckle out of it. I'd like to pretend I've never been in a similar situation, but I've gone from a beard to side-burns on more than one occasion.

This weekend I headed down to Mike Blue's place to take in a bit of information regarding metalsmithing. First of all, Mike is a great guy that was more than willing to answer all of my questions and point me in the right direction. Secondly, Mike introduced me to the world of gas forges. It didn't take me long to realize that this is the way to go for consistancy in welding. I'm in the planning stages of building my own small gas forge. I'm debating whether to go with a forced ait setup or a venturi set-up. I gather there are pros and cons both ways. Portability isn't an issue as my truck is wired for 120V power and can easily support the draw of a shop vac or other blower. I have a shop-vac that is already configured to be a hand held blower. It seems like this would be the way to go, but I am intrigued with the simplicity of the venturi type burners. Mike offered to sell me one of the burners that he made and I declined. I'd like to at least try to make it work myself before I buy the real thing. I get a bit of satisfaction out of the fabricating side of things. I presume that the forced air burners use less propane, but I do not know this to be the case. I also think that they would be a bit more adjustable via globe valve on the air supply. For the fuel side of them, I'm picturing a variable pressure regulator and also some sort of gas valve. I just looked through the forum for about an hour and a half or so, but I have to get at least a little bit of work done. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think one way or the other. I undertand if you don't want to take the time to comment as this has been covered before I'm sure. I'll continue to dig through the archives for the next few days before I begin assembling my parts. Thanks,

This is just personal preferance, but I prefer a nadle that is a bit larger towards the end and small near the blade. I'd be happy as a clam in 6' of mud if I could make a knife that compared to either of those. I like the look of the darker colored blades. Nice work!

The kife looks great. If I could make one that nice I'd be posting it here as well. The leatherwork isn't perfect, but as far as I'm concerned, that doesn't matter. A sheath is to keep the knife from cutting things you don;t want to be cut. if yours does that, then it's 100% functional. This is my rationale....you're better with leather than I am.

Thanks, I'll mix it up tonight and see what happens on my test piece.