Joshua States

As for hammer head stock, I was considering this. https://www.blacksmithsdepot.com/4140-hammer-head-blanks.html

Good to see you back John. Have you seen this site?: http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=129&tab=3 They have several machines called "wrapping rolls" or "bending rolls". Not sure if that's what you have.

I have a similar aspiration, and am eager to see responses.

Well done sir! A ribbon burner is a wonderful thing. I have had mine for about 10 years now. I probably should cast a new one. My forge is developing cold spots.

ABS MS Brion Tomberlin is always posting links on FB to accounts that steal photos of other makers' works and try to get him to accept a friend request. It is amazing how many people accept FB friend requests from unknown people. Brion also posts a short phrase something like "26 mutual friends. Be more careful folks". This is one of the bad things about social media. If your account is public, anyone can see whatever you post and copy the photo. Then they can pass it off as their own work. This is why I have two FB pages. One is mostly personal stuff and I will post some WIP shots a

Hmmmm.........decisions to make. Who's in this year?

I actually work for the Planning Department. I sometimes find myself telling people "of course there's a form to fill out, this is government." Luckily enough, the form does not have to be filled out in triplicate, sent in, queried, sent back, resubmitted, subjected to public inquiry, lost, found again, buried in soft peat for 3 months, and eventually recycled into fire lighters.......unless of course, you are asking for a refund of fees.

Somewhere on this forum is a long thread from someone who built and oil fired forge. IIRC, it was quite detailed in the build process and was a successful project. Using the site search engin and looking for "oil forge", and "oil burner", choosing "content titles only", and "find all of my search terms", yeilded these threads: Oil burner forge. - Tools and Tool Making - Bladesmith's Forum Board (bladesmithsforum.com) Neat little oil forge blower - Beginners Place - Bladesmith's Forum Board (bladesmithsforum.com) Maybe they can help you out.

I use my Paragon oven for both the quench and the temper. This means I have to wait for the oven to cool down in between the two processes. I purchased a fairly good quality IR thermometer gun, and while i wait for the oven to cool, I leave the door open. This gives me a nice little table I can lay 2 or 3 blades on to "soak up" some heat. I simply wait until the temp of the door (right in front of the open oven) reads approximately my tempering temperature and lay the blades on the oven door. I have found this to be the equivilent of the "snap temper" Joel mentions. The process invaribly bring

Parsha, I make a lot of frame handles. They are my favorite. Check out this thread. It is a little more complicated as it starts by showing a Damascus frame, but the second page shows a plain flat stock frame. As Alan pointed out, the technique is basically the same. In that case, I would go with something more like this. Full tang with stainless bolsters and stabilized wood for the scales.

".....whose ape-descendant lifeforms are so vastly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."

Go man go!

This. This is the determining factor. What is your daily life's needs for a knife? Mine are probaly very different from yours, and I used carry two knives daily, because my needs changed dramatically during the day. Now I can get by with a single folder with a narrow, 4 inch blade. If I were to carry a sheath knife on a daily basis, it would be this one, that I made a few years back.

The knife is very cool, but it is overshadowed by that sheath! Dang nice carving jake.

Many of us are plagued with this problem........some of us don't forge our san-mai and rely on stock removal to cover up the failure in technique. Looking pretty good Faye!