Joshua States

I took the day off and spent some time forging. A day's work in four photos. It doesn't look like much, but it sure feels like a lot.

You mean this thing? I forgot to post this pic. It's 8" diameter and 3/8" (maybe 1/2"?) thick.

I'm there already......

Minor progress, and I'm not sure I like this at all. I finished the forging on the guard. Then I made and fit the 5-piece spacer package. Two twist Damascus plates and three .04" nickel-silver plates.

You have a FB page? I thought FB was for old people....... I like that one. It has that look about it that says "frontier life" where everything had multiple uses and was sort of hybrid in form. Get over that. If someone wants it, sell it to them, as long as you feel confident that the HT is good, and it will perform as intended. Offer a return period and call it good. Don't think of it as a reject. Think of it as an experimental axe, which is exactly what it is.

Now you are thinking. I used to work in the music business, both as a musician and a techie. The best soloists in the Biz used say this about mistakes or bad notes. " If you play a bad note in a solo, play it again. People will think you meant to do it."

Nice work all around. That gate is magnificent.

Well, I really haven't a clue what I'm doing. I am hoping that 1" of wool with a layer of refractory slurry will be sufficient. I hope I have enough Mizzou

I purchased a roll of Superwool. It's 1" thick, 24" wide and 25 feet long. Cut to fit inside the bottom, line with chicken wire, and hold it to the tank with self-tapping screws. The pipe in the center is the burner. Today I made to top port (where the blade gets inserted) and a 2x2 vent. Tomorrow, I will try and put the lining on the top half.

A while ago I said I would make a HT forge for longer blades out of a well bladder tank. I started this project recently and thought I would show the process. I started with one of these two tanks And cut it in half with a angle grinder. Then I curved 6 pieces of 1/8" flat strap to make some tabs to locate the halves back together and welded them in place. The tank already had a nice 1" threaded connector welded in the center of the bottom. Most of these are built by bringing the burner in from the side at a funky angle to circulate the he

Nice one Alex. They are selling similar jigs online for $150+. Did you know that there is a protractor app for a smart phone that will let you set the angle of the stone against the angle of the knife?

I once brought this up to a young maker when he was trying to figure out what went wrong with his quenching. Yeah, he did 5 or 6 knives right after one another in a gallon can filled with canola oil. He couldn't understand why they came out with different hardnesses.

Yeah, that is the stuff right there. Great job on that one.

This may not be the most scientific method, but here's what I do. My quench oil tank is an 8" x 8" x 27" square tube. 5 gallons will fill this to within 4 inches of the top. Now quench oil burns off over time. So when it got down to about 12 inches deep, I replaced it. Took about 15 years to do that. I use Parks 50

I think you should be very proud of this one.