jheinen

Wow. This is exactly the kind of blade I hope to be able to make some day! Beautiful work. -Jeff

Hmm...The Evenheat KF 18 I'm looking at is quite a bit more expensive that the jewelry kilns ($1200 vs. $800). The heat treat oven will let you program a heat treating cycle, while the kiln basically only lets you heat up to a certain temperature and that's it.

So as fortune would have it, my wife has taken in interest in jewelry making. She took a couple of classes, and she learned about PMC metal clay. Now she wants to buy a kiln so she can make stuff at home. I immediately seized on this opportunity and explained that for a few dollars more, we could get a heat treating oven that is essentially a better and more accurate kiln, that would also let me heat treat blades. My question is, am I blowing smoke? I just assumed that an Evenheat oven will do everything that she needs a kiln to do, but will also let me heat treat blades. -Jeff

That's a masterpiece. A true work of art. Well done.

I was monkeying around with my new forge tonight and got a little too close to the dragon's breath. Burning beard REALLY stinks! -Jeff

Heh. Yeah, that is part of the plan. I just had to fire it up though. Today I set down some firebrick in the cart the forge is on, and put a couple of bricks across the back opening. I think it will easily get to welding heat at around 15 psi. I've been waiting for my truck to get out of the shop so I can take a bunch of crap to the dump so I can clear out space for my smithing equipment. I also have to run 220v in the garage for my grinder. My bandsaw was delivered today, but that's staying in the crate until I can make more room. -Jeff P.S. speaking of my truck (RAM 1500 diesel), it

FWIW, I live in a suburban area with a fairly draconian HOA (I get fined if my grass is 1/4" too long). If you use a gas forge and bed your anvil in silicone caulk it shouldn't be a problem. I have the forge in my garage and open the garage door when I fire up the forge. My neighbor's Harley is louder than anything I do in the forge.

I got my new Majestic forge last night and fired it up for the first time. Picked up some firebrick this morning to put down in the cart as a base.

I made this anvil stand today for my new railroad track anvil. It's made out of stacked 2X12's. I still need to put a bar of steel across the front and back to serve as tool holders. The anvil is an 11" piece of railroad track. I'm on the hunt for a real anvil, but haven't had any luck finding anything good.

Sam here. Would love to see the photos.

Hmm...incorporate the hole into the design...interesting idea! I'll have to think about that. Thanks Brian!

You can't see it in the picture, but the hole goes almost completely through the blade.

Good lord that is beautiful! I hope that someday I can produce a blade half that amazing.

I'm not quite sure how to make them bigger in the post. If you click on the image, it opens a larger high-res version.

Hi everyone, I'm new here and this is my first post. I first got a taste of smithing on my grandfather's farm more than 30 years ago. I recently took some classes at Pratt Fine Art institue here in Seattle, and have been seriously bitten by the bug. I've started setting up a forge in my garage, and look forward to a big project this summer which will be building a press. I got the Batson book and will be making one similar to the "C" press described in the book. Most recently I took a damascus steel class and forged a couple of billets. I've started grinding out a blade from the first