Matthew Stone

Thank you. It's a start I suppose. I ment to do some plain stainless san mai. But I got sidetracked. Again & again. Since I got a new forge a couple months back. I've been bouncing all over the place with what I've been doing. Everything from this to random damascus to some Merovingian. It's all fun!

Noted. I'll do that on the next go round. Thank you for the tip.

This started out as a goofing around project & has kinda gone off in it's own direction. I've never attempted to do san mai before, let alone cable san mai, or cable anything either. We restrung a crane at work a month or two back & I snagged 10m or so of the old take off. It was free, so why not. No idea of material type though, but its 12mm cable. I cut 6 sections of cable roughly 100mm long. So its 3 peices on each side of a 1095 core. Welded the ends to the core & a tack midway down on either side. Then with absolutely no idea what I'm doing I went to the fire. This is where I'm at now. Did a quick grind to 240 to see what's going on. Inclusions here and there. Cores not to straight. Need to draw out the tang more. Bevel or bevel & etc. I'm thinking a small chisel ground herb chopper or something similar. Any pointers from those whose done this before is greatly appreciated.

I'm inclined to agree with you assessment. Been mulling over ideas most the night & have come down to this. A: continue as planned. Cut stack & weld. 50 / 50 shot. B: chalk it up to a learning experience & hang it on the wall as is. C: make a kiridashi out of what I've got. I think with some careful layout & grinding I could get a smallish kiridashi out of this bar. Got a guy who's been after one anyways. Probably going to go with C & start a regular stack for the Sgian Duhb. I don't have a time frame to get it done.

I'm probably going to have to cut this apart, restack, & forge weld it. Ive got some rather deep inclusions or cracks, all in the 1084. Ive never tried twist damascus from a can before, so there's a good shot I did something wrong or missed something. Ground it down to a quick 240 grit & a ten minute dip to see what I've got. I may just might be able to below my problem area on the flats. Not so sure of the edges though.

I find it funny, I drive by Springfield leather almost daily & completely forget that they exist. I've ordered expensive leather online, when its just a few minutes from the front door of the house. I feel stupid now. It is a very nice bit of work you've done. I hope to get to your level someday.

Knew I'd forgotten to put a picture in there. I havent done enough cannister damascus to have real good idea when to cut the can. More or less just intuition at this point for me. I'm slowly gathering materials to build a press which should greatly aid with cannisters & most other forging for that matter.

Finally got enough other crap done & stuff to show up to get going on this. Decided to do some 1084 & random odds and inns 15n20 cannister damascus. Used a piece of 50mm x 50mm square tube, 75mm or so long. Went this way for one simple reason. Got a new welder & I wanted to play with it, so I made a can. A birthday present to myself, that I've been waiting on for years. The old one was a super turd. Got into the fire last night to do the initial weld & yup, this works so much better with the new forge. I still wish I had a press. Today I squared it up, drew it out, & twisted some. Then started to square it again. The arm finally said enough.

I was planning to fit it to her at 250-255mm OAL. So I'd have a bit to play with. She likes the Texas Ebony a lot. So its a solid choice, but I've found a new peice of wood this morning. Needed to kill a few minutes waiting on a loading dock. Walked over to the wood shop & found this. Haven't found any this nice locally in a long time.

Primarily for just general use. She thinks paring knives to be to small & chefs knives to be to big. So I'm hoping to land in the middle somewhere. She's not a big woman & has delicate hands. Add in one arm that's all but useless, kitchen jobs give her a lot of grief. I'm hoping a blade suited to her will help her to get some self esteem & confidence back. Since invariably someone will ask, she's got nerve damage from an illness that affects her left arm. Sometimes it works, other times it don't. Ive got a whole trees worth of maple out back I've been working through. Was probably 10-15m tall when it fell & 1.5m in diameter. Most of its been to punky to use, but some is looking promising. This price ain't from it. I bought 7 or 8 years back & forgot it in a box until a couple weeks ago. I'm tempted to send a chunk off to be stabilized. I think the end grain would look nifty on something..

So I've been absolutely squat lately while waiting on some new equipment to show up. I decided to give some attention to a shelved project for the wife. I'm really hoping a new kitchen knife will help soften the blow when the price tag of my nifty new welder hits the bank statement. I'm not very hopeful though when combined with the new forge as well. Anywho. This is for her, since the little heathens keep "losing" her kitchen knives. It's one of the first blade shaped things I forged a while back & then got side tracked by people who'd pay for stuff. Can't remember what type steel. Probably 1095, A485-1, or 5160. Currently 245mm in length & 3mm thick in the spine. It heat treated well in canola oil & tempered at 450° F for 2 hours. Only sanded to 240 at the moment. Not really set on handle material as yet. I like the Texas Ebony under it in the picture, but she's partial to Wenge & Maple of sort. Ive got a crap ton spalted birds eye maple. So maybe that. As always. Opinions & pointers are welcome.

I have on one machinist forum, but I don't believe it was that one. I'll have to check. Thank you.

Good catch. I'm hoping to stay at 1hp since that is what it already is. But I'm not set in stone on that. I'll give the site you showed a look. Ebay has been a busy. I can find spindles but no motors so far.

Afternoon folks. I've got myself a grinder problem that is rather far outside of my realm of knowledge that I'm at a stand still. Some background: A few weeks back I bought a old used surface grinder from a machine shop acquaintance of mine. He had bought a new surface grinder as this one was always under powered for his needs (I now know why). He was going to just pitch the whole thing in the scrap bin & be done with it. Mag chuck & all. Now I like putting my blades on a mag chuck for filing. Also good for taking the occasional slight warp from a blade right after heat treat. My buddy wouldn't let me just grab the mag chuck & be done with it. No, I had to buy the hole blasted machine. He figured it weighs half a ton (more like almost 2 tons, don't ask how I know that now). So I gave $80usd for a 6"x18" mag chuck. Which is a great deal, the new 4"x10" cost me 3 times that. Now is where my issues start. I can't just pitch a perfectly good machine. When else in life am I gonna score a surface grinder for 80 bucks. So I'd like to get this puppy running. But I'm no electrician. The machine is a early 60's DoAll D-618. But it was ment for Europe or Canada. The motor is wired for 550v 3ph. Which is why it seemed sluggish for my friend. He was running 440v 3ph. Unfortunately for me, I've only got 240v 1ph at the most. Now I'm familiar enough with rotary phase converters & vfd's to purchase the right one to get be the phase problem. I do not know enough about transformers to be able to power the thing with the available power supply. I've thought about a new or replacement 240v 3ph motor run through a vfd. I've no idea where to look for a motor for something so old (granted my truck is only a few years newer). Ive exhausted my local resources & quite frankly, Google & I don't like each other much. I've asked this question elsewhere without success. But hey, maybe this time someone can tell me how to build a transformer or where to get a new motor. I know the machine works, I used it a few times in my friends shop. Everything functioned great & the ways were scraped a couple years back. So they are immaculate still. The hydraulics could use some attention, but I'm happy to run it manual. Thank y'all for any insight or assistance & apologies for the mess. My wife was spring cleaning.

My humble addition. My little little one man smithy (mostly blacksmithing & now working into blades) is called Florentine Fire. The art & craft of the Italian renaissance has been a inspiration to me since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Especially that originating in the city of Florence. So my mark is also a tribute to the city. Was adding a FF on either side, but it looked tacky.