Gilbert McCann

Ordered looking forward to playing with it. Probably San mai to reduce the area that needs to be ground. Specs look great.

That was an interesting process I enjoyed watching it. Got the wheels turning. Good visiting with you.

I'll try lemon juice Thank you

Did some handle work yesterday. My first time working with Bloodwood burl I should probably always wear gloves. I didn't, now after much scrubbing with orange pumice stuff and a brush my hands are dyed black with a hint of blue. The wife says oh that's nice. San mai Chef knife. This shot is after I wore a glove.

I was taught you could use muriatic or similar sodium bisulfate in my case to etch and see a pattern (in the welding process stacking etc) it etches nice and clean. Something else when I made my Cu mai it was suggested I use 30% muriatic acid 30% ferric chloride 30% distilled water I used something similar but diluted it quite a bit.

@Gary LThere's a shot of mine. It was very useful. I'm not sure about moving rapidly with the foot pedal but probably 2 or 3 squeezes per heat. I used 1 1/2×3/16 square tube,top cross bar was 1/2×2 flat bar.I tried to leave the top removable but kept breaking bolts. After welding the top cross bar on I had no more problems. Here are some of my dies and you can see what I connected to the pressure release. I like to think I weld better now

Hopefully I'll do some twisting tomorrow. It will be my second time with multi bars. Groceries and chores first.

My guess would be by hand hammering it's separating between layers especially if the outer layers were say 3/16 or less. I don't think it would take much to get some oxidation in there. I weld my San mai all the way around but I think at least adding a weld in the middle would increase your success.

Thank you very much Gentlemen. @Brian DoughertyI made this one through tang or take down style. Most of the handle work was done off the knife. To often I'll nick or scratch something in final finishing. This method was suggested to me in a recent lesson.

Ready for glue up. Chef knife with Random Damascus blade, stainless bolster ,red Cedar burl handle and a carved leather Saya.

Thank you Alan glad it's not just me. I did step up from my local stuff. I'll have to watch my Burrows DVD again for his recommendation.

I was wondering what am doing or not doing that makes my leather get a dirty sort of gray look? My hands were pretty clean and the leather wasn't wet more than an hour. I've had it happen before though it doesn't show through my dye so far. The leather was clean to start. Thank you

It gets hot just takes a long time. I'm impatient my little forge probably takes 6 minutes to get to welding temperature. Also not the best blower but it's good for my small ribbon burner forge. 20190117_173134.mp4

Hey Joshua. I think you need more burner I have a fluidized sand pot I was messing with it's about 10 ×36 inches with an 1 1/2 blown burner and it struggles to heat up. I was thinking about adding a second small burner.

From an 8lb sledgehammer to 5.77lb hammer. Forged an integral with a new friend last week and thought I would copy his hammer and make it a little lighter (his 6.5lb mine 5.77lb)