What did you do in your shop today?

[Garry Keown 1,010]

Three Old Westerns and two Light Hunters ready for the glue up. In the clamps now till tomorrow.

[Garry Keown 1,010]

Three of them all done today

[Garry Keown 1,010]

Had to change the motor on the power hammer today. Was more than a simple bolt inn as the hammer was really built round the 1 hp motor but it was a 5 amp draw and was trying to draw 5.5 amps so kept shutting down. The new motor is a 2 hp unit and was/is substantially larger so it was a bit of a shoehorn effort. Had to shift the hinges mounting plate back about 3 1/2 inches and that necessitated shifting the treddle as well which was all welded i place. The hinged mounting plate was held in with 1/4 in bolst so had to drilll and tap them and the stop plate in thier new positions. I did have to cut a section out of the brace to get the motor back far enough for the belt to tighten on the pulleys from its resting place where the belt was not egaged. Have it all sorted now and just waiting on the sparky to come in and wire it up.

The bolts holding the lower end of the initial pulley bearings had to be taken out, have the heads ground down to half thier thickness to all ow for the capacitor head of the motor to go back as close as possible to the plate brace.

You can see the stop against the mounting plate under the motor so it rests against this rather than the capacitor housing at the top of the motor

 

All back ready for a belt and awire up again.

[John N 266]

getting a few knives finished up, including this 'hipster' special with stabalised OSB handle! - will get some decent pics of what Im working on when there is some decent light! blade is stainless clad Aogami super blue steel.

 

https://imgur.com/8qDGAC9

 

[img]https://i.imgur.com/8qDGAC9.jpg[/img]

 

Edited September 19, 2020 by John N

[Garry Keown 1,010]

I started getting ready for the next project which includes a knife to  with a leather stack handle so made a couple of cutters to make the leather washers. Used a length of heavy wall tube and heated it in the forge to allow for driving it down over the taper, then flattened the sides slightly and sharpen. The smaller one will cut a lightly ovalled disc that is 1 1/8 by 7/8 for the front and rear handle size and the larger one will cut 1 1/1/4 x 1 for the larger center ones.

 

 

 

[Alan Longmire 2,867]

Great idea!

[John N 266]

.

Edited September 20, 2020 by John N
i give up, imgur not working for me. no pics

[Garry Keown 1,010]

15 minutes ago, John N said:

.

If you are trying to upload a pic John, take a screen grab and post that. Simple to do on the computer but dont knoqw about a ph

 

[Chadd S. 10]

After failing to heat treat that 1095 blade I was working on forever I started a new one. It's 1080, hopefully even I can't screw up heat treating it, but we'll see. It's a little 3 finger edc and despite the usual mistakes (plunge lines and bevels) I quite like it. Gonna use some olive drab micarta scales and hope and pray the heat treat goes well. 

 

Also, hand sanding for 2 hours is painful. Should have gotten a progression of belts instead of just 40 and 120 grit. Lesson well learned.

[Gilbert McCann 72]

Well not today but yesterday glued up a chef knife with a new tip fixture I copied off Instagram sorry can't remember the persons name. Today I spent an hour forging out this billet once it was up to heat from just under 6 inches to 15. If I had the press I'm going to build the initial drawing would have been faster. 

[Garry Keown 1,010]

Some blades done today with a new eating knife for when we go into the city once a week and have a meal at one of the hotel dining rooms which like many of these places have knives that are less than I have become used to so I retrieved a reject 15n20 (carbon steel) blade from the drawer and reprofiled it to my table knife pattern. Drilled new handle pin holes and ground it after the heat treat. Have a set of impala jigged buffalo horn scales epoxied and clamped to blue liners overnight for fitting tomorrow.
On the Safari Blade I wanted to try something a bit different and drilled my 3 pin makers mark right through the blade and after heat treat and finish grind, countersunk the holes and peened in brass pinstock. With it also being stone washed, I will be looking at options formthe handle matertila to complement the stone wash with brass.

The two KA Bar builds  are shown elsewhere.

 

Edited September 22, 2020 by Garry Keown

[Chadd S. 10]

I finally had a successful heat treat thanks to all the great info around here. That recalessence or decalescence  (I forget which is which) Alan explained seemed to be the key. But then I miiiiiight have over tempered it a bit. Oh, well. I'm still calling it a win.

[jake cleland 450]

Made a card mockup for an uncoming commission...

 

 

 

[Brian Dougherty 1,228]

Dayum Jake.  That'll be a nice WIP! <nudge>

[Alan Longmire 2,867]

Oh, my!  Yep, WIP, please?

[Clifford Brewer 372]

Plus one on a WIP...............

[Jerrod Miller 479]

6 hours ago, Chadd S. said:

I finally had a successful heat treat thanks to all the great info around here. That recalessence or decalescence  (I forget which is which) Alan explained seemed to be the key. But then I miiiiiight have over tempered it a bit. Oh, well. I'm still calling it a win.

 

Congrats!  Don't forget that you can always re-quench and temper.  

[Chadd S. 10]

1 hour ago, Jerrod Miller said:

 

Congrats!  Don't forget that you can always re-quench and temper.  

Thanks Jerrod. I know I can re-quench but I was hoping I wouldn't have to. The blades mostly blue, which I suspect is too much. Not sure how the toaster oven got that hot. Shouldn't be able to get above 450 degrees, though I know they fluctuate pretty wildly even though I had it set a bit under 400. I guess I'll have to make some modifications to it.

[AJ Chalifoux 57]

8 hours ago, Chadd S. said:

Thanks Jerrod. I know I can re-quench but I was hoping I wouldn't have to. The blades mostly blue, which I suspect is too much. Not sure how the toaster oven got that hot. Shouldn't be able to get above 450 degrees, though I know they fluctuate pretty wildly even though I had it set a bit under 400. I guess I'll have to make some modifications to it.

 

Coloration is a byproduct of both temperature and time. If you hold a piece of steel at 350F for eight hours straight, it'd probably turn blue too. It's also just oxidation, so if the toaster oven was in a breezy area or had a fan, that could shift the color. Residual oils and other contaminants from your hands or grinding can also impact it. These are all reasons why tempering by color is generally pretty inaccurate.

Edited September 23, 2020 by AJ Chalifoux

[jake cleland 450]

16 hours ago, Brian Dougherty said:

Dayum Jake.  That'll be a nice WIP! <nudge>

 

15 hours ago, Alan Longmire said:

Oh, my!  Yep, WIP, please?

 

12 hours ago, Clifford Brewer said:

Plus one on a WIP...............

I'll try and document as I go. May have a trial run at the basket next week. My forge doesn't get hot enough to weld mild to mild consistently, so my plan at the moment is to braze all the parts together. I figure I can dovetail all the main joints off the main guard and cold peen them tight,  and wire up the butt joints at the top. If I get everything tight, hopefully when I come to braze on the saltires and other decoration the braze shouldn't want to run out of the other joints too much, and I figure I can flux everything and have some filler rod handy... It just seems too complicated to try and do it all in a single brazing operation...

[Alan Longmire 2,867]

1 hour ago, jake cleland said:

It just seems too complicated to try and do it all in a single brazing operation...

 

I agree.  That's where an acetylene torch with a small tip is very handy.  I'd love to watch one of the old smiths back in the late 1600s - early 1700s make one of those baskets.

[jake cleland 450]

8 minutes ago, Alan Longmire said:

 

I agree.  That's where an acetylene torch with a small tip is very handy.  I'd love to watch one of the old smiths back in the late 1600s - early 1700s make one of those baskets.

No acetylene, sadly, but my dad has a good half inch propane torch which might put out enough heat for small joints. Figure I'll get the main joint's done first and see how that goes...

[Conner Michaux 274]

Plenty of work to be done but this is one is looking great so far. 

[Brian Dougherty 1,228]

Got this thing hand sanded up to 220 (almost, still a few machine scratches to get out yet) and did a quick test etch.  Pretty happy with the look so far...

[Gilbert McCann 72]

@Brian Dougherty That's really looks good. I worked on a chef knife a bit. Today I forged a San mai billet and split a billet for the first time and of course learned some lessons.