What did you do in your shop today?

[jheinen]

1 hour ago, Gabriel James said:

That Micarta Looks nice Jheinen! What kind of cloth did you use? I got a file guide tapped and rough ground. Gonna take it to the machine shop tomorrow to throw on their pressure plates to see how close i got it ground in my platen. Building a gas kiln, additions to my gasser, organizational doo-hickeys! wahoo..!

I think it was Brian who made the micarta

[Gabriel James]

6 hours ago, jheinen said:

I think it was Brian who made the micarta

lol, my excuse is going to be......... Hmmm.... The sun was in my eyes!

[Brian Myers]

Lol it's made from heavy paper actually. Four pieces per color per layer. 

[Jan Ysselstein]

I had a look at what CFM Volume my blower is producing at various settings...then I looked up the gas volume per gallon of propane and the air to propane mix ratio for a propane flame. The air volume gave me an estimated propane use rate ( my actual usage will be a few percent higher as I run a touch on the rich side).

The test was interesting as I run between 10 and 20 CFM of air at welding heat and can go slow as 2 to 3 CFM during heat treating.

Propane ratio to air volume is 24:1 air to propane   the gas volume for a gallon of propane is 35.5 CF/gallon of propane.

The procedure for testing the flow rate is to take a 42 gallon plastic bag..pinch the opening with one hand and place the hose in with the blower on ( seal by pinching off exits and look at the clock)..when the bag is about full call it 40 gallons and do it again.

Comparing these estimates to actual usage experience found them to correlate quite well.

 

Edited April 13, 2017 by Jan Ysselstein

[Karim]

Preview of my small dagger

[Brian Myers]

Made some new micarta in green, black and tan. I'm hoping for a cool camo effect when I shape it like the red and black I showed before. That went on one of my skinning knives. A little crooked, I think I had the tan cardstock a bit over-sized for my press. But I'll put that to the outside and most of it will be ground off. 

[Joshua States]

I tried (and I think succeeded) to make my first bird-mouth or fish lip weld on a multi-bar project. Here is the starting cut in the 1-1/4" x 3/8" bar.

I took it up to a red heat and closed it together, fluxed it, brought it to welding heat, and set the weld in the swage block pan.

It looked like it took.........

But, this project has given me more trouble than I care to mention. So, I let it cool and ground it down a bit. Just to make sure.

[Brian Dougherty]

That looks pretty well welded to me Joshua, congrats!

[Brian Madigan]

I burned my shop up! 

 

[Geoff Keyes]

That looks, uh, crispy.  Everyone OK? 

Geoff

[Chris C-S]

4 hours ago, Brian Madigan said:

I burned my shop up! 

I posted a sincere response on the shop safety page, but on the 'What did you do in your shop today thread' your one liner, "i burned my shop up!" made me laugh pretty hard. Good luck with the re-build. 

[GEzell]

5 hours ago, Brian Madigan said:

I burned my shop up! 

 

Ah, that sucks...

[steven smith]

Did some work on my 2x72" grinder today, it works but the belt slips on the drive wheel so I'll just slap something on there with a bit more traction than the ply wood drive wheel. There is only one wheel and it is a contact wheel and it's about 12", I made it by sticking two potters wheels together, you should see the thing it's pretty awful looking.

its powered by a big electric motor with a reducing gearbox so it's got lots of torque but the belt runs slow, I've always hated my harbor freight grinders light speed belt because it really sucks for miniature knives and swords. If I'm working on a 1/4 scale blade my errors are still the same size but they look four times as bad, so it's nice to be able to put a blade on a nice slow belt and have some time to be precise. 

I can do a lot with just a contact wheel, I did most of my material removal on the top wheel of my old harbor freight 1x30" back when the wheels on those were aluminum, the plastic ones now are bumpy. So I'll do a lot of grinding with my eater of worlds slow as a cows jaw 2x72 and get stuff a little flatter on the 1x30 platen, though there is room for a platen on the 2x72! Maybe I'll get one on the beast tomorrow!!

 

no more stalled motors! No more ruined grind lines!!! I can hollow grind tools and make a nice razor! The feel of grinding a knife on a wheel is incredible and free, I wish I had a 12' stone wheel, but I'm sure those are all gone now, or at least very far from me... But I thought the 2x72 was very far from me, and I'm pretty much the only thing that I might let keep me from these things!

[Austin_Lyles]

As a few might know, I'm moving soon, however I still have some forge time, or stock removal if we want to get technical. This little teenie knife was a practice session for both hollow grinding and doing a double grind (?) for the false edge. Learning a little, screwed up a lot. I usually don't hollow grind and think it's a new "fad" that people like. All in all I feel this little prototype (if you will) may have some hope for future sales. Let me know what yall think!

[Charles dP]

That's a beautiful little knife Austin

[Chris C-S]

19 hours ago, Charles du Preez said:

That's a beautiful little knife Austin

+1 - Nice looking blade. 

[owen bush]

ground hog today...yesterday i thought I had finished a sword blade and guard and pommel, today I gave it a swing around and with the aid of some scales and a grinder put it on a diet single edged viking at 2lb 13.5oz pob at 15cm(6") up the blade...A full days work to undoo yestedays finishing and remove 1/4lb in a carefull measuerd methodical way, and then refinish and etch.....now 2lb 9.5oz pob 12cm 5". feels like a diferent beastie.

 

I am always too eager to etch.......must not be too eager.

 

all finished yesterday...

 

and refinishde ...ready for a handle.

[Alan Longmire]

Ooh, nice!  are the stripey bits in the guard and pommel just etching, or are they pattern-weld?

[owen bush]

28 minutes ago, Alan Longmire said:

Ooh, nice!  are the stripey bits in the guard and pommel just etching, or are they pattern-weld?

the latter, tried it a few years ago and they came out squiggly due to forging and my misunderstanding material deformation, would be cool with twists and straight...but not enough time in the world!

 

[SteveShimanek]

Got fluorescent lights installed and working; I bought used red tag fixtures from the store, and 3 out of 4 had bad ballasts, which i changed.....still saved over 1/2 the cost of new fixtures.

[Chris C-S]

On 4/30/2017 at 8:40 AM, Brian Myers said:

Made some new micarta in green, black and tan. I'm hoping for a cool camo effect when I shape it like the red and black I showed before. That went on one of my skinning knives. A little crooked, I think I had the tan cardstock a bit over-sized for my press. But I'll put that to the outside and most of it will be ground off. 

 

Hey @Brian Myers that is a classic set of camo colors. Looks schweet, have you used it yet? Can i assume making this stuff is significantly cheaper than buying? You can DM if its easier than clogging this thread with idle chit chat. 

[Chris C-S]

In my shop this weekend, i started a pair of knives for my son and I. I also acquired a new piece of kit, a Bench top 'Friggin Laser' *raising pinky to mouth* guided drill press. Oh yeah, no more crooked holes for me.

[Brian Myers]

It is a lot cheaper! I can make a set of scales for pennies on the dollar lol. As for what I did with it, I have mixed feelings. The handle feels good in the hand, but because I didn't jig the handle, I feel it looks more like Spectra plywood than camo lol. I later made a leather pouch sheath for it because I didn't like the kydex. You can look in the knives for sell section for a better look. 

Edited June 6, 2017 by Brian Myers

[steven smith]

Heat treated a bunch on blades last night, two of them were straight out of the forge with no grinding or filing or sanding done to them! I don't think I've done that before. 

No warps or cracks! It's grinding time

theres a little Bowie, a yari kanna, a mini wakizashi/tanto, a little seaxish thing, an integral bolster blade, and two other blades that are different from the rest. Lots of variety.

ive also been making some low layer Damascus billets for my miniatures, mostly packing strap with %.4-.5 carbon but also some with lower carbon strap in the mix. I wish I could do one giant billet, squish it down to 3/8" thick and very wide, and then just cut that into strips for miniatures. 

ALSO, I found my mini forge! It's maybe two and a half inches wide by four inches on the inside, it's perfect for heat treating small to medium blades and it's just what I need for forging miniatures. I can turn my regulator so low I could probably forge for a few days without stopping and still have fuel for heat treatment! It's the forge I did all my heat treating in last night.

I think I can try some miniature double edge swords with pinstripe Damascus cores now that I have some stock welded up. Oh, but this is the "what did you do today" thread, not the "how much steel will you burn up and waste tomorrow" thread.

[Kreg Whitehead]

This is my latest blade....number 4. Not sure whether to call her good there as far as the hamon polishing goes. Or sand it down and metal polish it again..