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What did you do in your shop today?


Joshua States

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Yikes, Martin! :o There are less painful ways to get a helicopter ride, you know...  hope it heals well and you don't lose any hand dexterity!  They can do wonders with surgery these days.

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Thanks, the team of surgeons are positive that I'll make a full recovery, ironically I caught my overall sleeve caught while turning off the industrial size belt grinder I was using, a press of a button, a large jolt and a chopper ride later, 

Already planing and trying to draw left handed in my hospital bed 

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finished riveting up basket hilt attempt number three. Finally got one I'm pretty happy with. my original plan was to braze it after riveting, but honestly the risk/reward doesn't seem worth it...

 

basket 50.jpg

 

basket 51.jpg

 

basket 52.jpg

 

basket 53.jpg

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Jake Cleland - Skye Knives

www.knifemaker.co.uk

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."

 

Albert Einstein

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It has been taking me quite a long time to get to anything at my work shop, but I finally did some simple upgrades to get my garage shop set up a little quicker.  I didn't get to work on anything stupendous, just more tongs and getting ready for making some little stuff to gift out over the year. 

 

I've been neglecting a tool on my hammer rack that after some reading of an old e book is a little more important than to just leave it hanging there.  A flatter for some final refinement.  This is a lower jaw of what I'm going to fab up into 1 1/2 box jaw tongs.

20220619_173722.jpg

 

The other side came out just about as well, but for a little cold shut that I did not totally remove with the rasp. I made these nibs by the twist method thinking it would save a little bit of time. The upper boss and nib, I like to make my box jaws with a bow in them as it give a little bit of variety in what stock sizes it can hold comfortably without having to readjusts them.  I find that the other set I made of these set for 1/4 will hold up to 3/8 pretty comfortably. 

20220619_173727.jpg

 

However I'm also showing my lack of practice as I did not notice until the pieces were cooled and set them together that I did not pay attention and twisted the nibs in opposite directions. back in the fire one of them will go.

Edited by Daniel W
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Trying my hand at canister welding ........for got the air hole luckly i think i can scavange enough for some san mi the next one will be better also smaller nuts

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Brandon Sawisch bladesmith

 

eagles may soar but weasels don't get sucked in to jet engines

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Looks like a good start to canister welding.

 

My MIG welding skill is poor enough that I don't actively leave an air hole in my canisters.  There just always is one  ^_^

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-Brian

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She was breathing fire when i finished welding buuuuut not enough if it had puffed out any more it might not have fit out the forge door

 

I am pretty sure i can get something useful out of it so its still a win 

Brandon Sawisch bladesmith

 

eagles may soar but weasels don't get sucked in to jet engines

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Another attempt at a bronze sword hilt. Didn't work out, but was educational. The wood is alder, which I harvested some years ago. Unfortunately after I burned in the tang, there was still a drying crack there, making this one unusable. So I split it open, to see how the inside looked. As I've experienced before, the effect of the burning is paper thin. A tenth of a mm below the surface the wood is completely unaffected.

 

Burning in the tang. The wood is kept wet in between burns. The tang is heated to below red (though in broad day light):

P1250150.JPGP1250171.JPG

The split handle:

20220625_161220.jpg20220625_161216.jpg

The hilt tang was burned in sufficient to cut the end to the right profile.

 

The wood cut across, showing the depth of the burn near the end, which is exposed to the most burns:

20220625_174147.jpg

 

Anyway, back to another attempt, and better checking for drying cracks in the next piece of wood that I use. I did make some domed washers for the rivets. So at least a little progress was made :) 20220625_223744.jpg

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Jeroen Zuiderwijk

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/barbarianmetalworking

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I did four hearth runs, all wagon tire scraps charge as one piece each, stuck vertically in the fire:

979C6F7B-238C-40BA-B3A9-4ECEFD638989.jpeg

 

I also decided to cook a steak!

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I was skeptical when I first heard of this method, but it’s not a crazy as it looks!

 

5879F3BE-29AE-4071-A310-67B12D5537F3.jpeg63F3009A-21FD-4D65-B96B-EF57EEB4FDDA.jpeg

No ash really stuck and it mostly just tasted like steak. 

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Done. The blade is actually ball bearing encased in AK5 stainless, which I first overforged somehow, as its quite bit softer under hammer than 52100 and then it etched also quite dark, which I didnt expected. The chloride eats it like nothing. Well well. Next time.

klinok dlja tolji.jpg

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2 hours ago, Jaro Petrina said:

Done. The blade is actually ball bearing encased in AK5 stainless, which I first overforged somehow, as its quite bit softer under hammer than 52100 and then it etched also quite dark, which I didnt expected. The chloride eats it like nothing. Well well. Next time.

 

That's a very cool shadow effect.  I like it!

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Started another basket hilt for my dad's birthday in August. He'd made a blade for one maybe 15 years ago, but never got any further, so I borrowed it from him. It's a reproduction of the William Cleland sword from the 1670's, which was owned by a distant ancestor. It's an older style, and I figured it would be easier to make as it's simpler, but it turns out that trying to make a faithful copy of a particular piece is much more challenging than just making something in the same general style, as you're trying to intentionally reproduce a bunch of stuff that just kinda happened by accident on the original. This is made worse by the fact that I'm working from the only pics of the sword which are pretty low-res and both from the same angle....

 

cleland 5.jpg

 

cleland 6.jpg

 

finished the hot-work on the rear guard, rear bars and pommel (or so I thought - forgot to set down the finials of the rear guard  where the attach to the rear bars - I'll try and get to that once I've had coffee...). Still a lot of cold tweaking to get them all to sit right, The pommel is forged in two halves from tube. Once they've sat in vinegar for a day or two to get the worst of the scale off, I'll file the mating surfaces clean and braze them together.

 

The original:

 

cleland.jpg

 

cleland 2.jpg

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Jake Cleland - Skye Knives

www.knifemaker.co.uk

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."

 

Albert Einstein

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OK, wait a minute...   You are making a basket hilt to put on a blade your father made that is a recreation of a distant ancestors sword in a museum?  That is cool in so many dimensions!

 

If we are ever in the same place together, the first dram is on me. 

Edited by Brian Dougherty

-Brian

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This is getting somewhere. I found out that it's 14 years since I cast this blade. The blade was cast using a bronze age process, while I was still doing living history in Archeon. Back then the intention was to also finish the sword with authentic means. But the cast was not refined enough to do that, and would have cost me a hundred hours or so to finish the blade alone to a good enough reproduction. But with modern files it's a piece of cake. I rough ground one surface. The other side requires some more material removal, so I first take the mechanical shape corrector (angle grinder) to it, before I'll start filing.

 

The hilt is done, except for oiling. It's always interesting to see what you end up with, starting from a log of wood. Back in the day these swords started out as some stones from far across the see and a tree. It never fails to amaze that they actually did that 3500 years ago, without all the modern stuff to make it easy.

P1260276.JPG

Edited by Jeroen Zuiderwijk
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Jeroen Zuiderwijk

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/barbarianmetalworking

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I had a problem with the blade I was working on and had to make another. The upsweep on the blaxe turned into a bade downsweep and while I would have been able to heat and re create the upsweep the blade is to be a working blade (I think it will get machete type work in Alaska bear woods) so didn;t want anything other than a first heat treat succes for the best blade integrity.

Even the second blade lost nearly half of its upsweep so not sure what is going on but at least it is straight and true so have go the finish grind done and it is ready for hand sanding.

 

top blaeis the first oen and has the bad downsweep with the lower blde having about half what I ground itm to.

 

20220701_095218.jpg

 

Second blade ready for handsanding

20220701_115056.jpg

 

 

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Von Gruff

http://www.vongruffknives.com/

The ability to do comes with doing.

 

 

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Jeroen:  I love it!

 

Garry: all wedge-section blades will do that when oil quenched. You have to have about twice the curve you want before quenching to get the curve you actually want afterwards.

 

Water does the opposite. Japanese swords are straight before quenching, the water quench is what causes the curve.

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6 hours ago, Alan Longmire said:

Water does the opposite. Japanese swords are straight before quenching, the water quench is what causes the curve.

Still cool

 

 

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"The way we win matters" (Ender Wiggins) Orson Scott Card

 

Nos qui libertate donati nescimus quid constat

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There is some seriously cool stuff happening here. Recreation of an ancestor's sword that was started by a different ancestor, recreation of a millenia old sword started a decade and a half ago, cooking steaks over the refinement furnace, Japanese sword quenching, crazy san-mai and a steak knife for that steak....

 

You guys rock!

 

Edited by Joshua States

“So I'm lightin' out for the territory, ahead of the scared and the weak and the mean spirited, because Aunt Sally is fixin’ to adopt me and civilize me, and I can't stand it. I've been there before.”

The only bad experience is the one from which you learn nothing.  

 

Josh

http://www.dosgatosdesignsllc.com/#!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdJMFMqnbLYqv965xd64vYg

J.States Bladesmith | Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/dos.gatos.71

https://www.etsy.com/shop/JStatesBladesmith

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