What did you do in your shop today?

[Dick Sexstone]

Squeezed a few  flag damascus die billets……

for a paring knife and a couple of folders…..

I should have flipped one to show the opposite side….but didn’t think of that till looking at this photo.. 

[Bob Ouellette]

On 5/11/2023 at 10:33 AM, Jaron Martindale said:

-Don't make Left-Handed Scissors if you're not left-handed!!

 

Welcome to the left hand nightmare living in a right hand world 

[Jeff Amundson]

1 hour ago, Bob Ouellette said:

Welcome to the left hand nightmare living in a right hand world 

I've discovered that many left-handers struggle to use left-hand scissors. They have learned how to twist their left hand to use right-hand scissors. When presented with left scissors, they hand it back to me saying it won't cut. It's happened to me multiple times. I have to show them the correct way. And manufacturers are making left-handled scissors that put left-hand bows on right-hand scissors.

Edited May 14 by Jeff Amundson
more

[Kreg Whitehead]

I couldnt take it anymore yesterday and had to piss my tendonitis off and got this far and the threaded rod I had welded to the billet broke off.

So I cleaned her up a little and welded in a scrap piece of 5160 for a hidden tang.

This is my bloom or hearth or what ever you would call it. I am so lost on the terminology for the most part.

I tried to cycle it a couple times and then into oil again and another no go.

I am dying to see what if any pattern the steel has.

Guess I am going into brine. I THINK I have got it down with w2 that I only bust about 1 in 4.

This will be the closest or only "forged blade" I have done. If it breaks I might cry. lol

I am gonna try and put a vid up from yesterday when I was trimming it up a bit to get ready for heat and beat.

I think it was sparking better than the 5160.

I quit my job again thursday.....second one this year.

Thats getting old. lol

Edit....I wanted to ask if it was likely this steel will do a hamon?

 

vid.htm

Edited May 14 by Kreg Whitehead

[Alan Longmire]

3 hours ago, Kreg Whitehead said:

it was likely this steel will do a hamon?

 

Depends on what alloys were in the feed stock, but most homemade steel will indeed do a fancy hamon.  Nice sparks!

[Kreg Whitehead]

41 minutes ago, Alan Longmire said:

 

Depends on what alloys were in the feed stock, but most homemade steel will indeed do a fancy hamon.  Nice sparks!

Yea....I can never remember needs to me low or no vandium or valliaum or viagra or something like that. =) Its not very large but its going in for ht now. I will post it or whats left of it . My tendonitis is not happy....I hope it doesnt come out in pieces.

Edit;....well,its not very big and isnt real attractive but it did survive and does skake a file nicely.

I did try for a bid of and edge quench kinda high before going all the way into the brine for another second or two then into oil for 15 sec or so. 

 

Edited May 14 by Kreg Whitehead

[Alan Longmire]

Looks to be in one piece, so far so good!  It's manganese and chromium that prevent hamon, and those nails should be low in both.  We'll see. 

[Aiden CC]

It will be interesting to see how that one turns out! Did you fold the steel at all, or just consolidate and forge it out? I have made some jewelry out of hearth steel that wasn’t folded at all and it has a look that is quite different, but still nice IMO. 
 

I was feeling fairly lazy this afternoon, so I decided to do something I had meant to for a while, since I could mostly just sit around and watch it.

I collected this fatwood two years ago, but I stored it in two plastic bags and it still gave off a strong smell. I still have about 2/3 left. 

A very simple setup, just two cans and the ground. I normally hate briquettes, but the low maintenance, consistent heat worked well here. Too much heat, and the tar will come out faster than it can condense in the can and burn up in the fire. 
 

Im surprised how much water was left in the wood, I’ll have to separate it out. This stuff is nice to have around for projects where I want everything to be as “from scratch” as possible. 

[Kreg Whitehead]

6 hours ago, Alan Longmire said:

Looks to be in one piece, so far so good!  It's manganese and chromium that prevent hamon, and those nails should be low in both.  We'll see. 

 

[Alan Longmire]

Did you quench it in that aquarium? 

14 hours ago, Aiden CC said:

This stuff is nice to have around for projects where I want everything to be as “from scratch” as possible

 

I keep meaning to do that too...

[Kreg Whitehead]

16 hours ago, Aiden CC said:

It will be interesting to see how that one turns out! Did you fold the steel at all, or just consolidate and forge it out? I have made some jewelry out of hearth steel that wasn’t folded at all and it has a look that is quite different, but still nice IMO. 
 

I was feeling fairly lazy this afternoon, so I decided to do something I had meant to for a while, since I could mostly just sit around and watch it.

I collected this fatwood two years ago, but I stored it in two plastic bags and it still gave off a strong smell. I still have about 2/3 left. 

A very simple setup, just two cans and the ground. I normally hate briquettes, but the low maintenance, consistent heat worked well here. Too much heat, and the tar will come out faster than it can condense in the can and burn up in the fire. 
 

Im surprised how much water was left in the wood, I’ll have to separate it out. This stuff is nice to have around for projects where I want everything to be as “from scratch” as possible. 

I did not fold it at all. That was made from the smallest of the 3 chunks I had.

Maybe if my home grown press works I will get some folded.

With my current I fired myself situation thats on hold.....and I wont be swinging the hammer like that anytime soon I am afraid. I  think it  might be dr time for a scan. I will try and edit a better pic in.

It has spots that are almost brown or copper ish.

That 20k bulb in my fish light really set the contrast off.....but also changed the colors.

Lol at the quench comment.=)

Thanks for the help btw.

Edited May 15 by Kreg Whitehead

[Jaro Petrina]

This is a big one.

[Jaro Petrina]

Looks better with silver wire.

[Jaro Petrina]

All 60SiC from a round 28 mil  bar.

[Jaro Petrina]

Dolabra in works. This just after machine forging - and off course I run out of gas. Now I need to flatten the eye, define the mottock better, planish everything by hand + heat treat....I think another 3 hours.

[Jaron Martindale]

Got a chance to do some rough grinding on the ko-tanto.  I got the edge centered up and the bevels started.  They still need drawn down the to edge but I'm going to use stones and sandpaper to convex the single bevel a little slower than my grinder would.  I dunked it into the ferric for about 10 minutes and it showed some very cool grain structuring that I struggled to get a good photo of, lol!

 

[Alan Longmire]

 

Had the forge lit for something else, used the remaining heat to HT a hawk head.  

[Jaro Petrina]

"Can you forge a roman knife?"  So I did this - old iron, steel with 0,5% C quenched in water and piece of oak from the ford at limes romanus.

[Alan Longmire]

On 5/29/2023 at 9:03 AM, Alan Longmire said:

Had the forge lit for something else,

 

That "something else" was forging the 1.25" / 320mm round wrought iron that hawk head was made from into some 7/8" / 220mm round bar.  Did that with the power hammer, cleaned up by hand in the swedge block, rough ground it freehand, put it in the lathe and only had to remove 0.030" / 0.76mm to get it to clean metal with no hammer marks.  I was so proud of myself I forgot to take pictures of turning the bowl... 

 

This weekend, I filed the bowl pedestal base into a roughly half-inch square and started inletting it into the head.

 

 

Those with eyes can see it's not exactly square, but once it's assembled you won't be able to tell without calipers.  The arrow on the bowl is to remind me that flat is the top of the head, so I can keep it indexed as I rough in the inlet.

 

 

Which is done here.  Still need to clean it up and level it, but ran out of energy and eyesight today.  It fits, it's just not tight.  Once it's tight, it'll get brazed in place.  

 

[Joshua States]

Nice work Alan, but that goes without saying. Your hawk work is exceptional IMNSHO.

I managed to get a little forge therapy in today. That was after Liz was done with the forge and I was done inletting the first half of the walkway border. Last week I jackhammerd the trenches and laid the drain pipe and boxes to carry the roof water under the walkway. I still wake up sore from that......

Anyway, here are three blades for a customer order two of which get profiled at the grinder rather than the anvil and what I hope will be my first integral chef. This is out of W2 and the rest of the parent bar is on the left side in the photo.

[Gerhard Gerber]

Assembled the burner for my new forge and ran it without the ribbon part which is yet to be figured out and built.
Makes an almighty noise, didn't run it long because I assume the smoke coming off the galvanized pipe at the end is not healthy 

[Joshua States]

13 hours ago, Gerhard Gerber said:

ran it without the ribbon part which is yet to be figured out and built.

Step by step instructions on building a ribbon burner. You can modify these to almost any size you want.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15IeSu3SVMH0IjmDg8TeZLiyMy357LUXM/view?usp=sharing

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

Yesterday I spend an evening untangling a skein of silk yarn (about 100 meter), which I had turned into big knot because I'm a nincompoop who doesn't understand how to unwind a skein properly. I've untangled about 90% of it. It's madder dyed silk, to wrap the grip in of my Han Dynasty dao. I still need to braid it without entangling it again, which will also be a challenge  

[Gerhard Gerber]

On 6/5/2023 at 10:32 PM, Joshua States said:

Step by step instructions on building a ribbon burner. You can modify these to almost any size you want.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15IeSu3SVMH0IjmDg8TeZLiyMy357LUXM/view?usp=sharing

 

I bought beer, dog food and crayons yesterday.

 

I have serious doubts about my abilities to make an air-tight weld of any length, but I have professionals lined up if I fail, just another delay.
One big question remains, do I come in from the top or the side of the burner..... 

[Alan Longmire]

Finished inletting the bowl and brazed it in place.

 

Before brazing. Note anti-scale (also acts as brazing rod blocker) everywhere but the joint, which is full of flux.

 

 

After brazing and quenching:

 

 

The antiscale helps a lot, but there's still a lot of cleanup to do.  Sigh...  If after cleanup there are small gaps around the edges, I'll fill them with soft solder, but it looks pretty good for now.  This brazing rod (Harris safety-silv 56) doesn't form a fillet like soft solder does.