What did you do in your shop today?

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

Sunday I forged three hawk heads.

 

Jeroen, we have to see that lightsaber!

 

There it is, as cast:

 

Edited March 1, 2016 by Jeroen Zuiderwijk

[owen bush]

Sunday I forged three hawk heads.

 

Jeroen, we have to see that lightsaber! And Owen, congrats! That makes what, five now? (Grins!)

hi Alan...yeh somthing like 5 .....sure I'll stick with that as an acceptable number.

[owen bush]

There it is, as cast: IMG_20160228_180933.jpg

that is awsome!!

[Brian Dougherty]

 

There it is, as cast:

 

IMG_20160228_180933.jpg

Ok, I admit it, I am a Star Wars nerd, but as Owen said, that is indeed awsome!

[Joshua States]

 

There it is, as cast:

 

IMG_20160228_180933.jpg

Yep. That is awesome all right. That gets a like.

[Joshua States]

Well, I finally made some fullering dies for the hydraulic press.

 

 

Maybe I'll get around to forging something that needs a fuller and see if they work.........

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

I cast the "blade" of the bronze lightsaber today. The edges on this won't be workhardened, because it doesn't have any Quite a bit of filing and polishing left to do, but it's already looking quite nice. Total weight: 3.4 kg.

 

Edited March 5, 2016 by Jeroen Zuiderwijk

[Austin_Lyles]

That's beyond cool, Jeroen. May I ask why? =P It's so random yet, freakin awesome.

 

Today I finished a knife up, and while procrastinating on making a sheath for it, I forged a ring. I've only made one before a LONG time ago from some mokume. Always pretty fun. Working with steel is way more difficult than copper/nickel. To me at least, I think the "fuller" down the middle gives it a roman like feel, however un-historically accurate I am.

 

 

 

 

An interesting thing to forge... especially on a makeshift stake.... I mean mandrel.

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

That's beyond cool, Jeroen. May I ask why? =P It's so random yet, freakin awesome.

 

It's a gift for the inauguration of the dutch professor on bronze age archeology, who also happens to be a big Star Wars fan

[Brian Dougherty]

Ok, that ring pattern is also freaking brilliant Austin. I'm trying to wrap my head around how you did that

Edited March 7, 2016 by Brian Dougherty

[Alan Longmire]

 

It's a gift for the inauguration of the dutch professor on bronze age archeology, who also happens to be a big Star Wars fan

 

Perfect!

[owen bush]

I turned and flame finished some rippled ash and forge welded collars and had a bit of a "how big is this really" assemble on the SEAL Trident.......should be together tomorow or wed.....

[Austin_Lyles]

 

It's a gift for the inauguration of the dutch professor on bronze age archeology, who also happens to be a big Star Wars fan

Awesome! Everything about that is perfect.

 

Thanks Bryan! The steel was from Devin thomas.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Austin_Lyles

[steven smith]

i spent a couple hours cutting all these out of a sheet of 1075, i used my harbor freight portable bandsaw (which is mounted to a table), its a really nice tool to have, saves more material and is faster than any grinder. right now im about to bevel a navaja knife blade and maybe harden a fixed blade pocket knife for the third time, i keep missing about 1/2" by the choil but it had a nice hardening line.

 

also mangled my toe using my foot powered potters wheel, i missed the wheel and stuck my big toe right into the ground, aghhh. its not as bad as kicking the frame though!

 

[Buck Hedges]

Started my second attempt at a karambit.

 

http://www.bladesmithsforum.com/index.php?showtopic=33083. The latest post shows the second attempt. I'm open to suggestions on how the recycle the first one.

 

And taught my 5-year old how to do a spark test to see how much carbon is in the steel. And some safety on using a grinder. He really likes wearing a hardhat with the visor down.

Edited March 12, 2016 by Buck Hedges

[Niels Provos]

Today, I completed a few more forge-welding operations for another spear. Almost ready for the final two forge-welding passes:

 

[Joshua States]

I gave a quick lesson to a woman I know on grinding technique with the 2x72. She had made this full tang, stock removal blade from 1095 for a self-defense/prepper/survivalist group she belongs to. She had done the bevels with a file and almost zero instruction. As a result, she wound up with a very small bevel on an otherwise flat piece of steel. She lengthened the bevels and I cleaned them up somewhat on the disc. Then I gave her a micarta sanding block and some tips on hand sanding. I think she's hooked!

[Timothy Artymko]

Well, I haven't been in the shop much, but yesterday I spent about 3 hours in the evening and in that time my brother (power-hammer) and I made a 5-ish pound forging hammer, our very first attempt at making one. It's not pretty, and I need to clean up the eye a bit, but hopefully it will work! We also forged out a railroad clip and rough forged (minus bevels) an "elvish subhilt" kind of fighter for him to work on and tested a peice of the clip for hardness and it hardened quite beautifully in water at 5/16x1.25" So maybe I can attempt to water quench the blade for a nice hamon. And I finished up a few minor forging things in my KITH knife before calling it a knife.

 

I was going to show my process for forging out the hammer, but I couldn't find a camera aside from my DSLR, and the lighting in my shop is less than it should be... But I took a big piece of axle or a crankshaft off some farm implement we found in a farmers field and took about 9" of it and upset it down to about 7" before adding the eye (which needs some work....)

[Wes Detrick]

I finally mounted my post vise, which has been laying on the floor useless for the better part of two years now. I still need to weld a retaining ring for the leg but that is a small thing. The tube is filled with cement, and then the whole thing is bolted to the floor with concrete anchors.

 

 

 

[jheinen]

I finally mounted my post vise, which has been laying on the floor useless for the better part of two years now. I still need to weld a retaining ring for the leg but that is a small thing. The tube is filled with cement, and then the whole thing is bolted to the floor with concrete anchors.

 

I have to make one of those for my vise. What thickness did you use for the top and bottom plates and the tube?

[Wes Detrick]

 

I have to make one of those for my vise. What thickness did you use for the top and bottom plates and the tube?

 

It's all 1/4 inch plate, and the tube is like 3/16 I beleive, which is a little on the thin side, but it has 4 three inch concrete anchors so it won't be going anywhere anytime soon

Edited March 18, 2016 by Wes Detrick

[Michael Pikula]

Processed 120lb of pattern weld and found a nifty collection of issues with my rolling mill. Seems like I'm out growing a number of pieces of equipment as of late.

[Gabriel James]

I was gonna post a jaw dropping 5 knife orders and a production day of Rough forging a 15 " OA length kukri a 4.5" hunter and heat treating 4 kitchen knives..... THEN MICHAEL destroys me morale with 120 lbs of pw. :S

Edited March 16, 2016 by Gabriel James

[Joshua States]

Wes, you are going to love having that post vice. I can't believe you had it for two years before setting it up! I also hope you like where you put it, because no, you aint moving it any time soon. I made mine mobile (sort of) it takes a bit of dragging to move it, but it can be moved.

 

[Matthew Parkinson]

I helped finish up the two forges I built yesterday for the craft center, ran the salt pot and heat treated 8 blades, drew out ground and did a light etch a 3/16 /6/8 80 layer billet, ground two knives got two chefs knives ready for assemble.

busy day...