What did you do in your shop today?

[Joshua States]

Cody, that is a nice crisp stamp. Great last name too!

(Although it does make me think of Kurt Vonnegut)

[Cody Killgore]

Thanks guys. Stamp is from Henry Evers. Very nicely made stamp. The holder is based off a design I saw on Ed Caffrey's website but pretty simple. Might have to mill a little relief into the outer piece to let me see the workpiece a little better.

[Vern Wimmer]

If a stamp is your thing then go for it. It is as much a part of your "style" as anything else. You should be satisfied with the knives you make and putting your name on it is part of that, besides, yours looks cool.

[Kreg Whitehead]

FINALLY finished grinding the kukri. Got another kitchen blade ready for a bolster and handle.

Grinding out another blade.....my kid calls it my pirate knife.lol I suppose it looks like more of a skinner than anything.

Just pulled the trigger on some more killer scales from my handle guy on fb.

 

[Troels Saabye]

I finally got around to fix my belt grinder no more belts flying off at random.

[SteveShimanek]

 I modified an old pair of tongs to be able to pull a crucible from the foundry; welded additional length to the reins, reshaped the jaws, and added an extension on one side to get a larger grip. Also glued the neck on a kit guitar (Gibson ES335 clone) I am building.

[SteveShimanek]

A nice haul from the scrap yard, as i continue to gather stuff for a power hammer build.

[Vern Wimmer]

On 7/14/2018 at 10:37 AM, SteveShimanek said:

 I modified an old pair of tongs to be able to pull a crucible from the foundry; welded additional length to the reins, reshaped the jaws, and added an extension on one side to get a larger grip. Also glued the neck on a kit guitar (Gibson ES335 clone) I am building.

A 335? Wow that's ambitious. A thin line hollowbody is a challenge. I figure I could do a Strat because of the bolt on neck but a Gibson is a different kettle of fish.

[Gerhard Gerber]

I improvised a projectile weapon....busy rounding an edge of a copper bolster on a small belt grinder.

The belt grabbed it and flung it out at the top....must've just missed my fat head.

Worst part is the bolsters have been problematic, and I couldn't find it.

Later I dropped and lost forever a 4mm brass pin, but during the search I found the bolster! 

[SteveShimanek]

Here is the guitar kit i have been working on; cherry red stain, black accent "smoke wisp" airbrush, wipe on poly, and enamel clear coat. Hardware is silver and black. I am waiting for the Bigsby tremolo to arrive; trickiest parts so far have been cutting  and sanding the neck to fit the pocket, and installing the posts for the bridge.

Edited July 19, 2018 by SteveShimanek

[Vern Wimmer]

What kind of pickups are you going with? Some traditional humbuckers?

[Joshua States]

7 hours ago, SteveShimanek said:

Here is the guitar kit i have been working on; cherry red stain, black accent "smoke wisp" airbrush, wipe on poly, and enamel clear coat. Hardware is silver and black. I am waiting for the Bigsby tremolo to arrive; trickiest parts so far have been cutting  and sanding the neck to fit the pocket, and installing the posts for the bridge.

 

That is a nice project Steve. My first electric guitar was a Gibson ES 335. Bought it brand new in 1983 for around $700. It was stolen about 2 years later when my apartment got robbed.  I sure do miss that ax.

Edited July 20, 2018 by Joshua States

[Joshua States]

Today I finished up a small job for a friend and neighbor (well he used to be a neighbor but both of us have moved since then).  He had this old "Bowie" style knife from when he was a kid. His brother and father used it when they went camping and hunting and it carried a lot of good memories for him. The handle scales had come off a long time ago and his brother and he tried to replace them with some wood ones. He didn't know what kind of wood and I couldn't tell by looking at it. Anyway he really wanted it to have a stag antler grip. 

The knife is kind of cheesy with "BOWIE" etched into the side of the blade, and the maker's mark simply says: F.A. Bower IMP Co. Solingen Made in Germany. This knife had obvious evidence of seeing substantial use and Doug told that they used it for everything from quartering elk to chopping firewood. The guard was soldered on a full tang design and it was crooked from the previous attempt to replace the handle material.  Normally, I don't do this kind of work, but sometimes you go that extra step for someone's memories.

[Alan Longmire]

That's a classic pre-WWII knife, and a great restoration job.  Good on you. 

[Brian Dougherty]

Nice Joshua.  

[SteveShimanek]

Nice job on the handle scales; looks great. Sorry you lost your Gibson...that was a substantial hit back then, very costly. Vern, the pickups are hum buckers, probably the equivalent of what get put into Epiphones made in China.

[JeffM]

Two current WIP projects

the top one with the walnut and emerald composite scales is a 3 layer billet that I originally forged to to try and develop a san mai pattern

It turned out the high carbon edge was such a straight line instead of having the nice big wave pattern that I started back to the buffer and am just going to polish to a mirror finish

I'll take another swing at a new san mai pattern in the near future.

 

The bottom one is a 80crv2 steel that I ran thru a rock tumbler for a stone washed look.  the handle is a stacked combination of 304 SS finger guard and pommel...with 2 hickory stacks and 3 stacks of black synthetic alumilite resin.....the hidden tang is epoxied in place and also held on by the threaded pommel.  NOTE...this is the first time I have even attempted a stacked handle so if anyone sees something i should do differently please don't be shy

[Joshua States]

Today I decided to try and learn how to TIG weld. I figured we've only had this thing for a year or three...….might as well jump in and see how it works. We have an Everlast Power TIG 250 EXand it has a lot of knobs, dials and switches on it that I really didn't have a clue about, so I spent the better part of 2 hours reading manuals and watching Boobtube videos of "TIG Experts" These guys are worse than knife makers. None of them agree with each other...…

One thing they all did agree upon and were totally correct about, was in the beginning, you get really good at grinding a point on your tungsten electrode, because you jack it up a lot.

My first attempts were total disasters.

Then I started to figure out what all those knobs really did and I started to make some progress.

Then suddenly, in the middle of a T-weld, the electrode exploded. It fizzled a bit and then went pop. I reground the tip and started again. Same thing. Then I noticed I had run out of Argon...that's the big black spot

[Zeb Camper]

You're making progress!

I've only ever TIG'd once. Seemed like to me the trick was to get the base metal hot and introduce one careful drop at a time from the electrode, then weave it a bit. I believe I pushed the puddle. It's a bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach while hopping on one foot. 

[Troels Saabye]

Get the melt pool going, and then add small amounts of filler metal and for extra even welds, you have to kinda "walk" the ceramic cup around the electrode on the welding seem. But TIG is lots of fun ^^

 

[Alan Longmire]

I can weld with an acetylene torch, sounds like the same idea.  Make a puddle, add filler, keep everything moving, get dizzy, burn a hole in the joint, curse, repeat...

[Joshua States]

29 minutes ago, Alan Longmire said:

I can weld with an acetylene torch, sounds like the same idea.  Make a puddle, add filler, keep everything moving, get dizzy, burn a hole in the joint, curse, repeat...

Yeah, it's kinda the same because there's a torch and a filler rod, but that's where the similarities end (except for the burning and cursing bit).

I have the concept and the process intellectualized just fine. It's the practical application that needs work. I can braze and solder with a torch and I'm an absolute demon with a MIG and CO2, but this TIG is gonna take some practice. If I could do Stainless and copper with a MIG, we would never have bought the TIG.

Thanks for the insights guys.

[Gerald Boggs]

I had a taste of TiG about 16 years ago, but have forgotten all, I was taking the class more for brazing skills.  With the brazing, there's a change in rod angle from Oxy-Acetylene, wonder is it's the same with TIG.  But now that I've written it, it should be the same as Oxy-Acetylene.

[Troels Saabye]

The Only difference between oxy/acetylene and TIG  : TIG is not happy about dirt,rust and grease, acetylene just burns the crap away ^^ .. And it's hell'a hard to light a cigar with a TIG torch

[Brian Dougherty]

I'm not a great welder by any stretch of the imagination, but I really do enjoy TIG much more than MIG.  (I'd probably feel different if production speed was important)

Copper is interesting to TIG.  It sucks up heat so fast that you have to pretty much "Floor it", and then once you start to get a puddle, you have to back off real fast and use very little power.  At least that is the experience I had last summer when I had to butt-weld 3/8" copper rods together for a project at work.  It would take a ton of heat to get it to start to puddle, and a heartbeat later the entire end of the rod would melt away.  Big flat plates may be a whole different story...