What did you do in your shop today?

[Alan Longmire 1,795]

Thanks!  I know S&H, they are indeed excellent anvils.  Jim Austin has a shop full of them, but none that big.

[Gerhard Gerber 215]

Forged some bearing races on Saturday, hoping to make 3 blacksmith knives and a SLO with (hopefully) Japanese flavour from a whole bearing race

[Gerhard Gerber 215]

6mm thick 40mm wide barstock 5160.......if I make it too thin I decarb the edge during HT, if I grind post-HT I sit with the same issues as now, only in hard steel.

Looks good but there are grinding marks visible at an angle after going back to 220 grit and many hours sanding

Peppertree burl I hope to use for the handle

[Alan Longmire 1,795]

Not today, but over the last couple of weekends, I made this:

What does it do?  Well, when you weld it to the top of an old oxygen tank and hang a disk of wood in it, it turns it into a bell.

Then I needed something to hang it from, so yesterday I made this:

You can't see it for some reason, but the whole bracket is forged from 3/8" x 1". and there's a sharp step at the base of the fleur-de-lis where I fullered in a groove and then flattened the bar out sideways to about 3/16" to get the width I wanted.  I still need to clean it up and paint it.

[Zeb Camper 627]

I bought this 

 

[Conner Michaux 158]

2 hours ago, Zeb Camper said:

I bought this 

I’m jealous! I want one of those. 

[Gerhard Gerber 215]

My mentor sent me some photos yesterday, unfortunately not a liberty to share, but it was a set of 6 kitchen knives in Damasteel.

What delighted and scared me at the same time was the serrated bread knife 

When I asked him how he managed it the answer was simple: "Sh*t job, file and sandpaper"

[Eric Morgan 81]

Welded half of one of the off-cuts from the body of my homemade anvil to it for a horn and hardy hole. Still have more welding to do, and a metric ton of grinding... plus, I’m really not sure how I didn’t notice that the hardy hole wasn’t square until after I had several beads strung already. 

The other half of the off-cut I welded on to make the upsetting block...

[AndrewB 151]

Not real shop wise but got the pc upgraded so I can do VR glad I got that done should have steel next week hopefully so I’ll be Abel to get back to forging.

[Gerhard Gerber 215]

Bad day in the shop.....

HT'ed a cleaver made from an old saw blade and it turned into noodle.  Ran it through again, few seconds in the oil and straight between two heavy plate.  Edge is glass hard, still one wobble but I should be able to grind that out.

Same cannot be said for a large Santuko's blade in fresh off-the-shelve 5160. 6mm thick, 40mm wide and full flat grind, stock removal all the way.......I was not expecting the warp about 2" from the tip.

Tried the same as with the cleaver, as soon as I put my weight on the plates I heard the crack.

The ONLY good new is the grain is so fine I almost want to ask "what grain?" ..........helps a bit 

Edited May 24 by Gerhard Gerber
add pics

[Eric Morgan 81]

Finished up on adding the horn to my homemade anvil this morning. There’s a bit of a waist where the welds are coming up the sides, but with a 3/4-7/8” fillet, I don’t think it’ll be a problem. Also made a ball stake (I think that’s the correct term) from a 1-1/4” b7 bolt. Cleaned it up on the belt grinder, but I kinda wish I’d made it sit up higher from the face. 

Edited May 24 by Eric Morgan
Added picture

[SteveShimanek 96]

Fired up the forge yesterday to make myself a dogleg chisel for working on Japanese scabbards (saya); going over to try to work on it some more today.

[Conner Michaux 158]

Just bought a canopy today, it’s 10x16 with the side panel flap thing up, this will cover my forging area, so I can forge without the sun beating down on the anvil. 

[Conner Michaux 158]

Etched the puukko, and it looks awful.... a de-greased it with actetone before I etched and after it etched I sprayed it with windex and scrubbed it down with steel wool. 

Forgot to mention, I etched it for over 10 mins. 

Edited May 25 by Conner Michaux

[Jeremy Blohm 369]

Acetone it again and etch for another 10 minutes. Repeat until your satisfied.

[Alan Longmire 1,795]

Dilute the ferric, and don't use steel wool.  That will remove all the oxides evenly, which is the last thing you want.  Use very fine sandpaper on a hard backing.  That will hit only the high spots.

[Conner Michaux 158]

Alright thanks Alan.

[Joshua States 1,007]

On 5/23/2019 at 11:07 PM, Gerhard Gerber said:

The ONLY good new is the grain is so fine I almost want to ask "what grain?" 

Aces man.

[Troels Saabye 33]

I began plastering the walls finally   been on my to do list for a year

[Jeremy Blohm 369]

On 5/16/2019 at 5:14 PM, Jeremy Blohm said:

Why does the 15n20 get so dark after the quench?

Edited May 27 by Jeremy Blohm

[Gerhard Gerber 215]

Existential crisis looming .......and I have my biggest Bowie ever soaking in instant coffee

I had O1 blanks cut almost exactly the size and shape of a small flat file broken in half.....no guessing my inspiration

Only made two knives from these, no feedback yet so I made a workshop knife for myself and a leather cutter for my Dad and sheath maker. More lessons were learned.

I started 2019 with good intentions of making kitchen knives and achieving something, but after some brandy I need to admit that if I do not make that Wakizashi, the Dacian Sica which I don't even understand why I like it so much........I might as well quit.

Amazing how quick and easy things (except HT) can be if function is the only concern.  User leftover micarta for the the Dad's, slightly voidy rolled hessian and cotton for my workshop
 

 

[Gerhard Gerber 215]

From the weekend....bearing race

No cooking clue where that bit of copper came from.....

[Brian Dougherty 670]

Finished up a new mosaic bar this morning.  This is destined for a number of smaller knives I have in mind so I was looking for a finer pattern.  I had some issues with controlling the pattern on one of the 4-way welds, so it ended up being a bit random, but it's kind of pretty.

 

[Mike Ward 75]

Knife and smaller bottle opener were forged yesterday. Think I’m going to make a bottle opener for warmup each time. 

[Joshua States 1,007]

12 hours ago, Mike Ward said:

Think I’m going to make a bottle opener for warmup each time. 

Make two. That way there's no down time waiting for the piece to heat up. As long as the forge is burning......