Guess What? People ordered knives!

My "brother-in-Law" has been in contact with me recently, he is on a hunt filming; filming the hunting of customers. They saw his knife and asked him about it, now they would like order so we have been communicating regarding these. The customers were interested in knives similar to this one, just a few changes to be made. I'm so excited, I am going to be so tired. Two knives to make amongst all the rest of life. I'll keep updating 

Bud vase

I was working on my bud vase yesterday, the pattern repeats on all four sides. it almost makes me think of the churches in Ethiopia carved out of the mountains

Stippling tool

 I mad Zuki a tool today, I'm not sure what you would call it. It will be used to emboss goose bump looking dots into lithoplate . Hope it does it's job Zu

Anvil stand and firebrick

I felt very productive today, I made an anvil stand for my anvil and cleaned up shop./

Then I was busy with the fire bricks I Bought on Thursday from kamel potteries, I am busy making a new forge. Although the kiln shelving has been doing its job, I know that if the chamber is smaller the forge will heat up faster. Another reason for using fire brick is that, when I made the my original forge I found the flame would shoot out all of the join even though they were flush. So bought some fire cement and my fire bricks and I will make A better forge, I will keep you updated

What has emerged

After cutting and filling for a while as the idea popped into my head this is what was produced. The blackness is a result of quenching in used car oil. I am mostly happy besides the fact that I think it looks "too precise".

Makes you think

Sometimes you really make the ugliest things at work, and I'm seeing a lot of tiny finger sizes coming in now days.
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Getting there

The steel must be worked at this heat, I unfortunately didn't take pictures of the process of opening the finger hole.

 I started shaping the ring, I will post more pictures tomorrow

Forginging a ring

So we cut a billet of steel down the center, Start a good distance  in from the ends

Then we heat our billet up to red/orange hot then we use the drifts and slowly open the slit that was cut earlier.So sorry I didn't take picture of that

Smallest wedding ring

This is a wedding ring I made today, it is a size D and a half. The smallest I have ever made, it is 9mm wide. It will be pave' set with three rows of 5 each, 10 pointer RBC. Ridiculously small, with my chubby fingers I had a fun trying to hold onto it.
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Drifting

I forged two Drifts, to help me along with my forged ring. I must say it made it ten times better, it is already looking better. One uses it very similarly to a jewellers triplet, the difference being that steel must be worked when it is hot. So I will try again and try to find the balance between good craftsmanship and rustic appeal. 

Comfort fit, otto shank ring

My first comfort fit Otto shank. Very comfortable on the finger I must say. It took loads of filling because we don't have a draw horse or an oval draw plate. Time consuming but I was happy
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