Normalizing meat cleavers

Yesterday i normalized and hardened three meat cleavers I'm working on for Christmas. My little cousin is done on holiday so I asked him to take some pics. 

My first Bowie knife!

Finally finished my first Bowie knife. What an experience. The over all length f the knife is 330mm, it has a slotted guard add tapered tang. And Chacate wooden scaled. Also a hand tooled and stitched leather sheath. I'm looking forward to ore of these in the future. 

First Bowie

My first bowie that I am busy making. It's going well for now. It's a full tang Bowie that will have a slotted guard and a tapered tang which will also be a first for me. 

Blacksmith Guillotine

Here it is my anvil guillotine.  I have yet to test it out. Apologies for the fuzzy picture. 

Blacksmith guillotine

This is the picture I saw on the blade forum website. And by the second picture you one can see how the tool can be used. 

My Blacksmith guillotine

After my first fuller tool broke I decided to make a blacksmith guillotine. I saw the idea on the blade forum website. It's coming along, the frame and hardy hole shaft Are all welded up. I just need to straighten and shape the leaf spring into the working pieces

Signet week

This week I will have made four signet rings. If I had to have done this without casting, it would be a tiring endevour. I used silica sand for the mould making. The boss lady discovered that motor oil makes for a better binding agent than water. This was stumbled upon when trying to moisten the sand. 

Handled it

I managed to source some hammer handles from the hardware shop. They just need a run-over with some sand paper and they're goo to go. 

Punch and drift

In order to forge a hammer there are two tools that are used to crest the hammer eye; a punch and a drift. So I made these two for the hammer making I will be doing. The ouch is used to make the actual incision and the drift is used to drift the hole bigger o size. 

File knives

As I was just busy cutting and welding a together a tool I needs for the hammer forging. I let the old files I got from work heat up to get them annealed. 

Making a hammer

I've have always wanted to have a hammer that has a flat and round face on it, as a jeweller we use either of the two. I would like to have a hammer with both faces much like the blacksmith rounding hammer. I went to a spring manufacturer and bought an on old spring, the diameter of the round stock is approximately 30mm it semed like a good thickness. 

Reflection

Looking through all the blog posts from last year in order to continue writting my research report, I was amazed at how much I did. More than that I was surprised to see the shear load of things I have learned. It makes me excitted for the years to come. The things I've been making over the last term have been a culmination of all these things learned, the tool making to to forging and welding.

Slave bangle process

Forge and torch holder movie

Yay! I finally was able to make a movie out of the Animation...sort of. My friend Ruan demonstrated for me today the use of windows movie maker. Throw all of that into windows movie maker and "adjust frame speed" as he said then its good to go. I will give clear instruction in more blog posts.

Compound twist bangle

I got into my workshop and this emerged today I saw this method of combining pieces to twist on Pinterest. A slave type bangle or cuff. I will try again tomorrow and see if I can turn out something better.

Dug up out of the back yard

I was peeping over our yard wall into the property next door it was bought and is being cleared away of all trees. When I jumped back down I saw part of this strange looking object emerging. I'm not sure what it is but it looks like a bell.

I know that the area I live in, many years ago was a farm a very BIG farm. I once found riffle shells in the backyard whilst snooping around with my dogs. Who knows what this is?

Progress on the torch holdster

I was playing around on rhino with my basic rhino skills. I was trying to figure out the mechanics of this torch holder I was going to be making. The picture Carlo sent me were a great help, I need more measurements but here is the basic idea on rhino. I learned how to animate it, but I cold record it. The holder Mechanism is the main focus for this project.

There is a need for a tool!

Coffee can forge

Torch holder

Torch holdster

Photo by: Carlo Assumption

At the end of last term I was busy mulling over making a torch holder for the melting area, to hold the torch when the students are forging punches. At the moment it seems a very daunting and scary task to forge punches because the torch is placed flat on the table top and held down with a brick and flaring into the air and heat is lost. I realized this after having forging punches for the AngloPlat, I SHOULD MAKE A TOOL and a little forge! I will be posting updates of my progress on this project.

A nice saying

One of the blacksmiths I follow on Instagram often posts sayings that I enjoy. 

ITS HERE!

My Herbst 3 wheel grinder is finally here, it arrived this morning. Time to clean up and set up. Had to take a picture even if it is in the lounge. 

My first hollow grind- test piece

After setting up my new belt grinder, I could not help myself I had to try it out. So I profiled a piece of mild steel scrap I had and tried my first hollow grind. I think it went very well. Here it is. 

Pieces of the Tiara

I was playing with where to place the slits on the arrows for my tiara. 

Art Deco Tiara

I finally pieced it all together and the gas conveniently ran out just as I bent up the head band for the tiara

Hardy tool for tiara

JThis is how the hardy tool was used during the process in my earlier post. This picture is from spirit iron work, this took is being used on a mechanical hammer but the use of the tool is the same on an anvil it would jus for into the hardy hole. 

Tiara arrow heads

I Made a hardy tool to help me forge my arrow/leaf shapes for the tiara I will be making. I will revise my technique according to what I have seen on smithing websites. 

 I found a process picture which helped clear up my confusion as to how to form the point on the shape. 

Art Deco Tiara idea

After much back and forth between very Celtic looking curves and line I have finally come back to the repetitive and geometric shape that first caught my fancy. This is the idea I felt happy about, I like this shape It resembles an arrow head. I am battling to imagine the finished piece, so will start by forging out a few of these and let my hands do the thinking once I get started. It doesn't seem like scribbling is helping me right now. 

Art deco Design idea

There is an Art Deco design competition coming up and I am going to be making a piece(s) for it. I was a slightly bewildered at the thought of choosing what to actually manufacture, a ring or a neck piece, a bangle, all of these could be wrought from steel. Then as i searched and searched, firstly to try and get a grasp of what "Art Deco" was. My first thoughts were that it was only "geometric and square" but I kept seeing twirly curves and not only square shapes and lines. I made the obsevation that Art Deco design style comprises of geometric shaping but also bold lines and very often mirroring symmetry. SO my search continued and I searched everything from Art Deco wrought iron gates to graphic design patterns, on thing I saw pop up every so often was the ladies fro the twenties and their headbands they would wear with their outfits. Then I had a spark that started engine, LETS MAKE A TIARA! seeing as I'm not a huge fan of extremely geometric design, I began looking at tiaras. Tiaras from medival designs and that lead me to Elvish designs, which when examined do look like some of the of Art Deco wrought work I have seen. So I am strangely excitted to get busy on this, here are some of the tiaras I've seen.