Upcoming Series

Dearest Readers,

Prepare thy selves.

Upcoming over the next several weeks, I will be posting a series of instructionals. They will be pictorial references about the elementary tools, processes and techniques of Blacksmithing, as well as insights and quirky sayings that I will interlace as I see fit.

Stay tuned for more attractive and appealing posts! Share with your friends and family, co-workers and old schoolmates. Tell your enemies, as well. Maybe even your mother and father! Perhaps tell your clergyman, rabbi, barber, dentist, gynaecologist, mycologist (who, ironically, is the most entertaining type of scientist), and if you're daring, even the President! (at least of the president of your old sorority).

Hammer on!

Blacksmith Days

Well, it has been a good semester.

Yet that is no excuse for me slacking off on my blog. I appologize to you, my dear readers.
But, I have something exciting to share with y'all!

Last Sunday my sister and I attended the 2013 Blacksmith Days at the Carroll County Farm Museum, hosted by the Blacksmith Guild of Central Maryland.

Demonstrating was Ken Schwarz and Randy McDaniel. Although I did not get to see Randy McDaniel's demonstrations of the hydraulic forging press, I did get to see some fantastic and mezmorizing colonial ironwork from Ken Schwarz, Master Blacksmith at Colonial Williamsburg.

The event began on Saturday, but, being busy butching hens and selling random items at a yardsale, we were unable to get to the Farm Musuem until Sunday afternoon. The event was winding down, but I still got to see some fantastic forging demonstrations by Ken.

The first item that I saw being demonstrated was a strap hinge, as seen on colonial houses in the Chesapeake and East Coast area.

The strap hinge was traditionally forged and firewelded, being made from real wrought iron. He used Borax as the welding flux, and boy O boy was that thing cool! The edges were chamfered, several holes were punched, and the spade shape was demonstrated right in front of us. For the spade he flattened the end to make a three sided taper, which was a revelation to me. That's how to make perfect spade-leaves! I always went with a four sided taper, which made for the long, willow leaves as seen in other posts. 

The next item he showed us was a colonial nail header. He first passed around an example of his previous work as he began to forge a new one. 

Nicely welded and forged beautifully! 

Ken began by straightening out a length of coil spring for the head of the header. 

He then got ready to weld the coil spring onto some upset mild steel square bar. His striker (presumably his daugher) worked with marvelous efficency, and the weld stuck on the first hit. 

Perfectly formed, ready for the hole to be punched! 

His striker worked wordlessly as he directed in a well rehearsed, fast paced dance. 

After a few more refinements, Ken quenched the well made tool and passed it around for all to see. 

Ken hammered out multiple nails, demonstrating the effectiveness of the nail header. 

The four-clout head of the nail, hammered with precision:

A look at the tools of the trade: 

And Ken had some displays of his work, which is in the true colonial fashion. The demonstration ended after the nails were made, and people were allowed to mill around and ask Ken questions. My sister and I snapped some photos of the exceptional work. 

A fire dog

Traditional joinery, as well as a square corner adorned the fantastic work. 

A trivet, rivetted in place and welded together.

A detailed rivet joint. I am going to make one of these! 

Not real sure what this is.... Anyone know?

Here is showing the process for a shutter hook, strap hinge, and regular hinge hook. 

Well, that's that! 

Happy Hammering! 

Leaf Spring Knives

   Finally, after two weeks I am finally catching up on some blogging that I meant to do after spring break. (unfortunately I'm not catching up on the lost sleep. >.< 1.5 hours last night...it has been a long day...)
Today's post involves some sharp looking pieces of work that I did for commission work. For one I am going to be paid in American Dollars, the other one will be paid in artwork. (specifically a superbly well drawn picture of a tawny kitten ready to pounce on a couple of flutterbys. [okay, I squealed when I saw it...])

Both knives are forged out of 5160 steel in the form of golf-cart leaf springs. They were specially ordered to be rather thick and bulky, so the spines of the knives are approximately 1/4" thick. They are both double normalized (the survival knife was first annealed) and they withstood my extensive field tests. [note: field test is chucking them against a tree repeatedly to see if they break.]


First up is the survival knife that I forged for my friend Ryan. Overall length measures at about 10 inches. The blade is about 5 inches long and the distance from edge to spine is approximately 1.45 inches at the furthest. Here it is after rough forging it!

The second knife I forged was for my friend Natalie. She wanted a stabby knife for protection, and so I forged it for utmost kick-butt-itude. It had some letters stamped into it from the leaf spring, and I left them there for character. The knife came out looking like a roman gladiator's sword!

 Close up of the knife in the fire:

Ryan's knife is on the right, Natalie's is on the left.

Ryan's knife, leather wrapped and shined up with some forge marks left on:

 Natalie's knife, rough forged and sanded post-grind.

 

I still have some sharpening to do on them before they are ready, and hopefully I'll find some time in the next week for it. These were a blast to forge and taught me some good things about working with spring steel and thin stock. I know I would make many changes, and I am truly not a bladesmith. These were favors for friends, and they were fun. I have some other pictures of recent projects to show you, but that must wait for another time, dearest reader!

 

Thank you for reading!