Anvil identification!

Hey folks! We need some help identifying this anvil of ours. It's big, it's old, no markings really at all. Any suggestions?!

A Weekend of Fun

A weekend full of some type of craft work is pretty hard to beat. For myself, it doesn't matter if it's blacksmithing, wood working, or even conceptualizing for a new project. All seem to be possibilities to grow and learn something or many things.

Within the last few years I have learned how fulfilling doing things with your hands can be. For myself, there are few things that feel as rewarding as taking an ax or tomahawk that I've just forged and putting it through a bit of a stress test, seeing it perform, and knowing that it is performing due to my craftsmanship (or sometimes seeing that it
ISN'T performing due to my craftsmanship...). One of those few things that do compare to stress testing my crafted goods has to be helping someone make something. This weekend I helped one of my closest friends, Heath, finish his knife before he heads off to South Dakota for a summer internship. When I say "helped", it was more of being present and offering little tips here and there. Heath did 95% of the work on this beast and it sure is an impressive knife. Some of you reading this may know that Heath is a taller guy and so the larger handle on it is a pretty good fit. He found the design idea of the handle from a knife that his dad Tim (Tim, Timbo, Timbo Slice, T-Hoff... I have many nicknames for his dad) has that has a beautiful dark curly handle on a damascus blade. Personally, I think he hit the nail on the head. I've shared images of his blade before, but I cannot emphasize how cool the texture from the farrier's rasp is. When coupled with the overall shape of the blade, I think this is one of the coolest blades that I've seen. I mentioned this on facebook, but Heath should be the knife smith, not me! 

I've had some time to work on a few other projects lately. One of them being a spike hawk from a rail road spike. This one actually hardened more than the previous. A great looking piece, I think. I need to work on having some clean lines but this definitely has a hand-forged look. I'm going to be sending this to a friend once the new, clean hawk handles come in (hopefully today). I forged this one different. Instead of upsetting the spike end of the railroad spike and fuller the material to make the blade part, I used the opposite end since it already had a nice bearded shape. I then drew out the end with the spike on it to be more pointed and sharper. What amazed me is the amount of time this took to forge. The last hawk I did (from my previous post) took me almost 5 hours to craft. This one took me about an hour and a half. Using my mandrel from Kayne & Son is saving me a ton of time, and if you're starting out making hawks you should definitely look up their tomahawk mandrel. It's worth the $40 due to the amount of time it saves. It will give you a perfectly shaped and tapered eye every time! 

We've also been commissioned to two new projects from up in New Harmony. We've been working on a donor tree, which I'm super excited about. This project is letting us get a bit more artistic than some of our other projects. Wayne has the basic outline conceptualized, and we have two different prototypes we're working with at the moment. At this point, it's just down to deciding which style we like more. I'll share more pics once we've gotten a bit farther. Shown is a picture of Wayne hammering a piece of steel that we've cut and adjusted to resemble a tree bark like texture. 

Also being laid out is a new handrail that we won the bid for. I'm excited for this project as well. As much as I love forging and fabricating, I really enjoy painting the fences and handrails we make with a spray gun for auto-body work. I can pop in some tunes and go to town for hours while painting. No pictures of that, yet. Soon, though ;) 

Happy hammering! 

Newest Member of the Family

My smithing preferences remind me of a line from George RR Martin's series "A Song of Ice and Fire". When a character named Shagga is asked what kind of weapons he wants, he says something along the lines of "a double-bladed ax... for each hand". In response to this, Tyrion Lannister quips "...Shagga likes axes". Well... I like axes. I like forging them, shaping them, and fitting them with a handle much more than I do making knives. I enjoy them both, but I get far more pleasure from forging an ax head.

As most people are aware, there's a large representation of people making things out of railroad spikes these days. Depending on who you ask, there's many reasons people are making things from spikes. Some say its because of the ability to get cheap carbon steel, some say it is because of the cool look. As you read further, I will be giving you some insight into the reasons I like to use spikes.

By no means do I consider myself even a journeyman smith. However, I feel as though I have picked up on some things that I consider to be core foundations of the trade. If one has the desire to forge axes or forge anything, that person has to gain a moderate amount of hammer control. Being able to control your hammer blows to a point where they're precise and still powerful is a very important thing. Having the capability to do so increases effectiveness and efficiency. Forging a ax or hawk out of a railroad spike forces one to focus on hammer control through techniques that without control can greatly increase the forging time. Being able to precisely land hammer blows keeps from having to reheat multiple times per task, which each time the metal is reheated a bit of carbon is lost. I am still working on this, as I think most smiths are throughout their smithing career. Smithing is a lot like a martial art in my eyes. There is always something to improve on and there is always something to learn. Something I tell my friend when he comes over and hammers with me, "don't swing so hard. Choke up on the hammer, control your hammer blows, and use the weight of the head, not your arm, to move the metal". Most people don't realize that not always does there have to be so much oomph behind the hammer. If the right weight is used, let the hammer do the work.

There is almost a smooth, robot-like tempo to get into. In this tempo, watching the heat, flipping and moving the piece, and timing your precise hammer blows all flow together. This is important when augmenting the metal in a way other than just hammering it flat or into a different shape. Knowing the heat and knowing what will happen not only to the part of the metal that is struck, but to the rest of the piece as well. When splitting the eye for a piece like this, knowing when to stop is a big factor in a successful slitting, splitting, or punching. Even if the tool is hard, after a certain amount of heat loss, each blow is no longer doing it's intended function, it is just damaging the tool. Oh, quench that tool, too. Keep it cool or else you can mess up (or totally remove) your temper.

Besides teaching hammer control and other techniques, I like to use spikes because they're a great looking piece. If you hand someone something and tell them it's made out of a railroad spike it's easier for them to put into perspective the transformation that the piece has undergone. If you want to check out some seriously stunning railroad spike knives, look here (even though his shop is on vacation, Cris makes some truly awesome knives). Or, you can check out some of his work that gets posted on the Blacksmith Gulid Google+ page.

For this hawk, I was going for something a bit different from what I have been making in the past. My previous ones I've gone for a more "bearded style". This time I wanted more of a tomahawk look, but it almost ended up looking like a medieval style boarding ax or rope cutting ax. I favor the bearded style far more. After shaping with a file, I was content with the look. Here's where I ran into a problem; I couldn't get this steel to harden. I quenched the piece in oil three times and no avail. Luckily, my friend Aaron Armstrong of Blackcat Forge addressed this issue. Evidently, if a spike is more of a mild carbon steel, as opposed to being high carbon, they have a better effectiveness of hardening in warm water instead of warm, used motor oil. My plan this weekend is to strip it down, get the wax coating off and try to get it to harden so it will take a better edge (and so that edge will last longer).

I think I've addressed this before, but a lot of people ask me why my creations have such a rough look. That's the look I like. I like them to look old and represent being handmade instead of being made in a factory. I like the scale skin that covers the piece and the dark, black-abyss color the piece takes on one you apply some beezewax to keep the rust away. My favorite part is that it highlights the bright look of the grind, bevel, and edge. Also... I'm hooked on Kayne & Son's hawk handles. Those are pretty hard to beat, especially when they fit perfectly after sized on their hawk mandrel.

Hope you enjoyed my ramblings!

Hand Forged Japanese Tanto and The Peg-Legged Blacksmith

I haven't posted any updates on here lately because I've developed this horrible habit of starting a project, and then starting 4 more and not finishing any of them. And of course work has been busy, but who's occupation isn't time consuming on and off the clock?

When I do find some spare time and work up the gumption to head out to the shop and work, I've been working on a project that is near and dear to my heart. I believe I've mentioned this project before, and where I got the inspiration from. If not, refer back to this post. I really  feel I've made some serious progress on this project. I know, I know, it really doesn't seem like it when compared to the photo on the right. So far, I've gotten most of the scale off, shaped the general curvature of the blade, and the grooves for the hibaki started. I've also got the full length bevel started, but you can't really tell from these photos.

I'm super excited about this project, mainly because I'm using no power tools at all.  All of the initial shaping was done not with a gas forge like usual, but with a coal forge, 70lb anvil, and the hammer that our family blacksmith used on our farm close to 70 years ago. Fun little side tangent, my grandpa says our blacksmith, Lee Vincent, who despite his peg leg was the strongest man he's ever met in his life, even to this day. My grandfather, whom I consider to be one of the strongest people I've ever met (physically and emotionally) has undeniably met some strong people through the war and all other aspects of life he's seen. Our blacksmith evidently used that 4lb hammer and another that my grandfather said "I don't see how the hell anyone could swing that without two hands!"

I'm also utilizing another old style technique for this project. One that's slow, tedious, and exhausting but much finer and easier to control. Many of you who may be reading this have probably heard of draw-filing. Instead of using your typical cross filing with a metal file, one holds the file at the desired angle, and draws or pulls the file. This gives a totally different effect from cross filing. Here's what I learned:
- The file stays clean and doesn't get clogged with metal shavings.
- The metal shavings that this method does produce are like little razor blades and will stick in your skin and eat you alive. A leather apron and gloves are a MUST.
- This really helps keep things level, whether you're filing the tang, or the bevel! (see what I did there?)
- This technique really lets you get to close spots or angles and still take metal off without breaking your direction that you've been filing.

I wouldn't necessarily say this technique is slower, as it takes off just as much if not more metal than cross-filing. This method does require a bit more attention to detail, though. For me, this style is preferable, although I would thing they will both take the same amount of time. This will undoubtedly be the longest project yet, but I have no doubts that it will be the most fulfilling.