On Demos, Booths, and Craft Fairs

It seems that we as human beings are visually learning creatures. Through this visual learning, we're able to clarify and gain a further understanding of things we had not understood or even known about.

Tis true for blacksmithing.

This topic for this blog entry spurs from our weekend at Harmonie State Park in New Harmony, Indiana. This past weekend was their annual Trade Fair and we were so lucky to be apart of such a wonderful event. Really folks, if you're from the tri-state area and have a trade or craft, you need to get in on this. So very well put together and worth every bit of your time. It was for us.

Doing things like demos and setting up a booth at the craft fair, the forge burning up coal, and the hammer flattening red, hot, soft steel helps people understand what exactly it is we do in this trade... and what exactly it is that we don't do. These kind of events allow us to show people of how we turn that plain, boring piece of steel into something exciting and inviting to the eye. Many people don't realize how it's done, but many have a general idea of what a blacksmith is... kind of. Perhaps it also facilitates a greater respect and appreciation for the work that we do.

However, it also gives you some killer one liners about your trade. Here are a few, bless these people's hearts.

"So uh, you doin' some blacksmithery over here?"
- Yup.

"Are you going to anvil that iron now? Right? That's how you flatten it or shape it?"
- I'm going to anvil this iron so hard that it's going to become hand hammered steel.

"So how long have you been a horse-shoer?"
- Well, I haven't shod a horse in 23 years! (...I'm only 23 folks)

"...can you make me a sword from Lord of the Rings?"
- Sure, come back in 30 minutes and I'll have some Orcs ready for you to test cleave, too.

"I know what smithing is... I've played Skyrim."
- I have too. Many, many hours. If you forge a ton of daggers in real life, your skill really will increase, ironically.

Now, I'm just poking fun. People don't know things unless they ask questions. There really are no dumb questions, just ones that are more fun to answer than others. It was so wonderful explaining the trade to folks. I was actually very surprised at the number of people just starting blacksmithing that strolled by, or people that had family members that were blacksmiths. Of course, it was wonderful making the connections and potential client connections that we made.

Below are a few pictures of our setup. It doesn't look like there's much around us, but all of the booths were across from us. We were on the edge with the most space.

Cheers! Thanks for looking!

First Commissioned EDC

I'm trying to branch out a bit and work with new things and new material.

So far, it's going well. I've recently completed a project for my good friend Nick and I had to step outside the box a bit, but overall I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Nick, who I used to work with, is not only a hell of a guy but he's also great to do business with because he's so patient. He'd been at my heels wanting a knife for a while, and so I have finally gotten to a point where I'm comfortable with my level of craftsmanship to do a commissioned knife and Nick was the first on the list.

Freshly forged

I started with an old bastard mill file we've had floating around the shop for God only knows how long. Wayne said he got the whole collection of them back in the 70's. Holy moley that's ancient! ;) So I started shaping the tip, hammered in the bevel, moved on to the handle and cut it down to size. I did a different blade style for this one. It was kind of a tanto style, with a slight drop point, and not so jagged as you see a lot EDC tanto styles being. The nice thing about working with this file as a starter material, after annealing it was really soft.

After rough grinding

I knew I wanted to do something different for the handle. I was making a knife out of this old file, so I wanted something new for the handle to have a blend of old and new. I looked into some G10 and Micarta, and fell in love with a black and OD green layered set of G10 scales. I hadn't worked with this material before, but it was fun to work. I did everything with files, a cheap belt grinder (that fried halfway through. No worries, got the two year warranty on it!), and a Dremel. I just played with the pattern a bit and I came up with something I like. Once you start polishing the material the layers really start to pop and it looks really cool. I'll be using this material more often. I got the scales from USA Knifemakers. Of course, I had a mask on while working it :)

I took the blade, and like the dagger blade I've previously posted, soaked it in vinegar over night to give it this really cool, dark patina. I learned the hard way, however, that if you don't neutralize it with baking soda and water the bad boy will rust up in a heartbeat!

After rough shaping of the handle and the blade patina process.

Finally, after polishing up the handle and sharpening, it was time to make a sheath for the blade. I really liked the sheath I made for my Nordic style skinner but I wanted to modify it to fit better for every day carry. Nick wanted a black leather sheath, and I had some green stitch that I thought would look killed with the green scales. So, here's the final product. 

Now, it's on to the next few projects! A re-do of one of my first forged knives, some spike hawks for friends, and soon a machete out of a lawnmower blade! 

Cheers! 

Benton 

Recently Completed Works at Hall Ironworks

Every since our trip to John C. Campbell, it's been nose to the grind stone. We've gotten commissioned for some new projects. Just before we left we managed to finish some projects. Here's a few photos of some commissions we finished right before the class. Both had an August 1st deadline (and were not late).

First up: A hand rail for the New Harmony Town Hall 

The ladies with a coat of primer.

Look at those rings! 

Wayne's work partner and friend, Jeff O'Risky giving us a helping hand with the installation

Gotta stick it! 

Straight as an arrow! 

I'm going to compile a photo album that is just action shots of the beard. 

Isn't it pretty? 

Arrows, Hawks, and Mountains

I would like to start off by saying "WOW! What a busy past few weeks!"

If you're friends with or follow me on Facebook, I'm quite certain you've seen my spew of pictures from the events of the last few weeks. Here's what I'm going to do today. I'll tell you about the trip Wayne and I took to John C. Campbell in Brasstown, NC. I'll then tell you about throwing some of the hawks we made. Finally, I'll finish off with some talks of arrow heads and maybe, MAYBE a sneak peak of the next knife in the works for a good friend of mine. If you're not in the mood to do a lot of reading... save yourself now. This is a long one.

So, John C. Campbell.

...I didn't want to leave this place. I mean, look at that view! 

I've had some time to think about this post. I needed time to think about this post because quite frankly I didn't know where to start. The weekend Wayne and I spent at John C. Campbell was much like the first weekend I spent in Cincinnati at a seminar for iaijutsu in the company great martial artists and a most awesome instructor. It was that same feeling of elation, not wanting the weekend to end, not wanting to leave. We had been prepping for weeks for this trip. I had been gathering supplies, conceptualizing what I was going to make, and stressing about the car drive down there. I was to soon find out that none of that was needed, none of it at all.

John C. Campbell Folk School is basically the most perfect adult camp you could imagine, set in the misty Appalachian Mountains of far western North Carolina. The school offers just about any type of craft class you can imagine. The place is extremely welcoming, everyone is nice, and my lord the food is amazing. Seriously, the second best part was the food. Everything about this place and the way it was set up made you converse and make connections with people. Realistically, it's a networking hot spot... it's awesome.

Look at that shop! ...And the beard! 

Wayne and I, of course, went for the blacksmithing class offered that weekend. It was a tomahawk and ax forging class taught by Ryan Johnson, who's president of RMJ Tactical (go ahead, look it up. You won't be disappointed). Ryan is a master and revolutionary of creating tomahawks and tactical breaching tools. Friday night after an awesome feast we headed down to the blacksmith shop. I think we spent the first 20 minutes of marveling at this shop. The place was impressive. There were 12 forges with alternating German and American style anvils, 5 power hammers, and a room FULL of hammers, tongs, hardies, chisels, and anything else you could imagine. We could have came to JCC with nothing and had everything we needed. There was a grinding and drilling room, which had two drill presses and 5 belt grinders, a welding corner with two Miller mig welders, and the front half of what I assumed to be the old blacksmith shop was full of all kinds of metal working machinery. It was just awesome, I can't say that enough. There was also the master forge, which had a beautiful copper and steel hood over it. The place was also timber framed, with each end of the timber rafters being carved into an anvil. For a blacksmith shop, the place was squeaky clean, far cleaner than our shop... but our messy shop reflects what goes on in our strange heads, I'm sure.

Ryan demonstrating the belt ax style. 

Elmer giving me some pointers on folding styles

Ryan started the class by doing a demo of the hawk design we'd all be so diligently working towards all weekend. It was a folded style hawk, from 1 1/4 in x 1/4 in x 10 in mild steel with a chunk of 5160 truck spring stuck in between for the bit. Ryan did the first one by hand and then turned us loose at the forges. I was so excited I couldn't straight. We cut our stock and tore into our first hawk. Everything went dandy until my first forge weld. I couldn't get it to stick for the life of me. I gave it a yellow heat and smacked it, then tried again and again only to no avail. I couldn't get the sucker to weld. Finally, Elmer Roush came over and helped me. He let me know I just wasn't getting it hot enough. If you haven't heard of this guy, he's one of the top authorities on viking era blacksmithing (I've already signed up for his class in March, "Viking Era Blacksmithing"). With his watchful eye I was able to finally get my hawk to stick. This one took me quite a while, I did it all by hand, no power hammer. The next two... well I changed my method a bit for those.

Forge welding... having that beard was all it took! 

The next morning, after a haughty breakfast (why had I not had grits before? I'm hooked now!), I finished up the last few touches on my first hawk. Wayne was already welding his second hawk by now. This time, I decided, I was going to use one of the power hammers. I cut my stock, folded it, stuck the truck spring in it, and Wayne tacked it for me. Then, I gave it a good heat, fluxed it, more heat to a yellowish wet look, and then ran over to the tire hammer.

POW. POW. POW. POWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOW. 

Wayne working the Little Giant 25lb power hammer

The power hammer came down with all it's might, sending molten flux 20 feet in all directions. The hawk was welded. I learned something import here: If your hawk head has dropped to an orange heat, stop working. At that point, you're more likely to break your welds back apart. When working with welded material, work at a yellow heat. Besides, your metal moves better at that point. Anyway, I had to do a few more repair welds after sizing the eye more, then some grinding clean up and it was done.

After lunch (TACO SALAD!!), Ryan did a demo of a style of ax that Elmer usually does, a cool little Hudson Bay belt ax. Then, my buddy Will McAllister showed up from Bray Oaks Forge and helped me out quite a bit on some stuff. Between a little before dinner and the end of the night, will helped me get a nice weld, do some cool clean up and filing on the hawk head and handle, and then helped me pour a pewter cap on my handle. Will is super helpful and will find a way to answer any question you may have. If you haven't seen any of his work, look up Bray Oaks Forge on Facebook, you'll be in awe. He's moved over to more Viking style stuff lately, and all of his pieces are bad ass quite frankly. Many of them have pewter caps with wooden rune inlays or a nice hardwood handle polished to a sheen with silver inlay. The guys work is phenomenal, and as if I wasn't already lucky enough to be there learning from Ryan, Elmer, and Jack from Rustick Knives, I also got some help from Will. It was just too cool.

The ax that Will helped me on. What a beaut! 

Sunday was clean up time and "show and tell". Everyone displayed some of their work had lunch, and went home. We skipped lunch because we had a seven hour drive and wanted to make it home before dark. JCC was gorgeous, full of knowledge and good people, and worth every penny and every mile driven. I can't wait to go back in the spring.

Will McAllister of Bray Oaks forge and I

Will, instructor Ryan Johnson, and I

The ladies of the weekend.

Now, some of the other things I've been working on.

I've been working on some arrowheads lately. I want to build my own arrows with my own custom arrowheads now that I've got a 71' English longbow that I love to shoot. The going is slow, because despite how easy you think arrowheads are to make, THEY'RE NOT. They require a lot of small detail work with lighter hammers that I'm not used to. It's fun for that reason, though. I have to do a lot of work that I'm not used to doing and that reveals many things I need to learn. I'll add some pictures of those once I get more forged.

Lastly, I'm working on a knife for an old co-worker of mine from back in the shoe-selling days. It's from a old mill file of the "Bastard" brand I think. It's going to be a nice little every day carry knife. I'm still polishing it and I'm on the fence whether to put a nice red oak handle on it or use some G10 or micarta that I just ordered. Don't worry, there will be pictures of this to come, too.

Thanks for taking the time to read this suuuuper long post. Y'all rock!
-Benton

The Hunter - A Nordic Inspired Blade

Every creation of mine has an inspiration behind it, be it something I have seen or something I've just randomly came up with in the deep depths of my strange brain. Sometimes a book, television show, movie, video game, or even something abstract gives me inspiration for something to be made. This latest project has had a bit of inspiration from so many different avenues.

One of my favorite blacksmithing books is called "Swedish Blacksmithing" by Noren and Enander (highly recommend this book if you're starting out). It has numerous chapters on all kinds of applications of traditional Swedish blacksmithing, be it starting out and preparing your shop all the way to forging damascus and other advanced applications. I originally bought this book solely for the chapter on ax making but have come to regard it as close as a religious text when curious about a technique. Within the pages there is a chapter on knife making with a Swedish design. It's an interesting chapter, laying out the technique of forging a "U" shape in some mild steel approximately .25 to .125 inches thick by 1 or 1.5 inches wide, and laying a hard piece of steel into the fold and forge welding it together, to have a knife that has a hard cutting edge but being able to use the mild for more of the body and shape. I was running low on carbon steel at the time, so I grabbed the last little three inch piece of a jackhammer bit I had left and decided to give it a whirl. For someone who's not entirely adept at forge welding, I was moderately pleased with how it turned out. I kept a bladesmith's advice I met recently in mind: "When you think it's welded... weld it three more times". I started to shape the blade, and decided I wanted to make a hunter/skinner style knife close to a puukko.

I started to grind and clean up the knife when the weld line started to show. I was enthused, no, I was fanatic once I saw it. Granted, I had some cold shunts and other blemishes along my weld lines, but the blade is solid.

I wanted this blade to look old and have a story, so I left many of the hammer blows, bumps, and bruises in the blade. I went with a bevel style where the whole blade is one plane, not a flat surface that moves down to a bevel. I had a pretty nice heat treat on the blade despite how nerve racking it was to do. Our gas forge wasn't hooked up due to some remodeling in our shop, so I had to temper the blade over the coal forge. I had never done that before but I achieved a nice straw color. It was well into the polish stage that I was very shocked with my creation so far. It was sharp. Holy sweet mother of Mary it was sharp. My polishing technique is a 3x2in balsa wood block that I attach emery cloth to the bottom with a rubber band. It gives me a flat surface and something nice to hold on to while polishing. I was deep into what I was doing one night polishing away on the blade and clearly not taking my time. My patience was thin and I was anxious to finish polishing the blade. I was swiping back and forth entirely too fast and the block slipped off the edge of the blade, and I rammed my hand backwards to continue the polishing, only to jab the tip of the blade (which was even sharper than what I realized) through my thumb nail. Immediately I was furious with myself and my lack of care, concern, and control. Too bad I didn't learn my lesson and I did the same thing 5 minutes later except twice as bad, drawing much more blood and much more foul language. Needless to say, I quit for the night.

The handle was something I was stuck on for a while. I didn't know what I wanted to do with it. I thought about a stag handle, but I did not have any large scale antler to my disposal. I decided to go with some poplar that had a green look to it. I hand carved the handle and left the carving chisel marks on the handle surface. I liked the look of it and the feel of it even better. I put about 6 coats of boiled linseed oil on the handle and topped it off with a heavy coat of Tru Oil Gunstock finish to lock in the moisture.

The spacer was originally from some pretty thin copper plate, but it just didn't have the look I wanted, So Wayne found me some thicker (approx. 1/8in) copper pipe and we flattened it out. After cutting out the
design with the hacksaw, I had to get the hole for the tang drilled and filed to shape. What a tedious process! I was filing away with a little rat tail file for close to 2 hours. Note to self: buy a tip that can do this for my Dremel. I then tried to file some fancy designs onto the edges of the spacer... it didn't work out like I wanted since I didn't have a small enough file to do so. But oh well, live and you learn, right?

I finished off the project with a nice folded leather sheath made of vegetable tanned leather. Can't wait to get a deer this year (or next) and see how well it works. My left arm can vouch for it's sharpness as it has considerably less hair left than my right.

Cheers!

Big Blu Hammer X-1 Rounding Hammer - Review

I would think that most craftsmen and craftswomen have the same feeling upon getting a new tool. There is a feeling that accompanies that tool from the supplier to the crafter, a feeling of joy and anticipation. I'm sure that woodworkers feel the same way about getting a new set of nice carving chisels, potters getting a new wheel to throw clay, and a leather worker acquiring a new set of punches or stamps.

For myself the thrill, joy, and anticipation comes from hammers. I'm always shopping around and checking out people's personal hammer designs, big time market sellers, and hammers that are receiving a lot of buzz. It is no secret that I am a little biased due to my loyalty to Big Blu Hammer and all the products they make. I've been wanting my own rounding hammer so that Wayne and I didn't have to share when we went down to John C. Campbell in a few weeks. I browsed around, thought about ordering my own Diamond rounding hammer, but I wanted something different (even though they are super nice for the price). After checking around, I of course went to the BLU website. I decided on the X-1 Rounding Hammer. It has a similar design to a Brian Brazeal hammer, and is pretty decently priced at $105USD (pictured at right, bottom of the photo).

The hammer fits well in hand, due to it's long handle that's longer than the BLU cross peens. The handle is also more shaped like a hexagon with some curvatures up but the hammer head and back towards the end of the hammer. If one needed a shorter handle, it could be easily done.

The hammer head is gorgeous, with both faces polished to a mirror fininsh. Both have a round profile, but one has a flat face and the other has a rounded face. The non-striking surfaces has a nice black finish on them.

I feel as if I'm spoiled on the ergonomic hammers that BLU makes. I love the short, squared handle. After using these hammers for two years, I have trouble using hammers with longer handles. However, that was not the case with this hammer. This hammer just feels good in your hand. I have relatively large hands, but the handle wasn't too small nor was it too big. I didn't find myself sliding or anything of the such.

I'm extremely pleased with this purchase, as I am with every purchase from BLU. The X-1 Rounding hammer marks the 4th hammer we've purchased from them.

Now, to save for a Big BLU Max power hammer...

Sneak Peak - Donor Tree

Recently, Wayne was approached by some good friends of ours up in New Harmony about a project. The project was for something called a "donor tree"... neither of us had heard of a donor tree. After doing some research and speaking with our friends that approached us, I've found many different beautiful donor trees that people have done, from making them solely from steel or using steel and wood.

We've created an organic things from steel before, such as our tree gate we did back in 2011 (which is still my favorite piece we've done, pictured to the left and below). It was one of the first projects that I really did a lot of work with Wayne. Wayne had the concept in mind to blend modern fabrication with traditional smithing methods. The main body of the gate, which formed the tree was cut with a plasma cutter, while the leaves and locking mechanism were all hand forged. Let's be honest, if I had to hot cut 3/8 plate as big as this gate was with a chisel, hammer, and anvil... we'd still be out there cutting it 3 years later! The color scheme we did on this gate was cool, too. We used a black paint, tarnished copper green, and some other greens and grays to give it an old look and then used a gold wire brush to add a gold sheen to the leaves. Once all of the colors were applied and dried, we added a nice clear coat to keep it looking like we intended it to.

I think referring back to these ideas we used for the gate have been a extremely helpful on this current project. One of the hardest things about making something that came out of nature, which has no definite straight lines or right angles, is making that something with materials that come only in straight lines. It can be hard to replicate the asymmetrical beauty of nature, but one can get close with enough patience and creativity. This is something I think Wayne hasn't forgotten on this project or the last. It's projects like these that I'm reminded that no matter how much research I've done, how many videos I've watched, or how many knife blades and axes I've hammered out that I'm still the apprentice of the shop and this man is the true master mind that has a practicality and creatively cultivated by years of fabrication projects of the most unusual, practical, and unique stature.

For this project, we wanted the tree to represent the project. We wanted the project to be an embodiment of what trees are; life at it's greatest. Of course, there is no doubt that is why these types of donor trees came about. What better organism to represent life and giving than a tree? A tree can have a longevity that can outlive most organisms on earth, but with the smallest little bore hole made by a green bug that tree can die, lose it's leaves, and fall. Trees are such giving organisms. I could write all day about all of the things that trees give us, physically and physiologically. But I think most of you reading this should have a general comprehension of those characteristics. I think this is a good representation of what a donor should be. A donor can give so much to someone who has so little, a donor can breathe life into someone who is staring death in the face, and a donor can bring a smile to someone who hasn't smiled in a long time. Let's re-cap that. Trees represent life, trees donate things to us human beings, thus donor trees are cool.

We wanted to do something different for this one, something subtle yet striking. I was really starting to worry if we were going to be able to fulfill those expectations we had for ourselves. Then, of course, he did it again. Wayne said "I've been stewing over an idea for the last week or so. Copper behind the trunk, raised to the front through gaps of woven steel, textured to look like tree bark. What do you think?" There was only one thing I could say to a marvelous idea like that...

"I think you're on to something"

So, there it started and from the start it has blossomed to near completion. I wont show much more than this picture of the textured trunk, for I want to save the best pictures for last when it's fully completed. I was really excited at first when we were commissioned for this project... but that amount of excitement is only a fraction of what excitement I'm filled with now.