/diy/ - Do It Yourself

How would one get started?

That depends entirely on your budget. But really I would recommend watching as many videos on the subject as possible to get ideas on what you want to start with. I wouldn't recommend a brake drum forge as they're many cheaper ways to make a better forge. Also don't use wood. It works kinda but it won't get steel as hot as it really should be for working.

>>862755
you ever use ironwood?

>>862727
Hammer and an anvil and a brake drum.

Got a few of things I am willing to post photos of.

1/3

Plant Hanger.

>>862885

2/3 letter opener for my mom's birthday present.

>>862887

3/3

Flint striker/Viking Woman's Knife.

>>862755

What do you recommend for an easy forge? Assuming no welding capacity, of course.

>>862712
Nice work OP, I particularly like the hammer on the left.

How can I make an anvil with a basic toolbox? All the tuts I've watched you need a damned blowtorch.

>>862927
Makin a anvil is pretty hard I think you go better buying a cheap one with 2 kg shouldn't cost to much

>>862929
Damn. What about a forge?

where do you guys get your metal?

The best starter anvil is the biggest chunk of metal you can get your hands on or railroad track but there's a lot of legal stuff with that unless you find a precut piece from someone else. This (55lbs) was at my local scrap yard and would work great.

As for a forge I've made like 7 different ones but currently it's a bigass pipe stuck through a pile of mud and it works amazingly. Essentially a Viking style forge.

I have 0 experience and limited space/budget. What would be good to start with?

I happened to find a really nice anvil at a really nice price but the prevalence of them really depends on your location. And they are usually the most expensive tool you'll buy.

>>862944
i like this. What's i on?

If you have no experience at all, I'd recommend reading. A lot. Which I know people don't like to hear but just research whatever you don't know and go with what you think will work best for you. There are a lot of great blacksmiths on YouTube (Garyhouston is a good one for beginners) where you can almost whatever you need.

>>862888

Some reason it didn't post, here's the knife.

>>862942

I've heard (but not experienced myself) that most railways are more than willing to sell you a section of rail road for a cheap price. They won't just give it to you, but they will sell it cheap just so there is a record of you owning it to avoid any legal trouble.

>>862945

A good anvil can easily resell for what you bought it for. It's worth it to save up for one, and if you find out that Blacksmithing isn't your thing I doubt it'll be too much trouble to sell it again.

when I'm using the grinder for finishing the bevel always at the tip it get blue and I only have it there for a second is there anyway to avoid that. I also quench it after every pass on the grinder.
Here's an old picture when i was first starting.

>>863047
Don't put so much pressure on it, grind the tip gently. Also, doing the finishing touches by hand with a file is an option. Don't use the grinder at all after heat treating it of course.

>>863057
I don't do it after heat treating I file after that.by finishing i mean making it thinner before heat treat so i can file and sharpen it

Here's a shitty photo of a whole bunch of other stuff I've done in varying levels of quality and completeness.

Even more of my work

>>863063
9/10 would buy in a shop
-1 don't know how God ur steel is

>Some roses I did

>>863047
what sort of grinder, too.

bench grinder? no hope.

belt grinder? swap to a coarser grint, with less pressure. (a coarse grit will remove material, instead of it staying as friction. Of course, you need to clean up the deeper scratches that way)
or use a fine grit with the inverter or pulleys to reduce the speed of the belt. Doing that its easy to take the belt down to 300 grit, maybe a 100m/min belt speed, and grind out easily.

was doing that earlier on a long blade with a contact wheel, and grinding the entire blade, moving it along the contact wheel, without throwing the temper at all.

>>862712

those are pliers m8, not tongs, and if that's what you were producing a year ago, there is no way you forged that turning hammer head

>>863159
i have bench belt sander and an angle grinder all i have right now is wood belts haven't had a chance to get metal belts

>>862939
>where do you guys get your metal?

general mild steel can be bought in most stores - in the US, even home depot will have it. A google search for "steel stockist [region]" should get you some hits in all but the most remote areas.

Specialist steel is mostly needed for bladesmithing or the likes - scrap metal in that context is a fool's game, you're just wasting your time. In the US, try Aldo Bruno, the New Jersey Steel Baron, who supplies a lot of skilled smiths. in the UK, Cromwell Industrial Supply does O1 as "ground flat stock", and Furnival Steel is a good supplier for BS EN-spec steels. In europe, Dick Herdim Tools does some nice stuff, particularly hitachi blue paper steel.

But remember, for general blacksmithing of objects, carbon steel isnt needed - there's nothing to gain from using O1 in a set of decorative hinges...

>>863163
belt sander, you'll need the right sort of belts wood belts are a complete waste of time.

I'd suggest shopping for Trizacts for finishing, but Cubitron II are damn good for heavy work. better than SAIT zirconium belts - those need a lot of pressure to cut well, good for industrial use, but for hand-grinding they glaze over too easily.

the trick for finishing after HT is to use light pressure. if you're pressing hard, you'll be hogging material out of the blade, and it'll get hot fast. avoid that, and you'll have better hopes of avoiding burning the tip.

Alternatively, kit the belt grinder with water spray cooling.... thought that makes one hell of a mess.

>>863170
the wood belts are good when i need to clean the blades. I am gonna to get metal belts soon though

So what's first, etching or temper, and why?

>>863214
in what context? making what, etching what, etc?

>>863218
I meant the etch you put on a Damascus blade to bring out the metals.

>No way you made that turning hammer
I most certainly did make that turning hammer about 4 months ago from 2 1/4" axle.
Also yeah they're pretty much pliers but originally intended as scrolling tongs so I called them tongs. I do use them mainly as pliers tho.

>>863223
after heat-treat and tempering.

ideally, after temper, you'll polish to about 800-1200 grit by hand then etch. Ferric, usually. if you did the etch before, it would be discoloured during HT.

>>863234
Thanks.

>>863234
OP here and I had to say kudos to you man for knowing your shit. I like it.

>>863241
If I hadn't learnt by now, I'd be in a lot of trouble.

today, its been working on a german Langes messer from the very end of the 15th C with forged guard and nagel in genuine 100+ year-old wrought iron...

>>863324
>Langes messer
kek

Just to ask, I'm using a barbecue as a stand for the break drum. Now, the breakdrum sits inside a countersunk hole in the barbecue, but thr main issue is that would the generated heat be too hot for the thin steel surrounding the breakdrum?

>>863324
Holy fug what a nice rondel dagger
Is it actually functional? Or will it bend with first thrust? Also, what cross section? Diamond? Can't see from that photo, would love to see more!

>>863439
>Is it actually functional?

Very.

O1 spec steel, lightly forged with most of the shaping from stock removal, differentially heat-treated to 58HrC for the body, and 61HrC for the tip, Rectangular cross-section at the guard blending into an isosceles triangular cross-section which transitions to an equilateral triangular section at the very tip.

Rondels shaped from EN9 / 1055 spec steel, the upper rondel consisting of a two-piece structure, the top-plate soldered onto the lower with 188 lead solder (the historically accurate method). Blade Tang cold-peined over a fileworked pein-block on the end.
grip of veg-tan calf leather over a beech-wood core with leather risers.

double-layer veg-tan sheath, tooled with 15th C patterns, dinished with chape and lacing aiglets of .925 sterling silver.

Whole thing is directly based on the blade and hilt shape of a surviving example in the Delft Legersmuseum (though the hilt of the original is copper-alloy instead of blacked steel and leather)


>>863388
- that's what they're called.

>>863324
>>863445
Beauty!

>>863324
Holy shit that's amazing. Beautiful work. Definitely beyond what I currently have the skills or equipment to do.

>>863445
What if I would like to buy that one? How much would the price be?

>>863488
$2,850

>>863439
lel that statue is where I live. he is vomiting on some other russian dude if I recall correctly. 4 statues vometing on eachother

>>863491
Shiet, quoted wrong post, I meant the rondeldagger
...or are you talking about the dagger?

>>863500
No, I just read the price in the picture.

>>863491
Funnily enough... you're not far off being right.

the repro I'm working on will likely be around the $2,750 mark. Well, £1750 to be exact, depending on how the exchange rate is. Sometimes seems strange that a really well-made sword is not that far off the opening price for an original at auction.

Though unlike the original, my one will have the hilt properly covered in wood and leather, a blade that's not crumbling away from age, and I expect to have a wooden-cored scabbard which is tooled, in a rather similar style to that rondel dagger, covered with gothic floriate patterns and text, which will probably read something along the lines of "O MARIA BIT WIR UNST" tooled into the leather. Still cant decide which epithet to put on that.

If I'd used modern steel and missed out a by-knife, it might be about $400 less. You really don't want to know how much extra hassle it is, sourcing antique steel for all the hilt furniture - that stuff's a finite resource, after all. but worth it. the steel has a subtle grain flowing through it, which makes it absolutely beautiful to look at close-up. I dont acid-etch it, so over the years it will slowly bring out the grain as it patinates naturally, with streaks of lighter and darker wrought in the cross.

The research work that goes into one of these is immense, a lot of travel around Europe to handle the originals, finding them in museums, etc. as well. Its taken a lot of years of doing cheap work in the 300-500 range to get to the point where I can justify that price, and be comfortable with calling myself one of the group of people who are the top league of historical smiths.

>>863500
a normal rondel, consisting of a good homogeneous carbon steel blade, properly HT'd, with hand-fitted rondels, plus leather sheath with bronze chape and aiglets, I generally start around the £350-400 ($550-600) mark as a starting price, but it can go up from there to stratospheric prices depending on complexity. Something like that one pictured though, with a vast amount of tooling to the sheath, plus really careful blacking, plus sterling silver hilt furniture, nowadays, I'd ask around the £700 ($1200) mark for it.

Some of the really beautiful ones have inlays in gold or silver wire hammered into the blade, or really elaborate cross-sections, engraving and decoration on the hilts, or really difficult woods like holly or ebony. So there's never one set price, its all contextual to the specific job done and how difficult the tasks are. Someday, I hope to do proper historical gold-plating for an entire dagger hilt - Mercury fire gilding, where you paint a paste-like amalgam of gold and mercury onto the metal, then heat it all in a flame to boil off the mercury, and leave a layer of pure gold on the surface of the metal... Strangely enough, I can foresee that being the dagger I ask a 5-figure pricetag for.

The thing is, its very easy to say "how much?!" and fall off the chair at the idea of a thousand-dollar dagger, when a chinese company can do something that looks similar for $50. but the reality is, if you ever want to sell your work as a professional craftsman, you need to recognise the reality that you are doing bespoke work - I started off doing £100 daggers, and quickly realised I was so underselling myself, that I was in many ways simply postponing bankruptcy at that cost.

(Though I will admit the particular dagger I'm reproducing will vary the cost too. if its one that catches my eye, I'm a sucker for a challenge, and will often take on bits of the design for free even if I should charge more, simply because its a fun to do tough stuff!)

>>863324
isn't all iron like the age of the sun

>>863502

how is old steel better, and where the heck do you buy THAT????

>>863538
well, most is billions of years old, unless you're in the local vicinity of a supernova. but by that logic, the contents of my fridge for my dinner later on is also 4 billion years old, which might be past its best before date...

however, there's different iron production methods to extract that from ore, and into raw iron or steel ingots - Bloomeries, the Puddling furnace, and later on, the bessmer converter.

Modern bessmer converters create steel through a very different process, which has a much higher temperature, so it melts more consistently, and slag is removed easier. Its used for all modern steel production worldwide, and in the case of a low-carbon steel, results in Mild steel, like you can buy in any hardware store.

wrought iron is a very different material, in that its produced cooler, and with a lot more impurity in the form of slag inclusions that make tiny dark streaks, called stringers, in the steel. Its much more accurate for historical reproductions, as its almost identical to the steel made back then. The problem is, no-one makes it any more, because that Bessmer converter is far more efficient. its just become obsolete as technology moved on.

So your options are either to get it from the sole wrought iron foundry left in the world, who recycle large amounts of wrought to make their barstock - at a premium price of course - or you hunt and find antique ironwork, in the form of gates, bars, fenceposts, etc, that's not been recycled yet, and forge it out to be used for new purposes.

so by "100+ year-old", I'm referring to wrought iron that was first smelted from ore more than 100 years ago, and has been taken before being scrapped. Wrought's a lovely material to work in, very pliable, almost clay-like under the hammer, and it forge-welds beautifully, much better than modern steel. But that rarity means it is hard to find.

>>863545
so ah, besides actually obtaining ore pellets, whats the total investment involved in starting up an old fashion wrought iron foundry? how much of it could be automated under the same procedures that 150 years ago were common practice?

do you think there's enough of a market to consume enough stock and ingot of classical steel, to turn a profit?

where IS this one foundry you speak of? is there any specific source of ore that you prefer, or would you want to choose between brazilian ore, teutonic ore, east asian ore, etc.

i'm taking classes in metallurgy in the spring as part of chemical engineering, and i'd be very interested to discuss how we could obtain ore and smelt a high quality product that blacksmiths worldwide could compare to antique steel, at a competitive price.

>>863541
Better? nope. its worse. its full of slag stringers, impurities that make it fail when bent cold (it tears when bent), little details that make it poorer in performance. its far more expensive, its far rarer so a nightmare to get. its not as strong. For a general engineering point of view, its shit.

but it also has some great qualities, from a modern artistic point of view, those stringers give it texture, that makes it look visually stunning - the pic is an etched example.

From more practical points, it forge-welds brilliantly - so you can wrap a high-carbon steel cutting edge in it, to make a blade with different properties. the material doesn't harden when quenched (not enough carbon) - so if you're making a 7th century seax, for instance, you can make the edge hard steel, but the back can be cut with gravers, and then inlaid with copper-alloy, gold or silver wires. And it was the sort of steel used historically, so for a historical craftsperson, its spot-on.

where to get it? either spend a load of time searching scrapyards, and know what to look for, have a network of smiths who will trade it among ourselves whenever someone finds some, or, in a pinch, you can get it from these guys, but its certainly not cheap - if you take the price of a 1" x 1" bar of the stuff, its probably 40-50 times the price of modern mild steel.

http://www.realwroughtiron.com/

>>863551
forgot the pic. Derp.

>>863548
>whats the total investment involved in starting up an old fashion wrought iron foundry? how much of it could be automated under the same procedures that 150 years ago were common practice?

>do you think there's enough of a market to consume enough stock and ingot of classical steel, to turn a profit?

Not even close. 99.99% of what wrought was done for has been replaced by mild steel, and the public doesnt know any different. a set of "wrought iron" gates made today are invariably mild steel, not wrought.

Its a real specialist niche market these days, its used mostly in restoring historic buildings and the likes. stuff where its all listed buildings.

I honestly don't think there's the market to make it anything but a novelty, even if the production process were modernised, it would cost hundreds of thousands to set up a factory to produce it.

http://www.realwroughtiron.com/ is the only foundry recycling it.

>how we could obtain ore and smelt a high quality product that blacksmiths worldwide could compare to antique steel, at a competitive price.

at a competitive price, you probably cant.
Ore supply is easy - you can get that from modern mines easily. the difficult bit is smelting it the same way, using charcoal as fuel, as that imparts some of the carbon into the ore.

but you could well be interested in trying to make a tuyere bloomery, and producing some historical steel. its hard work - find some other poor bastard to do the charcoal-shovelling! - but spectacular results, making iron from rocks.

>>863551

so to clarify, this is NOT really stuff for people looking for performance alone? this is more of a historical authenticity question?

(with the exception of ease of forge welding)

also, the realwroughtiron guys seem to already be automated as much as possible. too bad. i bet they can produce more then enough to meet demand too.

i'll go back to my plan of making my own miniature electric-arc vaccuum furnace with motorized remote operation and control panels... and not having to rezone my land as 'industrial'...

>>863554
that's not damascus, right? nobody actually knows how to make damascus anymore, or is that a myth?

my understanding was the damascus process was the product of millenia of father-to-son sophistication of men that spent their whole lives maybe learning a tenth of a step in the process of evoking miraculous properties in the metal... a kind of patient sophistication our world has abandoned for leaping across paradigms and platforms so fast that no one will die in the world they were born in ever again...

>>863554
Very interesting. Do you have a contact or site or something where I could contact you? Where are you located? US? Yurop?

>>863560
>that's not damascus, right? nobody actually knows how to make damascus anymore, or is that a myth?

thats a myth

what you see 99% of the time advertised as "damascus" is actually pattern-welding.


texture in wrought is silicate inclusions, the slag from smelting, which in modern steel is removed by chemical processes and greater heat. it starts off as little nodules, which get flattened out and then stretched into long, thin filaments of non-metallic shit in the steel. the filaments are linear, but otherwise pretty random.

Pattern welding is taking two dissimilar steels, a modern popular choice is 15n20 and 1085 spec steels, and forge-welding them together. when that's etched, the two steels darken and corrode differently, because their chemistry is different, and this, you see the contrast. How you forgeweld it, determines the pattern, if you twist the steel as its hot, you get chevrons, lines, bands, etc.
Unfortunately when some of the american artisan smiths started doing Pattern-welding in the 70's, they marketed it under the name "Damascus", claiming it was a lost art, etc. All marketing bullshit, really. Sadly, the public latched onto it.

Real damascus, that's something entirely different. Its a very high carbon steel - 1.25 - 3%, which is almost bordering on cast iron in some ways, which is prepared in a very high-temperature, oxygen-deprived environment, forming a homogeneous steel. it has a crystalline grain structure, called dendrites, which are almost like snowflake crystals. Its a very different, strange material. however, its not lost at all. I know one person who's remade it, and plenty of labs have too - modern names for it include "Wootz", and "Bainite". The only detail we've lost is where the original damascus steels' ore came from that gave it a few distinctive properties. We can recreate it in a foundry or even a small DIY furnace pretty easily.

All three have textures and patterns, but are made with very different processes.

>>863560
They rediscovered it a few years back. Some university did on accident.

Alright I make knives but out of small metal. I've never worked with leaf springs but I really want to make a kukri I have a coal forge how hard will it be to work?

>>863579

they never lost it in the first place.

Wootz and Damascus have been in production from an almost pre-historic date, all the way through to the 1870's.

From then on it fell out of favour because of modern technological processes, but has been reproduced many times in the intervening decades.

all that university did was reinvent the wheel in working out how they were made, and then making out it was an amazing discovery, when it was something bladesmiths knew all along.

>inb4 "wootz Damascus pattern welding ulfbhert katana" internet argument

>>863581
Leaf spring can be a pita to work because it's a really tough steel and it's wide. So long as you work it at a high heat and use a big hammer making a kukri shouldn't be too bad.

>>863678
alright cool what about the bevel any tips?

What are some legitimate bladesmithing forums? Some that are beginner friendly?

It's the same as any other knife. You just put a bevel on. Just make sure you exaggerate the curves on it as it will straighten out from the beveling.

>>863746
What is a reasonable price for a bearded tomahawk in carbon steel (300-400g)?

>>863746
alright it's just it took me like two weeks to get these springs i don't want to fuck anything up southern Arizona heat makes fuck ups in the forge so much worse

I've always wanted to try my hand at blacksmithing, but I keep ending up living in apartments downtown. Any tips for finding a space to work in?

>>864479
>A storage unit

Could one use a rail road tie plate as a makeshift anvil? saw a video of a guy use one for such a purpose and wondered if they make decent anvils. Would just buy a legit anvil but I'm broke as fuck and these things litter the side of the tracks I live near.

>>864494
You usually have to sign some terms and conditions, including not making fire or running any machinery. I doubt their fire policy covers forges.

>>864560
you can but it wont last long, if you can get more, go for it

made these last night

>>864560
If broke as fuck and not wanting to stay that way, work towards tools and equipment to work on things which will save you money, make you money, or make you more employable before smithing.

Smithing and casting are the least useful metal hobbies because they don't produce much which is usable without finish machining. Casting is only useful except for art if you have a lathe and a milling machine. Smithing takes space, money, is labor-intensive, and other than making "cool" shit isn't very useful unless you are a farrier or have a line of tools and (for example) utensils you can sell at Civil War reenactments etc.

It's interesting to learn about but EXCEPT FOR THEORY is a dead end compared to wrenching, welding, and machining all of which complement each other greatly in theory and practice.

Have fun, but if broke I suggest only having hobbies which will help make you less broke. Metalworking can certainly do that. No good welder or mechanic lacks work and while being a basic machinist doesn't pay well it's fun and you can do it until you are quite old.

>>864602
Cool!
How did you shape the chain links?

>>864609
i took about two inches of stock started to bend it around the horn then when they started to get a U shape i started tapping one end then the other then they would make a point then you start tapping the tip till it forms a link shape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC7oRSSlcJQ
this helped when i was starting it

I want to try my hand at knifemaking. Been trying to get a forge up and running in my spare time the last month or so.

1/3 First weak attempt, wouldn't even make a railroad spike glow dull red

>>864765
2/3 A little better, could heat enough to shape still took to long though.

>>864767
3/3 scrapped the whole "soupcan forge" idea and going to build something proper.

Found a 7gal air tank on craigslist for $10 to make a forge out of, and made a propane torch today out of brass fittings and a steel pipe.

Hope to finish it this weekend

>>864768
>>864767
>>864765
Right on man i hope this thread lasts long enough to see all this done and some of your work you do in it.

Time to post my dope ass rose again. Getting ready to crank out a batch to sell for Valentines.

>>864785
Definitely will, I think it will be a while before I turn out anything half decent though. I'm just going to practice forging on railroad spikes since I have like 2 5gal buckets of them and use it to heat treat stock removal knifes. That way I don't mess up any good knife steel trying to forge it.

>>865027
Don't worry I'm this guy >>863047 and as you can see those aren't great looking

>>863075
They are pretty.

>>864870
How do you get the red color in it? Is it just the remaining heat?

So my insulation on my propane forge gave up the ghost finally. I'm using one if Zoeller's burners. I was using kaowool for insulation. Two inches thick. The inner layer has completely crumbled and given way.

I cannot currently afford new kaowool, but don't want to give up on my current projects until I can afford it. What are some good home made refractory recipes that I can use to get her at least limping along on the cheap?

>>863502
>"O MARIA BIT WIR UNST
"Oh mary we pray?"
or "oh mary pray for us?"

>>864870
>>863075
I have a mate who works for an engineering firm, as a maintenance fabricator or sumshit.
all he does all day is make little projects like go-karts or land yachts, and he makes roses essentially identical to yours, except he just sand blasts(?) them and blues the edges of the petals. his also have blunted thorns, I'll show him your ones tomorrow and post one of his ones.

his are not forged though, he has every resource under the sun available from lathes to nuts computer CNCs, so its all just fabrication.

>>865184
Yeah it's about 2500 degrees in that.

>>865417
TBF mine are cut out of sheet metal and then formed with a Oxy torch, I just stick them in the forge to get a nice patina on them since I can't heat the whole thing evenly with the torch.

>>865697
>about 2500 degrees
I will assume that's Fahrenheit.

>>865413
"Oh, Mary, plead for us", would probably be the modern equivalent. one of a series of possible epithets which were common through the cult of Mary in 15th C germany.

>>863502
You know the T has no business there, right?

"O Maria Bit Wir Uns"

>>865709
yup, was a typo. Strangely enough, medieval high german's not my first language.

mind you, given the texts I've seen, adding an extra letter is a minor detail compared to some of the weird mangling you see.

>>865721
>bit vir uns
That makes a lot of sense to me. In modern German it'd be 'für' and the v (in German) is sharp like the f unlike the w. v > f makes sense, w > f doesn't as it is a totally different sound.

So this shit stopped working and I don't wanna fucking pay for another one any idea how to fix it?

Wow I'm a dumbass I posted that shit in a thread

>>864765
>>864767
>>864768


Tonight's attempt at knifemaking. Reminder that I have never tried this before 3hrs ago, pls no bully. Just stock removal though, forge isn't up and running yet.

Got burner all put together with gas seal and a hose, I accidentally drilled the orifice hole too big so I need to go buy a new NPT plug tomorrow. But it works.. just spits out a HUGE rich flame atm, actually scared the shit out of me when I first turned it on.

>>865868
said scary ass flame, except it was about 5 times as big when I first turned it on

>>865869
some old files I found at a swap meet

>>865870
bench sanding and lots of hand filing

>>865871
Still needs some refinement, but I like the shape. I'm intending on it to be a boning/filet knife.

>>865872
Still needs some refinement, but I like the shape. I'm intending on it to be a boning/filet knife.

>>865727
You tried refilling it?
If it doesn't spark, it's fucked, get a new one.

>>865697
>TBF mine are cut out of sheet metal and then formed with a Oxy torch
exactly how he does them, i think he only uses a torch though

>>865873
What are metal files typically made of? I assume it's some kind of alloy steel right?

>>866528
depends on the file.

70's Nicholson are 1.3% carbon, 90's and later are 1095. Most modern ones, particularly indian and chinese are case-hardened mild steel. Vintage Disston are air-hardening, Mathieson are cast billet.

its why using files or other scrap is a fools' game. you dont know if its oil-hardening, water-quench, air-hardening, carbon steel, or junk.

What do you guys know about induction heating as a replacement for a traditional furnace? Due to some zoning bullshit in my city I don't think I can make a proper furnace.

>>865869

Wouldn't using a regulator be quite a bit easier than trying to tweak the orifice size?

>>862712

How do you make the handle hole in the hammerhead?

Also are tongs easey to make? how do you progress

>>866531
If you're forging it, yeah, but if you're just removing materials to make a knife, it works fine 90% of the time.

>>867302
er... irrespective of if you're forging, stock-removing, or using your teeth to shape the steel, you need to know the alloy and carbon content of the steel to heat-treat it properly.

Simply removing material from a file to make a knife blade will both eat up belts faster than you can buy 'em, and also result in a knife that sits around 62-65HrC, which is way too brittle. it'll crack if its twisted at all, at that hardness.

Where do you guys set up your forges?

>>867344

I usually Dig a tunnel 50-70m into the mountainside then i dig downward for 100m

i also tend to make it a spiral staircase down

after that i set up additional support beams and ventilations

after hitting a magma vein i redirect it to fuel the forge

do see that you should be extremly careful when daming up the magma and making the grates to forge

When all is done i drag the 200kg anvil down to the forge


pretty standard forge set up

>>863020
I have the luck to be living near a small railroad company and a lumbermill. The lumbermillers use rails to keep wood of the ground. So I got a nice piece and ground an anvil out of it. It's dark outside now, but if anyone is interested, I will post pictures tomorrow

>>863060
It doesn't matter if it gets blue before ht

I made this bottleopener, the bottom part is a leaf, I like it

>>867256
You use a chisel to slit/punch a hole in the hammer blank, then drift it open. Tongs are easy to make, but good tongs take a lot of practice. If you look at tong making videos by Alec Steele and Brian Brazeal it should help you a lot.

>>867344
Outside. Wish it was inside.

Does anyone know how to forge a bar mace? Not removal from a billet i mean actually forging one.

>>867488

Thanks mate

>>867562

I would generally look at using two sets of wedge-shaped swages - er, sort of this shape, turned 90 degrees:

> <
if that makes sense.

with them slightly more than 90 degrees - 92-92.5 degrees. Ideally, I'd have a second set with a rounded chamfer end, and a set with a tighter radius for starting.

I'd draw it out taking care to add a distal taper to the cross-section, thicker spine in close to the handle, and I'd make sure the fractionally off-square swages are making the flanges taper too, to remove distal mass futher. I'd probably use EN9 0.55% carbon steel, maybe EN45. I'd avoid anything with more carbon than 1060, certainly, and I'd draw it down to about 48-50Hrc when HT'd. you want a defomation failure, not a brittle failure with this sort of thing.

>>867605
Alright that makes sense. Any idea what i could use for the starting material i was gonna use a section of this big bar i think my dad said it was a bracer off of a diesel along with a broken diesel spring and i think it's bigger than 1060

>>867608
also any one have any ideas how to make the swage block he >>867605
was talking about

>>867608
scrap metal is a fools game for any actual impact or bladed weapon. you're just wasting your time there..

assuming you're in the US, try Aldo Bruno, the NJ steel baron. He does 5160 in round bar at excellent prices.

http://newjerseysteelbaron.com/shop/5160hr/

Use the diesel spring or bracer to make the swage blocks, grind those to shape, keeping it cool as you do so with water. if you can, use a cheap leaf spring to make a fullering tool like these ones, to hold the swaging tools in place, with a stub that'll drop into your hardy hole.

Axles and things like that are great for using for structural stuff that will be used, and its a far better use of that sort of metal, than trying to use it for any sort of tempered product, because you have no idea what heat-treat is needed to get it right.

>>867610
i don't like spending money to practice.
What do you mean by cheap leaf spring?

>>867623
if you're too damn cheap to spend $10 worth of decent steel, may I suggest you start looking at a different hobby.

Honestly, take up flower-pressing, or something

Hell, take up decorative blacksmithing. That, you dont need decent consistent steel for. go weld some bits of metal together as sculpture. Dont make fucking tools, or blades, or historical weapons out of scrap metal.

>>867634
I get scrap for free. Now any sensible person I know is going to use scrap on their first attempt of something I don't care if good steel is only ten dollars scrap metal is free and it's sitting right by my carport now if I can manage to make something that looks like what I need it to then I will buy nice metal I just don't see buying the metal beating it and fucking up doing anything on my part.

>>867623
leaf spring was a suspension used on car axles and still on trucks. you can still buy it for homemade car trailers .

>>867872
I know what a leaf spring is. I meant a leaf spring from where. I didn't know if he meant from a certain kind of car or whatnot

Does anybody have any good tutorials or video on making Tongs? I've tried three times to make them and they just turn out unusable crap.

>>868204
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BoFD-qv2OM

This what you're after?

How possible is it to make a setup in the city? I've done a lot of reading and research, and basically I live in the city, my neighbor on one side is an actual crack whore who wont call the police, and then theres an empty lot that's mine. I have a detached garaged I don't keep my car in due to the last 20ft of the driveway being grass that tends to be muddy. I rent the place from my parents who think the idea of blacksmithing and forging is neat as shit as long as it doesnt shit up the whole garage when/if I move out (might just buy the place tbh)

I am not comfortable working with gasses, and yeah we have the crackhead and the guy down the street burns and melts copper wire with the plastic all the time and stinks the whole fucking neighborhood up, so I was thinking of carefully planning and constructing a brick wood charcoal forge with a 12in diameter flue this winter. Main questions though are how the fuck do I build it so that its large enough to handle big shit. Like if I want to make a frying pan or a shovel or a fucking sword or crazy shit like that. More than small knives and stuff, and keep it a reasonable size for a 1 car garage. Do I make a separate area outside for that, using an earth-and-brick longer wider flat bed forge air fed through some steel tubing?

Also, how the fuck do I make bellows that aren't a fucking shopvac or air compressor?

Pic related are the results of my first to days with hammer and anvil in an open workshop.
The middle one was the first knife and was just some random steel rod and seems to be too soft to properly hold an edge.
The other two are made from a chisel and seem to work out more or less. The big one is working out really nice for basic kitchen work and I still did not finish it of with a proper wet stone.
For the one at the bottom, I am making a handle and sheath out of oak. What would be a good way to fix tha handle? 2 component glue? what kind?

I am travelling atm, so it's really hard to find something to keep working.
My plan is to make useful tools for blacksmithing and my permaculture work and have some extra for gifting, trading and maybe a little side income.

What kind of steel would you recommend for beginner blades? What about sickles?

What I can't get my head around is how to make a really good heat treatment... I guess it's a lot of experience and learning from a master of the craft. The last knife still needs HT, remember, it's steel from a chisel. How would you do it?

>>868634
I havent even touched a hammer yet, from what I understand though its getting it to a perfect temp and then quenching it in oil/water

>>862712
Did you just cast the steel?

How many parts does the hammer have?

i went to build a metal rack for some gardening trays and bought up a batch of modern bed frames from the crap dealer. that stuff is the hardest steel i can think of ever trying to cut in conventional ways besides a torch.

is its hardness scale high because hurr bed fram better not collapse im fat?

welded up great, but damn was it hard to cut. i imagine you could forge a nice blace from it.

>>868763
they say not to use it but I use it for making knives for me and my brother to beat up and not worry about. They forge nice and I've gotten them to hold an edge pretty well.

Is 56 HRC all you can get out of a steel with .5% carbon and 14% chrome? Is it good for a knife?

bed frames made from rail steel is what i just read from a google search. i remember now it was a bitch to drill.
>>868765
holding an edge, another thing i saw was one guy likes to use it as the wear edge on his mini excavator bucket.

most guys said 'argg i give up' though it looks like

>>868769
I don't get out much cause not much to do out here during the summer so i have a lot of time on my hands

>>868741
It's a solid chunk of car axle. All made from one piece. It's (almost) impossible to do any sort of quality small scale steel casting without thousands of dollars in equpiment.

>>863011
>>862887
I notice you always do the same kind of handle. You should really broaden your horizon and try something else once in a while. Practice makes perfect. You can never go wrong with a traditional wooden grip with maybe a strip of leather embedded glued in it or even spiraled up the grip or something fancy.

>>868811
so you're saying you used scrap?

Any recommendation for breaking down a car axle without a hot cutter hardy or hot cutting chisel? Or do I just need to spend like an hour at it with a hacksaw to make the hot cutter hardy tool first so I can break it down easier?

>>862939
British back garden blacksmith here, so not sure how relevant this is to you, but in a lot of towns here, people leave junk metal out for gypsies to come and take away. I got 6 full coil springs that way.
Ebay isn't too bad for small quantities and if you're within the area for free delivery.

>>869116
Yes. Unlike some of the other people here I see nothing wrong with using scrap within reason. You can't deny that a truck axle is made of some kind of high quality steel. What that is I don't know but it oil quenched without issue so I don't worry about exact steel specs as much.
>>869212
I scored in about an inch the whole way around with an angle grinder, then had someone strike for me with a hot cut to finish the cut. I really don't think you could cut axle with just a hot cut on your anvil. A chopsaw would be the best way to go.

>>869369
I see nothing wrong with using scrap either. Could you walk me through the hammer specifically the quench and what not

>>869369
> Unlike some of the other people here I see nothing wrong with using scrap within reason. You can't deny that a truck axle is made of some kind of high quality steel. What that is I don't know but it oil quenched without issue so I don't worry about exact steel specs as much.

the important bit is "within reason"
there's absolutely nothing wrong with using the tines from a digger bucket for custom-shaped stakes, or an axle part to make a sledge for yourself. There's nothing wrong with using rebar for some tongs for a specific job that your usual sets wont quite hold.

the problem is when you get the "I wanna make a sword, I've got this leaf spring" type ideas, or you're planning to make a stamping punch, and you're going to use that bit of axle - or worse, its for a customer who wants something made.
there's a right time to use recycled old scraps, and there's a right time to use a known quality of steel that you've got no doubt about. You don't need O1 steel for making a hinge, or a full heat-treat on the handle of the woodworking tool.

the problem is, people often fail to observe that difference between appropriate and inappropriate uses of scrap, and so you get the scrap metal used for swords, or axes or knives for camping made from a scrap billet. That's the bit which is plain wrong.

>>869377
I've used a leaf spring for an axe and it worked great. Alot of people I've heard of making axes like to use a piece of leaf for that little insert when making an axe. I hear of knives being made from leaf springs and alot of times that's what people ask it to be made of.

>>869378
>and alot of times that's what people ask it to be made of.

... because idiots on youtube etc say "leaf springs are good" and therefore, people who know no better, ask for leaf springs.

the blind leading the blind in circles.

and catering to that ignorance is not constructive.

>>869381
alright you win just tell me why they make bad knives. Besides the whole temper thing.

I made this in 2012, it was my thesis in artisanschool
>get on my level

>>863577
Swedish coal was shipped all over the known world. Had some interesting properties like high concentrations of moly and chromium

>>869788
Consistency.

is that leaf spring brand new, or is it off a truck that's done 250,000 miles over rough roads hauling lumber, and been cycled 10 million times? is it riddled with micro-fractures from those loads, or completely fresh?

You cant tell.

What about what steel it is? well you might be lucky and know its a spring from a '93 Ford. But you might not know what its from. Even if you do know, you dont know what steel specification was used on that model. The auto mfrs may not publish the data. They may not even have fixed alloy specs at all. They might change the composition of their springs from run to run depending on cost and suppliers.
It might well be 5160. but what if they had a large batch that's actually a case-hardened (it happens!), or are an entirely different spec.

you cant tell.

then there's the whole time/cost thing. yes, you might well get some coils from a dodge that are 1095 for free. but how much time is it going to waste, straightening out a section of coil. when you can buy a straight flat bar, that you know is fresh, or even a round bar if you really must, for a pittance? Unless you're doing it for yourself for fun, you're wasting time and money.

>>869860
Not the guy you're arguing with but
>but how much time is it going to waste, straightening out a section of coil. when you can buy a straight flat bar, that you know is fresh, or even a round bar if you really must, for a pittance?

Why spend time working the steel into a bar when you could just buy it that way. In fact, skip the bar, just cut your knife out of a sheet. Actually fuck that, you can buy a knife blank for a few dollars more. You know what? I actually just bought a knife off amazon, fuck everything. Also, I didn't even really need a knife, but all the time I saved was worth it.

>Unless you're doing it for yourself for fun, you're wasting time and money.

I actually choose all my hobbies based on how not-fun they are while costing me the most amount of time and money possible.

>>869799
That handle is way to long for that blade

>>869918
It's a way to balance a sword without having a huge as pommel on the end.

How much of a piece of shit is this harbor frieght anvil?

I mentioned once that I wanted to try to learn blacksmithing in a random small talk, and apparently some people really take everything you say and memorize the shit out of it because I was given this for my birthday.

The reviews for it are pretty horrid, and I'm thinking of just returning it and using a piece of railroad track or something else cheap.

>>870161
It's an amazing doorstop.
For actual anvil shit, it sucks, unless you're work with ACME equipment.

>>870161
It's an anvil shaped lump of metal.
You'd be fine using it to shape shet metal like I did in highschool. Made a dustpan w00t!

It will not have the strength to make swords out of mithril or orichalcum though.

>>870161
if you can weld a good piece of 1/2" steel face onto the top, it might become kinda good. [weld or braze doesn't matter, fuck you could prob epoxy it realistically...]

>>870200
Realistically speaking, you could you make a workable anvil by JB welding a 1/2" slab of 4130 or something to borderline anything hard right?

I mean it would look ugly as sin but it would hold up to hard work decently right?


What would be the ideal alloy to use for an anvil surface?

>>870161
>>870185
>>870196
>>870200
>>870223

How come people on here are against anvils like this? Is there something that makes >>862942 or >>862946 any more practical than >>870161?

>>870226
those cheap shitty anvils are made as cheap and shitty as possible.
>mfw my harbour freight anvil broke after one firing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anvil_firing

>>870226
cheap ones are cast iron.
good anvils are cast steel. (or for old anvils, forged iron with a forge-welded steel face).

Cast iron's just not up to the job.

>>870228
Holy fucking shit! I was considering buying one, now I'm glad I didn't. I thought they sold them at suspiciously low prices.

>>870250
I had one as my first anvil. If you keep your metal hot your fine.

>>869361
>leave junk metal out for gypsies to take away
This makes my /int/hood tremble

>>870310
It's seriously tricky to get there before the pikeys do, I swear they can smell scrap metal a mile off.
Sometimes I leave razors and broken glass in the piles of stuff I don't want because I hate pikeys.

>>870335
I hate pikies too. Sometimes their good. I mean you basically can get someone to take your old broken 60s fridge for free. Lmao.

>>863577

I remember reading something about India and uh, some other shithole in the middle east region producing crazy iron ore with moly/van/etc in it.

>>867350

Fucking overachieving dwarves.

>>870226
>>870226
Let me make this easy,

Harbor freight "anvil is to an anvil, what a realistic airsoft gun is is to a firearm.


On the outside they can look extremely similar, have the same shape and form and can fool alot of people, but on the inside it's nothing but lies.


This video really does sum up nice and simple how shitty these "anvils" really are
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZATB-Lbnp0
>Being able to dent an anvil with a straight on strike from the flat side of a ballpen hammer
>I don't even have a face for this.

>>870445
Assuming you had no other options available, how much would you pay for this anvil if it was your only choice?

>>870501
frankly, you're better off writing to your local railroad company, and asking for a 18" section of track, than a HF cast iron anvil. I wouldnt spend more than $10 on one.

>>870501
I would rather do this than use one of those
>>870223
A 1/2 slab of an actually good surface is better than 1 ton of that trash.

>>870521
How much roughly would they charge for a random piece of cut track?

>>870556
Not much, probably a little above scrap value.

>>870570
What's fair scrap value of rails anyway?
Is it an "expensive" alloy? or just the like 5 cents a pound scrap price?

>>870501

If you're really desperate, you can take the path I took when I started. 20lb steel sledgehammer head sunk halfway into a 5 gallon bucket of concrete. Not a lot of space, no horn, no holes and likely no sharp edge unless you grind one in, but surprisingly bouncy, especially compared to the block of cast iron you're considering. Cheaper too, even if you had to buy the materials. Historically similar to the small stake anvils that vikings would have used, pretty much blocks of wrought iron spiked into a stump.

>>870556

Not alot, I'm sure. Probably slightly above scrap, like >>870570 said. Mostly just so they have a sale on record so it doesn't look like you stole it. Get some RR spikes while you're at it. They are not good for making knifes like a bunch of people think but they are decent to work with for practice none the less.

>>870589
Usually it's based on weight, not composition. I don't know what scrap value is right now, since I haven't had to scrap anything in a while.

>>870521
So ya, I'm pretty sure Google has this wrong.
Almost certain this isn't a Union Pacific Railroad office lol

What exactly am I looking for, a giant company's office or what?
Sorry for the stupid question, never really attempted to buy anything this way before.

>>870691
Call up one of their offices and ask to buy a segment of rail. They'll direct you to the person who can make that happen.

>>870710
Even better, find somewhere where some track work is being done, walk over, and ask for the on site supervisor. Explain to them what you want and why. They know what can actually be lost and have been known to give away sections of rail.

>>863677
Wrong board, anon.

>>863063
Is that an adze or a hammer in the right side?

>>870376
I, actually, happened to live near one of those holes.
It produces lean ore with ~15% Fe and 0.15% V. After enrichment, products have ~60% Fe and 0.6% V. Also low sulfur and phosphorus.
Paul Anosov, who rediscovered bulat (what called wootz is bulat ingot actually) in last half of XIX century worked on it in this general region. Trying & making bulat ingot seems very appealing to me.

Any one know what i can use instead of borax as flux?

>>872825
nevermind this i just remembered someone gave me "ANTI-BORAX" brazing flux would this work?

>>870814
An adze, made from a hammer

>>872826
You could try it, but borax is like $5 for a 3 pound box. If you live in Europe then sand might be a better option.

>>872832
i know it's cheap but i just didn't want to go to town for just that. It kinda worked

OP here, made a hatchet today. It's wrought iron with a steel edge insert.

>>874052
I'm really wanting to get into smithing. How long have you been doing it? Good lookin stuff.

>>874115
About two years.