Well, here's my first step along the way on my new blade smithing journey.
Humble beginnings, but they were a lot of fun to make and I learned a ton.
Fun stuff...addictive.
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Well, here's my first step along the way on my new blade smithing journey.
Humble beginnings, but they were a lot of fun to make and I learned a ton.
Fun stuff...addictive.
![]()
Cool. Well done.
You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful knife
You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?
Nice! Photo of your foging setup?
Sure thing:
Little forge that I made out of fire bricks with some grooves cut out of them for torches and exhaust. Does pretty well for starters but I can't seem to get anything up past about bright orange. Will need hotter eventually.
Attachment 34142
Ancient piece of railroad track that I ground down to relatively flat and hardened with about an hour of heating with MAP gas in a slightly broken down version of my little forge and quenched in the tank there on the floor.
Attachment 34141
P.S. Not sure why the images changed to links. They were images when I started editing the message, but now you have to click them to see it. Go figure...
Images dont show up when i check the link. Cool tongs. Ive been debating making some. I want some grooved jaws to hold stock more effectively. I may just buy the closest looking one then modify them.
Yeah, I know that I'm going to be making several other pairs for various uses. These were mainly to get my feet wet and hopefully be able to hold some short 3/16 1095 I bought to make my first blade, but I've already been thinking of designs that would be better suited for certain types of stock.
I'll re-attempt the pictures here. Fingers crossed...
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Seems it only likes to show images if I limit them to one per post?
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Awesome forge. The bricks i use are too fragile and crack really easily. Your bricks look much better. You should get a hotter flame with map gas.
Cool stuff, nice tongs!
I've read that those firebricks don't hold the heat as well as the soft insulating firebrick that jessf is probably talking about. You may want to coat the inside with a good refractory or just satanite to boost up the temps.
Back when I was a mechanical engineering student I designed one of these for an assignment. Probably crap but reminds me of good times. I think the better insulation is primarily of importance for tempering for hours to keep fuel consumption down. To get things hot quick just get the better flame and you are fine.