SpringsKnives.com !

Linked up with a guy in New Jersey who does leather tooling, and has started to blacksmith, and got him to do 2 sheaths for me.

They look amazing!

$400 for each if anyone is interested, otherwise I've got a show on friday.

Great night!

Those Clinch Picks are surprisingly popular. Not flying off the shelves popular, but always a consistent draw. So I'm making 18 more of them. Tempering them right now after quenching them this morning. (Forgot to get a picture.)

Since the forge was hot, I decided to try my hand at a trade axe. First axe made from scratch with the plan being to weld in a high carbon bit.

First try at forge welding in my junk propane forge:

I thought it was good. Got a few passes with the drift before it popped.

Second try:

Seemed to hold. I had my forge cranked up so hot that flames were shooting out over a foot from the mouth of it. It was so hot that it was hard to look at.

But it was questionable whether my junk forge is good enough to forge weld, so I held off proceeding with the next steps. It may be that I was using too thick of steel. The plans call for slightly thinner stuff, so maybe it was too much of a heat sink. I can try in my coal forge.

However, I am building a new forge from scratch. A proper one.

Finally got all the materials needed and will start to make the ribbon burner this afternoon. Need to find some crayons, though...

Crayons! Each one will be a tiny tube in my new burner, spreading out the flame and heat.

Top and bottom poured, with the slot for the new ribbon burner blocked out.

Ribbon burner with the metal mounting piece set in it.

Lastly the sides poured for the forge.

There are times where I think I went too thick all the way around. And times when I don't think I went thick enough. We'll see.

Needs a day or two of curing. Then a slow firing up process of 10-15 minutes at a time, building up for longer and longer.

Quote from Holden

That new burner of yours will hasten the global greenhouse effect.

I hope you are happy.

Very. One of the perks to standing next to a 2,000 degree fire is that the bugs don't seem to like it much and leave me alone.

First test fit of the forge.

Heating up the ribbon burner in the oven to help cure it a little bit and melt out the crayons. Drilled out the holes first, though.

Last heat cycle (at least for the night).

Still some steam coming off of it, but over all I'm very happy. This thing got up to ~2000 degrees in under 10 minutes. AND I wasn't even covering the ends of the forge to keep the heat in.

Still needs an adjustment on the propane injection. I forgot how I did it last time and the moment I fired it up I remembered.

Quote from Finger

What are you gonna spend tomorrow on? Plus Springer.

I'll get 'em.

Daughter named TrAmy?////// The Dakotas are covered, patriots.

Defend yourself like a Canadian.

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It's raining here today. I'll probably spend the time finishing the hand polish on the brothers of the 2 knives I finished for a commission.

Quote from Finger

Film that shit. How many btu?

I have no idea. I was actually talking to a retired thermal engineer (forget the proper term) who designed and built industrial burners. He offered to build me a very high BTU burner for ~$800.

And while I'm sure it would be a great one, I told him that it's a lot simpler than that. I pump the propane in, light it on fire, and then stick the metal in. When the metal's hot enough, I take it out. No idea the BTU's needed or used. And I probably built my burner for $100.

First batch of the new clinch picks finish ground.

Second batch will likely be double edged.