Hammer-in report

Alright, I'mma be honest.  The hammer-in left me a little bummed, and I think it's because I really want to be out in the shop making things, but haven't had much of an opportunity. However, here I am on Monday, sitting at work while our main system is down, and I'm pretty excited about a question that was posed.  Why not make a blade out of just 15N20?  For those not in the know, 15N20 is a steel that is usually added to a stack of other steels in pattern welded billets because the nickel resists most etching solutions- this gives very bright areas to contrast the darker carbon areas.  I don't see why it wouldn't work.  Most 15N20 has about 0.75% carbon (which is a mid range carbon content) plus the nickel adds abrasion resistance.  I think it would be cool to try.  I can't look at many suppliers through the company firewall, but Admiral steel has 0.065x8x36" sheets for about $32. (that's just over 1/16 inch, so probably a 14 gage? sheet).  Maybe a little thin, but that's another thing Geoff was talking about- how thin can you make a blade that still performs most of the duties you want it to? It would be very difficult to forge a blade that starts at 1/16" (most will be forged to approximate shape, then thinned to about that thickness) but certainly many blades end up at 1/16".  Maybe I'll give it a try. As for his press, it's pretty awesome.  It squished a 2x2x6" billet without any fuss and the resulting pattern was tightly welded, even at the ends where these things tend to split or not weld properly.  Next time I'll show up the night before to help him set up, and I'll make sure someone drives into town to refill at least one of the propane tanks.

Hammer-in tryout

A good friend has built a hydraulic press and he's unveiling it this weekend. I don't have a lot of specifics, aside from knowing that he did a lot of additional wiring to 3 phase, had to find some specialized parts and I have no doubt it's bad ass.
He's a journeyman bladesmith and will likely spend most of his time using it for pattern welded (damascus) steel. I can't wait to see it in action, and to see what he does with it. He's having a bit of a BBQ/BYOB- it will be very nice to get out of the house and away from the books for the better part of the day.

Back again

I'm still in school, still plugging away. I dropped a class this semester to preserve my GPA- no detailed, long winded complaining. I just thought this guy was taking off points for really weak reasons and he was bragging in emails that the average for his classes is 78%. I'll just say that that would kill my GPA. Plus we had group projects which aren't any fun in real life, but they're downright painful in cyberspace.

The above means that I had some free time over the weekend, so I cleaned up the shop area. It took almost three hours to break down the boxes that had accumulated, sweep up and throw away all of the garbage that built up over the past few months. When I feel like I have some free time, I can head on out and do whatever. I just need to feel like I can put the books down (to be fair, I goofed off nearly all weekend, just to unwind from school stress).
I don't have any immediate plans, though I'd like to start working on reproducing items from Albert Sonn's "Early American Iron Work." On Nov 7 I'll be heading over to a friend's house for what should be a rededication of his shop and he'll show off his home-built hydraulic press. Sounds like good times to me.

Don't touch the metal...

I DVR "The Woodwright's Shop" on PBS.  It's a show that holds particular sentiment for me, which I'll dicuss later.  I'm sure much of the appeal, though, is that I'm absolutely clueless when it comes to working with wood and Mr Underhill does some fantastic work in those 26 minutes.  Anyway, this last episode had Master Blacksmith Peter Ross from Colonial Williamsburg demonstrating filing techniques.  The premise being that modern smithing usually leaves a rough finish to indicate that the metal was worked by hand, up until fairly recently, the metal was smoothed, polished and otherwise had a high degree of finish work.  During the episode, Mr Underhill touched the corner of a piece that had been filed on two of the four flats and Mr Ross said that blacksmiths are taught to not touch the metal.  He stated that the oils from the fingers were enough to make the file slip on the metal.   I have a better reason- that metal is going to get hot!  There's a lot of friction between a file and a piece of steel.  I learned this the hard way and I don't touch any metal with bare hands until I'm finished.  Smithy Rule #1- if it's metal, assume it will burn you and don't touch with bare hands.

Editing for clarity...

I received an email from one of the folks at DDP and he wants to "interview" me.  Sounds good to me.  He says he'll link to the site, but the blog not so much, especially in light of my missives concerning issues from a few months back.  I assume that a little press will drive some folks to the site and by extension, the blog.  In the interest of making it look like I've learned a few things about writing, I'm going to put some polish on most (all) of the blog entries to date.  I assure you I will NOT be modifying content, message or censoring language- I'm only going to try to improve clarity.