Sidearms & Scatterguns Spent some time in the blacksmith shop today

[Spots]

I'm a blacksmith by trade, I learned it from my old man. It helps me relieve some stress by beating on shit with a big hammer. Anyways, I fired up the forge today and made these two. The hawk is made from a 28 oz Estwing framing hammer and the knife is from a 1095 Nicholson file with oak handle. Everything is done with a coal fired forge and anvil, I use a small belt grinxer to clean up the bevels and do a decent edge, then hone them out on a stone then a strop. Just thought I would share

The hawk and knife combo

And a kukri I'm working on for a friend, made out of 3/8th thick 5160

And just for shits and giggles, me with one of the big steel moving hammers, a 24 lb crosspein. Its a real son of a bitch to swing til L you get used to it, but it'll move heavy steel in a hurry.

Tapatalk ate my spelling.

 

[propeine]

I envy your job! I too enjoy swinging a hammer to relieve some frustration and have pounded out things from straight razors to wakizashi (only once on the wak). I can't ever seem to get past the metal part though. I hate putting handles on things.

Nice work though. Especially like the hammer hawk. I always used HC Railroad spikes for those.
I reckon the 5160 is leaf springs?

 

[Unknown]

I used to love forging knives. When I started out, i had no idea how hot a coal fired forge could get. I left a 24 inch piece of steel on the forge too long while I was working on another piece, and my friend kept cranking gently on the blower handle. I came back, and pulled a 14 inch piece of steel out of the coals! The middle 6" of steel were a molten lump in the bottom of the pan. It taught me that you don't need a 10" high pile of coal to heat knife steel hot enough to forge it.

When I was learning how to do differential heat treat (like on Samurai swords), I got one piece of steel so brittle that a tap on the horn of the anvil shattered it into about a dozen pieces. I sure wish I hadn't already put 20 hours into grinding and fancy file work before I shattered the piece. I still have all the pieces, and they fit together perfectly.

 

[SPEAK338]

Nice work! I can appreciate hard work like that

 

[snipe10]

Always wanted to learn the skill, great job, stock up on supplies, your trade will come in handy more and more as the years pass