| A question about a meteoric knife |
[May. 24th, 2012|10:42 am] |
I've been offered via a friend a fair amount of meteorite scrap -- turnings, dust from sawing and grinding, that sort of thing -- at a very good price.
( Read more... )
Your thoughts and opinions on the subject are appreciated. Thanks. |
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| No thursday update |
[May. 18th, 2012|01:39 pm] |
Sadly, was unable to get much shop time in this week. I did just receive a 1.2" dia thickwall titanium tube I'm planning on using as a tuyere for the next smelt, so I'm pretty much set hardware-wise for that. I'm going to try to focus this weekend on cleaning house enough that I'm comfortable with strangers visiting, then I'll set dates for the ore bonfire & smelting, and maybe get going with some regular open shops again.
I have ~70 lbs of what I'm told is fossilized limonite, or organic hematite, which while it is from Texas, is also the type of ore mined in Berryville from Revolution era until around the civil war, iirc. Good practice. Plus, I still have ~130lbs of the problematic magnetite I want to do something with. If I can find a source of bulk charcoal, preferably graded into ~1" chunks, I'll be all set.
In other news, I was woken up this morning at 7am by the sound of race car engines over at Summit Point, about a mile away. I just checked their schedule, and it's a weekend-long vintage car race, the Jefferson 500. I might just wander over and take a gander, I'm fond of older cards. Anyone interested in joining me? |
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| heat treatment upgrade |
[May. 3rd, 2012|03:19 pm] |
I got so tired of the uncontrollable 1920s-era heat treat furnace I went and bought a programmable kiln controller, elements, and the other hardware necessary to convert it to electronic controls and power. This same equipment can be used for the larger sword-sized heat treat oven I want to make, so I should go pick up that water heater and get that set up as well. The parts arrived yesterday, so I have no more excuses, it's time to get precise with my heat treatment. No more eyeballing it, no more guessing at the temperature, no more hoping it's right this time. Well, in theory at least.
I'll be setting this up, I hope, over the weekend. |
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| forging cable |
[Apr. 29th, 2012|09:26 pm] |
Years ago, I tried forge-welding my first cable damascus billet. I burned it, it came unraveled, it wouldn't stick together, and when I test-ground the piece, it was full of cold shuts, slag, and similar faults, and I probably spent 6 hours or so working on it.
On Saturday, I made the stock for my next piece, forge welding a piece of 1.25" "Extra Improved Plow Steel" into a block, drawing it out, folding it on itself once, forging the result to the rough shape in about 2 hours from lit forge to annealing box.
Doing it has really kicked off a bout of arthritis though, enough that I took today off. |
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| Ok, this looks slightly better |
[Apr. 20th, 2012|02:25 pm] |
As has been suggested, IndieGoGO is another croudfunding site, and their terms of service are a little more promising, at least:
You may not use the Service for activities that: ... (ii) relate to sales of ... (i) ,certain weapons or knives regulated under applicable law.
So I'm going to have to ask for clarification, but it not an absolute prohibition such as Kickstarter has. |
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| Kickstarter fail |
[Apr. 20th, 2012|02:17 pm] |
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I heard back from Kickstarter, a pizza cutter is a knife, and therefore prohibited. |
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| Mystery Finished Product Thursday |
[Apr. 19th, 2012|10:40 pm] |
It's a gift, so it must remain a secret for now. Ok, it still needs a little bit of finish work, but I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise.
That said, if HPMOR means something to you, well, maybe the future reveal will bring you a bit of amusement. |
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| No wonder the US economy is failing |
[Apr. 19th, 2012|10:37 pm] |
I've been looking for a source for the bearings I'd like to use on the pizza cutters, miniature cam followers, basically a bearing on a stud, ready to for a press-fitted wheel on the bearing, and then just bolt the stud to the shaft.
Ranting on this theme behind the cut.( Read more... ) |
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| Uh, oh, Kickstarter doesn't allow knives. Bummer. |
[Apr. 19th, 2012|10:47 am] |
Well, I was thinking of trying to fund some tools that would speed up pizza-cutter production to the point where I could maybe start thinking of going pro, but while reading the TOS, I came across the following:
"We prohibit projects involving . . . Firearms, weapons, and knives...."
Umm. Ok, so that's pretty clear, and as a knifemaker, I'm assuming that applies to just about everything I do, but I'm checking with the Kickstarter folk to confirm this is the case.
Assuming they hold to their guns, what other public-funding type sites are out there with a good reputation that would accept a fundraising request backed with round sharp objects intended to slice pizza? |
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| The rest of the hammer-in |
[Apr. 12th, 2012|01:21 am] |
Saturday started off with more smelting: one succeeded, one failed. The wootz team did well, with several successful batches from different origins. Even some really pathetic ore I had sold a guy last year yeilded the world's tiniest wootz cake, dendrites and all. The most spectacular was a meteoric wootz, though other examples were made from wrought iron, different ore, some railroad thermite, and I'm probably forgetting something. They were like a machine, one batch after the other, only stopping when their furnace burned out sometime after I left on Sunday. Some things learned: use 10% by weight powdered charcoal to turn standard wrought iron into wootz, and when reducing ore, use 2x ore to charcoal. I'll have to try these concepts soon.
I ended up doing 3 thermite burns, which were well received. I was using forge scale as the iron oxide, and we learned the next day that the resulting alloy was unforgeable, just crumbling under the hammer. I'll try working on that for next year, since the stuff the railroads use is perfectly forgeable there has to be a way to do it. I'll have to test the straight red oxide/al powder for forgeablility, plus Aldo has offered to have a slice I gave him analyzed so we can see what's actually in there.
A wonderful demo of armor making and iron mask making was given by Kerry Stagmer, and a whole lot more was going on that I missed because I was looking at something else fascinating.
I donated one of the thermite hockey pucks to the Iron in the Hat, and bought some tickets. Hey, I actually won something this time, a nice cast bronze tsuba that just needs a bit of cleanup. It's got cranes on it.
I got a few compliments on the pizza cutters, though I want to replace the bearings with something more studly. Probably some cam-followers if I can find a decent price on the smaller diameters. Probably the most interesting comment was that my work was mistaken for one of the demonstrator's work, except he didn't know the guy was into pizza wheels. |
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