Doug Ayen's Blacksmithing Blog

workshop day 1

2008-07-14T18:54:02Z

Well, today was a "sharpening tools" day. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- its a necessary part of being a craftsman, or even a craftsman wannabe.

I knocked the impending rust off the face of the good anvil with the belt sander and some 220 paper, and polished up a couple of hammer faces that had gotten dinged up. Filled up the slack tub. Moved some tools off of the floor and onto shelves. Moved some stuff from the house out to the workshop. Looked at the clock, realized it was almost time to head to work.

So, not a whole lot accomplished, but something.

Rocky Horror, to go back a couple of posts, was good, if a bit slack on the audience participation bit -- a few people were chanting lines, but it was hard to make it out, and there was often conflicts in what to shout out, or when. Overall, though, it was pretty good, and the virgins with us were all pretty well entertained by the show.

I wasn't feeling great during the show, probably something I ate or a stomach bug, and that lingered on until late Sunday, which made Sunday a bit of a wash.

Maintenance tonight, maintenance tomorrow night, then nothing scheduled for a bit. I might not make tomorrow or Wed's workshop hour, depends on how these go.

--doug

time management & workshop.

2008-07-11T17:41:54Z

Something I've been wanting to do is get back into the workshop -- but it's hard, as there's always something else going on that requires my immediate attention, or I'm too tired after work, etc.

Years ago, I took a time management class (Franklin Covey), and one of the focuses of the class was to remind us that you schedule the important things first, then fill in with the day-to-day crap and less-important things.

Well, I think the time has come to make this a priority. So, in an effort to be a bit more productive, I've decided to schedule an hour a day, in the morning so I'm not tired, to be workshop time. Yes, it will mean getting up earlier -- but I have a late work schedule as it is (10 - 6) and I've been waking up well before my alarm recently anyway (not sure why, but 6:45 seems to be when I first open my eyes when I haven't been up half the night working.)

Now to see if I can keep to this plan. I know this week would have been a bust -- scheduled maintenances Mon, Tue, and tonight; and muliple calls Wed. and Thurs. (I don't suppose anyone knows of a network engineering job that *doesn't* require oncall and after-hours work? This is getting old faster than I am.)

--doug

Rocky Horror this Saturday in Frederick, MD

2008-07-09T15:08:16Z

Just a note that Anne and I, along with some other friends, are going to Rocky Horror this Saturday in Frederick, MD, at the Weinberg Theater:
http://www.weinbergcenter.org/performanceDetail.asp?PerformanceID=260

We'd love to see you there if you're interested.

--doug

Weekend thoughts

2008-07-02T20:19:55Z

This past weekend was Baitcon. I'm on the committee that runs it, but still managed to mostly have fun.

I say mostly, as on Saturday I really felt down. While there were some external triggers, mostly I'm guessing it was the recurring depression that got me. I felt that I was leaving some friends in the cold, just because I couldn't work up enough cheer to chat and be friendly.

OTOH, finally got a flavor on the "best of . . ." board with five votes for my Dulce de Leche. I'm going to have to try that again next year. A larger batch, I think, as its both easy and evidently popular. My guess is that the quart I made was gone in under 5 minutes.

The camping gear worked out pretty well; it's a big tent, and with all the rain I was a bit worried about leakage, but flying an additional tarp over the tent did the trick. The "power in the wilderness" kit from the previous post did its job, and was probably overkill -- but who knows when we might need it at, say, Pennsic or some other multi-day event. Ok, not this year, but still, handy to have around.

Anne was at least warmer this year; I had brought an extra sleeping bag for her to use as a cover, which did the trick. Despite the occasional rain, though, it did seem quite a bit warmer this year than last year, which probably helped.

The 2-burner Coleman fuel stove I brought for the ice-cream prep area did a great job -- it got quite a bit of use over the weekend. I did feel obligated to clean out the gunk that had built up in the corners -- mostly congealed veggie oil from various sword temperings -- but that only took about half an hour in the washing-up area.

The drive up and back was simple, though I spent most of the drive up sleeping for some unknown reason. It's a pretty long haul, about 7 hours, from the DC area to New Lebanon.

The cats were glad to see me, and were adamant that I had abandoned them forever. It's kinda nice to know that despite the automatic litter box, the feeder, and water, they still need me.

--doug

Power in the wilderness

2008-06-24T17:07:08Z

How do you provide power to a required medical device (not mine, fwiw) in the wilderness?

Well, this is what I've put together:

1 deep-cycle marine battery
1 400-watt inverter
2 connectors
1 battery box
(charger in case it goes flat)

Put the battery in the box, along with the inverter. Strip off the cigarette lighter plug on the inverter, wire to the battery connectors. Plug CPAP machine into inverter.

I've already confirmed that the CPAP uses 1.5 amps (according to the power requirements on the device), so if we're good about unplugging the inverter (remove a lug -- if this works out well I'll add a cut-off switch) it should last for Baitcon. If not, well, I have the charger, and in an emergency can always use the small generator, though I'd prefer not to have the noisy thing near where people (including myself) are sleeping.

(The guy at Sears, when he heard what the battery was for, was simply amazed and enthralled by the concept of building a power supply like this. Is it really that unusual?)

I should have a small multimeter somewhere, if I can find it before heading out I'll add it to the box so I can check voltage levels.

Now let the chorus of why this won't work and how I'm going to kill everyone with my infernal device begin.

Assuming it does work and doesn't result in a China Syndrome meltdown, I wonder if Make would be interested in a writeup, or if this is too simple a project?

--doug

forging s30v

2008-06-03T15:16:38Z

So, if you recall, I bought a bunch of s30v, a high vanadium CPM stainless steel. On Sunday, I broke out a bar, and after looking up the forging information, gave a whack at forging it into a taper for a chef's knife. And another. And a whole lot more.

This stuff does. not. want. to. move. under. the. hammer. At all. I did five heats, and used the power hammer, and was only able to get about 50% reduction. Trying to forge in bevels was a similar losing situation -- the hammer made an impression, sure, but not much of one. I'm not even going to try to forge the handle to shape, I'll just plasma cut out the shape and grind to match.

S30v should be worth the effort, though. From the spec-sheet:
> CPM S30V is a martensitic stainless steel designed to offer
> the best combination of toughness, wear resistance and
> corrosion resistance. Its chemistry has been specially
> balanced to promote the formation of vanadium carbides
> which are harder and more effective than chromium carbides
> in providing wear resistance. CPM S30V offers substantial
> improvement in toughness over other high hardness
> steels such as 440C and D2, and its corrosion resistance
> is equal to or better than 440C in various environments.
> The CPM process produces very homogeneous, high
> quality steel characterized by superior dimensional stability,
> grindability, and toughness compared to steels produced
> by conventional processes.

(Notice they do not mention forgeability in its benefits list)

I'm really thinking that yeah, I need a forging press. I really want one of the specialty knifemakers forging presses, and don't really want to build my own from scratch. Ron Claiborne makes a good one http://home.comcast.net/~eellis2/EllisCustomKnifeworks/hydraulicpress.html . Wayne Goddard recommended another one, though I haven't gotten a response from the maker about specifications, the Imagination XPress http://www.dfoggknives.com/Xpress.htm

I'm guessing, though, to afford either one, I'm going to have to sell some stuff (Getting married is expensive). The Little Giant, while it's been useful, is really not what I need, so I'm thinking seriously about cleaning it up a bit and putting it up for sale.

While cleaning on Saturday, I found my rayskin, so I can move forward on the tanto project as well.

Just a few more things to go into the dumpster (my back was saying I needed to take yesterday off) then I'll have them come pick it up.

--doug

tip is loaded, garage and shop are de-trashed

2008-06-02T18:35:15Z

Many thanks to Carl and Scott for helping out over the last couple of weekends in de-trashing the workshop areas. The grinding area in the garage is now useable, and the assorted junk and trash that was starting to clutter up the workshop is now gone.

The front end loader has proven quite useful for moving stuff around -- though the thing drinks like a fish. In just over an hour of operation it went through 3 gallons of gas -- and I'm pretty sure there are no tank leaks. Oh, well, if I wanted efficiency, a 50+ year old tractor was a bad purchase. :) Even so, it made trivial moving a dead lawn tractor, some heavy but dead equipment, and in smooshing up the trash in the tip so I could stuff some more in.

I just have a couple more things (non-workshop related) to toss in before having the dumpster removed again.

All said, the 30-yard container is about 3/4ths full, but it's certainly not packed in, and I'm nowhere close to the 4-ton weight limit.

--doug

Dumpster, garage, workshop

2008-05-28T17:30:08Z

Finally found someone who'll drop off a dumpster without charging an arm and a leg (just a few fingers), and it should be here before the weekend. If anyone wants to drop by and help empty out the garage, workshop, etc, I'd appreciate it. Hey, we'll get to use the front end loader to haul the stuff around, and who doesn't like life-size Tonka toys? :)

This means that, for the first time in quite a while, the belt grinders and welders will be clear of enough crap that they can be safely used. One more step towards more workshops.

Now to get the rest of the house picked up and to get the stuff I want tossed to the garage so it'll go smoothly.

--doug

Backhoe is in the house; cleaning; ring

2008-05-19T18:12:37Z

It was a busy weekend. Saturday Anne and I went engagement ring shopping; she couldn't find what she was looking for at the jeweler she wanted to go to, but they has something in a catalog that was similar enough that we're having them ship to the store to eyeball before buying.

After an evening with her relatives, where I got to play a wii for the first time, I got up way too early for a Sunday and moved the backhoe to the property. Since the hydraulics had to be operational to get it on the flatbed, we had to get it started first -- easier said than done. After replacing the sediment cup, changing the battery, fiddling with the choke, spraying half a can of ether down the carb, fiddling with the fuel cut-off, reseating the spark plug cables, we figured out that it was out of gas. I'm guessing with the sediment cup broken, and the fuel cut-off possibly not fully off, it just dripped out since the last time I fired it up, when it had at least a couple of gallons in the tank. One trip to a gas station later, it fired right up and we had no further difficulties.

(If you don't remember the previous post, it's a 1956 Ford 800 with a backhoe and front end loader.)

It still needs a bit of work before it'll be fully operational -- after it arrived at home, I was driving it down to the barn when the throttle linkage must have come loose, and it wouldn't go faster than a slow idle -- to use the hydraulics, you need it running on a fairly fast idle with the PTO engaged. Also, one hydraulic cylinder won't keep pressure when the pump is off, but that's not a major issue, probably just a bad seal, if it doesn't get worse it is not an issue, and if it does there are several hydraulic cylinder repair shops around NoVA.

After that, Anne came over and helped me clean. You can see the floor of my bedroom now. You can see the floor of my closet, even. It's frightening the cats. I even pushed the crufty 20+ year-old window air conditioner out the window, that felt good.

Once I can say the same about the public areas of the house, I plan on resuming the open workshops.

--doug

proposal accepted

2008-05-08T14:45:31Z

Well, I guess I need to make the announcement somewhere.

I proposed to Anne Braun last night, and she accepted.

No dates or anything yet, but I am officially engaged.

This is going to be quite the adventure.

--doug

next knife

2008-03-19T01:21:12Z

I decided to finish off one of the old tantos I've had kicking around with the blade finished forever. The topic of same' (rawhide stingray used for Japanese-style sword handle coverings) application came up on the knife-list, and I remembered years ago I bought a blue (or maybe purple, it was years ago and I am colorblind) stingray skin for just such a purpose. The idea I had was to use one of the more highly figured woods for the handle, possibly some macassar ebony I've got kicking around (black with pale streaks), or some of the cocobola, or some of this curly stuff. . . (hmm, I've got a lot of nice woods around, some of which I no longer remember where I obtained it, or what the heck it is. Pretty, though.) Make a double-convex grip, with the same' wrapped around the middle, maybe a bit of cord or other wrap to hide the edges of the same'.

I think I'll make the sheath out of redwood burl, it's really pretty and the last knife came out beautiful using that wood. expensive, but worth it.

The blade itself (pics will be posted once I get a new battery for the camera, the built-in on the powerbook just doesn't pick up the details) is 12" of blade, maybe 3" of tang, blade is about 1.25" wide from habaki to yokote. habaki is copper, brushed finish. The blade is 1060, hand-forged from 1" x 1/4" stock. The hamon is very clear, quite wavy, about 1/4" - 1/3" from the edge, turned at the point. the patina and finish, though, needs work -- at minimum I'm going to have to do a full cleaning, and may have to completely re-polish the blade. No actual rust, but the original patina I did has darkened rather splotchily, if that's a word, and I've never been happy with this knife's finish.

(later)pics once i find the damn camera.

Yummy

2008-02-14T18:01:04Z

I was feeling a bit hungry after helping out a friend on Tuesday evening, so I stopped by the supermarket and got supplies for a yummy dinner.

1 lb mushrooms (standard button works fine) sliced
2 tbs butter
1 tbs flour
1 dash worchestershire sauce
1 cup milk
1 egg yolk.
salt & pepper to taste

Sautee mushrooms in butter for 20 minutes. Add flour and sautee for another 10 minutes.
Add in the milk, worchestershire sauce, salt & pepper and simmer for 10 minutes. Take off heat, temper an egg yolk and stir in until sauce comes together. Taste and adjust seasonings (I added in cayenne pepper and called it done.)

Serve with crepes, on noodles, or (as I did) over english muffins (I was too lazy to make crepes).

--doug

Arisia

2008-01-17T00:20:00Z

Just a quick note that I'll be at Arisia, and I'm bringing the disks with me for anyone interested.

pics of wheels

2007-11-16T16:26:05Z

I did a surface grind and a quick etch of the two damascus wheels, I'll have them at Philcon this weekend if you're interested in seeing them IRL.

--doug

five disks

2007-11-08T05:36:54Z

I think I've proven that the concept of using carbide-tipped hole saws works pretty well, if a bit slowly, to cut out the disks for the next generation of pizza cutters. Two pattern-welded disks at 3" diameter x ~1/4", one test piece of bandsaw blade at 3" diameter x 1/8", one ATS34 at 4" diameter x 1/4", one band saw blade test piece at 4" x 1/8".

The drill press required quite a bit of tweaking to get everything just right. At first, the spindle driving the chuck kept coming loose, and since it was attached to the freely-turning spindle, I couldn't really get it tight enough to keep it from coming loose every so often. Finally, after it had pissed me off enough that I was no longer content to re-tighten it every 5 minutes, I used a bar of steel through the slots in the hole saw to hold the spindle rigid, then my biggest adjustable wrench to tighten it down until it was snug. It worked, now the belts were slipping (the drill press is the kind where you adjust the speed by moving two V-belts between three pulleys, giving a wide range of drive speeds.)

Since I was trying to do something pretty extreme -- cutting a slot in tool steel some 1/8" wide by ~9.4" long -- I wanted the slowest speed, lots of lube, and lots of downforce. Sadly, that was not to be. The slowest setting used (unavoidably) the smallest drive pulleys, and the 1hp motor would just spin that pulley freely, potentially burning out the belt if I let it. I tried tightening the tension, using belt dressing, but I just couldn't get the torque from the motor to the saw. After trying a few different configurations, I settled on a setting not in the chart -- 2nd smallest pulley on the motor going to the largest pulley on the middle transfer pulley setup, and the 2nd belt going from the 2nd smallest pulley on the middle unit to the largest pulley on the spindle unit. I could do this because I really need to replace my belts, they are worn and stretched enough that I could get them to fit like that. Fortunately, belts are cheap.

I now had enough torque transferring to the saw that I was starting to stall out the motor, which is where I wanted to be. I used a combination of a water-soluble oil machining lube in a spray bottle, and when things started to get really gunked up, nuclear grade drilling/tapping lube. Hey, it was only $.50 more expensive than the non-nuclear grade, so I figured what the heck.

The 3" saw, designed for working with metal, worked fine. The 4", which explicitly says on the box "not recommended for use on metal," needed some modification. Hey, I got it cheap on ebay, which didn't mention this wasn't a metalworking carbide-tipped hole saw. The basic problem is that there were too many teeth -- I could make a cut in the steel, but it was taking forever, generating a lot of heat from friction, and kept stalling out the motor. I gave it a while just to see how long it would take, and after about 45 minutes had cut about 3/32" into the piece. I then flipped the work over (this was in the 1/4" ATS-34), took the hole saw over to a grinder, and ground off every 4th tooth, as well as cut a couple of extra-deep gullets to assist in chip removal. Cutting through the rest of the steel took about half an hour using the modified saw. I may cut out some more teeth, since friction still seems to be the limiting factor. Or I could break down and spend the $120 for the right saw. Or, once I've got some income from this hobby, maybe buying that lathe I've been advised is the right tool for the job.

Anyway, I've mocked up a jig for griding the disks. Since they already have a 1/4" hole in the middle from the cutting-out process, I took some bronze bearing material, about 1" long, with a 1/4" bore, and some 1/4" rod,and made sure that I had a decent slip fit, then using some hose clamps, I attached the bearing to a 4" C-clamp. I then bent the rod to give me some leverage, and have used a die to thread the end that will be holding the disks. I expect that I'll find the 1/4" rod too flimsy, and I doubt the hose clamps will last very long under the stresses of grinding, but if the proof of concept works, I can make a new one using 3/8" or thicker, end-drill the rod, and use a decent bolt to hold on the disk, and attach the bearing with some good braze (somewhere I've got a tube of commercial silver braze) or bolt it on with a flange. Or maybe JB-Weld, haven't really decided yet. This gizmo will attach to the work rest on my bigger belt grinder, at least for now, which is pretty adjustable in terms of angle and distance from the contact wheel until I can figure out how to make it work.

I've got pages of designs for pizza cutters in my notebooks, and soon I'll be at the point where I need to decide what the cutter for each wheel will look like. While part of me really likes the designs with lots of cut-outs, with the milling machine dead that's probably not the best choice for now. Then again, now that I have the drill press tuned in, there's alwasy the "lots of holes" look. Hmm.

--doug

thanks

2007-10-24T23:02:30Z

A big "thank you" to whoever ordered the stuff off my amazon wish-list -- however it was shipped with no card, no gift-wrap, and no indication of who sent it.

If it was you, please let me know!

--doug

new steel

2007-10-23T15:50:46Z

Just bought some more steel for the collection. Admiral is having a "box sale" (still a couple of boxes left, apparently), so I picked up a bunch of S30V, one of the new high-vanadium stainless steels, from Crucible, so I have high hopes. I also picked up some more O1, and since L6 is essentially no longer available in a knifemaking form factor, I'm switching to 15N20, which has enough nickel to act as the high-contrast component for some pattern welding. I also picked up some 6" wide ATS34 for my efforts in making a dishwasher-safe pizza cutter. I've been doodling pizza cutter designs for a while now, so I've got plenty of ideas for making some neat-looking cutters, even if they're not damascus.

I've been spending more time in the workshop, though it's still a struggle to find the energy after work, and even on the weekends.

I tried forging out some 2" x 1/4" 440c I had in stock into some disks, but the stuff moves so-slowly I went ahead and just bought the above ATS-34. I prefer the ATS, it's a better steel, though 440C is a bit more stain-resistant.

I did some tuning on the power hammer, and now it's hitting square again. Turns out some of the bolts holding the top bearing assembly (babbitt bearings) had loosened up enough that the shaft wasn't quite in-line. An easy fix, as I'd thought I may have to machine the dovetail square to the ram, not a task I was looking forward to. It was interesting -- you can over-tighten the bolts to the point where the shaft doesn't move at all pretty easily, so it came to the point where I was torquing the bolts, trying the movement, and if it was too tight backing it off. After a couple of rounds I've got it so there's a bit of friction, but the shaft is now tight and the hammer is hitting true.

That said, I'm seriously thinking of selling the hammer (anyone want a 1927 50lb little giant power hammer, 220v single-phase 3hp motor, adjustable arm toggles, new bottom flat die, older flat suitable for modification, one texturing die, pickup only in Berryville? :) and using the proceeds to buy a forging press. I'll probably just toss it on ebay with a reserve of what I paid for it, looks like even the 25 lb hammer are going for pretty good money. For the kind of work I want to do, the press is a better tool for the job.

--doug

new discs for pizza cutters

2007-10-12T18:46:23Z

I haven't been completely idle over the gap in posting, I've been covering for several people at work who left the group, which has been a major time-suck, but also spending some time tooling up and getting ready for the next season of knife making.

Now that it's no longer regularly in the 90s, for a few days at least, I've gotten some work done. I bought a Lennox 3-5/8" carbide-tipped hole saw, and cut out two discs out of the damascus I made last spring. Even though the steel was pretty soft, it's still tool-steel (O1 and L6), and took a while to cut through. I used plenty of lube, took my time, and now have the disks.

A quick deburring (necessary, the edge burs are sharp enough to cut through a glove -- as the 1/4" long cut on my left thumb attests to) and polish of the edges, and I sat down with a loupe to examine the edges for defects.

As I had expected, based on an earlier examination of the billet, one has a "cold shut," a layer where the billet didn't quite weld up completely, but it looks pretty small (about half an inch long -- in the final product it'll be barely visible with a deep etch, and just look like a dark line on a light etch or polish). The other one looks ok. I'm also going to cut out one of stainless, and one out of straight L-6, mostly for practice before I start working on the damscus.

To grind in the bevels, I really can't freehand it -- I tried that last time, and didn't like the results. What I'm thinking of trying this time is to create a mandrel and brace system to give a bit more control to the process.

First, I'm going to take a C-clamp, and affix a 2" long by 1/4" ID sintered bronze bearing to the top of it. Welding won't work, obviously, so I'm thinking braze, or maybe even good-old JB-weld. Since I have a fairly ridgid work rest on the 3hp grinder, I can then clamp the assembly to the rest, leaving the bearing facing the contact wheel at about the right angle, and be able to adjust that angle by adjusting the work rest or by twisting the C-clamp a bit.

I can then use some 1/4" round, threaded for the last inch or so, fed through the bearing with the disk clamped between two nuts and lock-washers on the end to hold it steady. Put a crank handle on the rod, or just bend it 90 deg., and I now have a handle to control the rotation of the disc. This should let me do a controlled grind of the surfaces of the discs to a specific angle against the contact wheel, resulting in an even bevel.

As you might have guessed, the right tool for this job is actually a metal lathe. I don't have one, and it looks like one that meets my needs (able to work in tool steel, handle a billet up to 6" in diameter, cut a bevel, etc.) will cost at least a couple thousand, used. So, once I've made a few of these using bear skins and stone knives, I'm hoping to sell them off, and use the proceeds to tool up. The day job is taking care of mortgage, retirement, and day-to-day stuff, but I'm still making less than I was at UUNET, so my tool budget is rather slim. More on this later.

--doug

Lathe work

2007-08-22T01:05:10Z

Well, got something done today in the workshop, albeit minimal.

I'd cut down a dead Hickory tree earlier, and while weilding the chainsaw cut out a couple of nice pieces of crotch. While I haven't written much about it, I used to do a fair amount of lathe work, mostly making sawdust and toothpicks, but occasionally making something interesting.

So, I grabbed one of the crotch pieces and went to the bandsaw to trim it up. Since it had a fine-cut blade in it, and I wanted to rough cut the excess wood off for a better balance and to reduce the amount of work required, I changed to a larger blade. Or, rather, I tried to.

Now, one of the blade guides had broken earlier, and I'd fixd it by replacing the pot-metal (why are zinc alloys called pot metal, I'd think zinc would make a horrible pot) set screw holder for the upper blade guide with a bit of steel. So I shouldn't have been surprised and depressed when the pot-metal bracket that held the (cast iron) blade tensioning frob turns out to have sheared. I suppose I could fix it, but I'm thinking that there's enough broken bits on it (the aforementioned blade guide, one of the lower guides, and now the tensioning adjustment) that it's time to admit defeat and buy a new one.

Fortunately, I have other saws, and a couple of cuts later I had a semi-balanced and trimmed piee of stock. Into the lathe. Slow speed, a roughing gouge, and patience until the piece is rounded and smoothed. Then on with the power, higher speed, a bit more force on the gouge while I start to rough in the shape . . . and the tool rest breaks. To judge by the coarse grain, the lack of deformation, the dark grey color, and the sand inclusions, it must have been made from the lowest grade pig iron. When it snapped, at the tensioning nut that held it onto the bed, it of course got sucked into the work, jammed between the wood and the bed, and ripped the ~15 lb log off the spurs and into my stomach hard enough to knock me back several feet. Fortunately, I'm well padded and was wearing a leather apron, so I just have a bruise to remind me of a close call.

Please note that this piece broke, as near as I can tell, purely from the force I was exerting from using it as a fulcrum while turning wood. I wasn't leaning into it, so it couldn't have been a whole lot of force.

Again, do I replace the obviously too-cheap tool? A master craftsman doesn't blame his tools, but this is getting very frustrating. While I didn't buy the highest-end stuff when I bought the lathe and bandsaw, tey weren't the cheapest either (mid-list Grizzly both of them). I could fix the lathe pretty easily, since all I really need to do is make a new flat piece with a 3/8" slot in it for the bed attachment and a hole in one end for the rest -- but what is going to break on it next?

What I'd realy like to do is go find some good used, but not too heavily used, industrial equipment. Something designed to be *used*, not just look pretty. Sadly, those few bits I've found have either been so heavily used as to be unusable, or priced far out of my hobbyist budget.

--doug

new knife

2007-04-15T05:51:06Z

Started a new knife today. A local blacksmithing gathering is having a forged knife competition, all materials must be "recycled." I know a challenge when I hear one. I have a couple of old broken bandsaw blades kicking around the shop, one 3/4, one 1" in diameter: the 3/4", cut into ~8" pieces, would be the subject of the first test run. The billet was about 3/8" thick.

I didn't really expect this to work perfectly the first time -- I have no idea what the alloy of these sawblades are, could be bi-metallic, could be high carbon, could even be M2. While they looked identical, I'm not even certain that both blades are the same. A quick check showed that the first sawblade was hardenable, so on the the billet.

After slicing it up with the chop saw, I had 8 pieces to use and one short piece to keep for documentations purposes. I knocked off the surface crud with a worn 60-grit belt, and assembled the primary stack. I had an idea I wanted to try out, to see if I could get a sort of wave pattern in the damascus, so I stacked with with the teeth still on, each layer having the teeth facing out on alternating sides. I knew this would be hard to get a good weld on around the edges, but if I *could* make it work, that would be neat.

I used a vice to hold the stack together, with a C-clamp to hold the very end, and wrapped the billet with soft black iron wire to hold it together in the forge. As an experiment, I made a solution of borax and water, and dipped the wired-up billet stack in the mix. In theory, as it dried the borax would be left behind, probably also with a bit of lime from the local water supply.

The forge itself was set up with the blown burner, since with that setup I can get higher temperatures faster than with the venturi burner. Since excessive oxygen in the furnace can cause excessive scale and cause problems with the weld, I tossed in a chunk of charcoal to scavenge O2.

The forge set up, the gas turned on and ignited, then the air turned on. I adjusted the forge flame to slightly oxidizing and brought the fore up to working temperature, then readjusted the flame to reducing and added the billet stack, letting the borax solution dry out, then adding more borax on the sides of the billet once the piece warmed up enough for the borax to stick, then leaving it in until it got to a nice yellow glow -- but not spitting sparks, an indication that the steel is burning. I welded the end up, removed the first wire wrap, did the next section, the next, filpped the ends, and did the last bit.

Since I wanted some documentation bits, I cut off 1/4" off one end, the end that would be the tip of the knife. Since the pieces were only roughly the same length, even welded up there was a likelyhood of cold shuts and inclusions, by grinding them even or, as in this case, cutting off the end makes it a bit more likely to succeed.

8 layers is pretty low, but this was just a test after all, not a multi-day "lets see how many layers we can make" effort. That'll be the final knife. :) Now that the billet was consolidated into a fairly solid lump, I wanted to see if I could get those alternating sawteeth to show up on the sides. To do this, I re-fluxed, re-heated, then hammered down the edges, just like forging in a bevel, until they were half the thickness of the body of the billet.

I changed from the blown burner to the venturi, set also to a reducding flame, and forged the tip and tang out; while hammering the tang, I saw signs that I had some delamination going on in the billet. I went over the billet again from tip to tant to try to ensure everything was well-adhesed, then did the final straightening, heated to critical and held a minute, then put it in the vermiculite to coold down.

Once that was cooled down, I started with the grinding. Profiling first, it was quite clear that the edges around the sawteeth hadn't welded up, except on the tang and tip. whilte still it looks possible, I didn't quite pull it off this time, and the knife, originally intended to be a dagger, was redesigned into a single-edged sheath knife. I ground in the bevels using a hollow grind on the 12" wheel, leaving a 1/8" back ridge. That revealed the biggest fault with this knife - several cold shuts, or areas that didn't quite weld into a contiguous piece of steel. Nothing on the very edge, though, and if I do a nice deep etch, those should blend in with any pattern that emerges. Even though this is all the same steel (unless this turns out to be a bimetallic blade) you'll usually get some pattern due to decarburization. If this is bi-metallic, then I should get a pretty significant pattern -- but we'll see.

I did the grinding down to the pre-heat-treatment stage, A-16 Trizact structured abrasive (roughly 16-micron, or 800 grit) and quit for the night. Not the best I've done, but not horrible either. Even with flaws, unlews something worse turns up post-heat treat, this should be a quite useable knife, and not too ugly.

Pics will be up once I find my camera usb cord.

--doug

Steps.

2007-04-02T01:55:12Z

Got out a bit more this week. On Tuesday, I went to the local machinists group meeting (CAMS, www.cams-club.org), showed off the pizza cutter again (hey, they hadn't seen it yet), ended up giving a bit of lecture on damascus, forging, and the like. Got some ideas on how to simplify the machining of the disks (hand-grinding is out, do you know how hard it is to grind a circle with even bevels on both sides?), looks like I'm in the market for a lathe.

Several people at the meeting had been over to the workshop for various events, including the first-ever gathering of the club, and I was asked if/when I was going to hold more events.

Still finding it hard to motivate. I really wish I could get up in the morning and actually want to do something. Anything, really.

I did finally buy a tractor today. 56 ford 800. It runs on all cylinders, or at least close enough; while it didn't start up right away, that's probably mostly due to having sat around for a while and a mattery needing a good recharge -- and when it did start, a crack in the fuel bowl pissed a stream of gasoline dangerously close to the exhaust manifold. Fortunately, that's an easy fix -- I've already picked up the replacement, a stock item at TSC. Oh, and the tractor has two attachments -- a front end loader, which I hope will be useful in finishing off the pond, re-graveling the driveway, dealing with heavy snowfall, and so on; and a backhoe -- the network engineer's mortal enemy, but probably also useful.

The remaining problem on the tractor side is getting it home. It's about 50 miles away in Daubs, MD. Well, if worst comes to worst, even a commercial haul won't be more than $3-4/mile.

Oh, and it seems the mini has a leak in the radiator, which was its own adventure. I'll be driving the truck for a day or two while that gets fixed -- from what I can see, that pothole I hit on the way home on Friday took out the AC radiator, cracked bits of the bracketing holding the radiator assemblies, and put a pretty good crimp in the bottom coil on the radiator, from which all of the fluid has escaped. Sigh.

So, early to bed tonight so I can get up early and arrange for a tow and to make sure the local repair shop can handle this; I don't think this will require a visit to the dealer's specialist. Still, I don't expect this to be cheap.

--doug

So, what kind of pizza cutter would you like to see?

2007-03-23T16:05:05Z

View Poll: Pizza Cutter Materials and design -- what do you think?

new mailbox post

2007-03-20T20:38:35Z

Well, some bad driver over the weekend drove off the road into the woods, right over my mailbox. After picking up a new box after work, last night I ended up using some of the equipment to make a new post to mount it on.

Shaft is 1/4" thick square tubbing, about 5' of 3"x3". I cut the end off at an angle to give it some edge, and took some spare angle iron (old bed frame), cut and bent it into an L shape, ground to bright steel, and took it over to the welding equipment.

I decided to use the MIG welder. Sadly, I had forgotten I'd last loaded the spool up with stainless. Fortunately, while the welds are ugly, they stood up to the "pound it with a hammer and see if it breaks" test. Drilled some holes to affix the box to the post, pounded the post into the ground, and now I have a new mailbox set up.

While I'm tempted to go get some concrete and make this thing an unmovable object, this is the 2nd time someone has driven over my mailbox and into the woods. I think I'd feel a bit guilty if someone, say, died because my mailbox post was stronger than their car. I may change my mind if this becomes a regular occurrence.

--doug

livejournal restart

2007-03-06T14:55:45Z

Well, it's been a hard winter for me. Still not feeling like doing much of anything; not sure how much of that is depression, and how much is that damn bug I caught a couple of weeks ago. Still feeling the effects from that, one ear plugged pretty solid, the other partially so, and the tinnitus is quite annoying, and I still seem to be getting tired all too easily.

The place, and workshop space, are quite a mess. A pig-sty -- no, wait, my pig sty is actually cleaner than the house. (probably only because it hasn't been used in 7 years, but still . . . ) I really need to clean, but I get home, I only seem to have enough energy and drive to collapse until bed time.

But enough complaining. Why does almost every piece of consumer goods have a night-light now? I mean, honestly, it was to the point where I could read at night in the light from the humidifier, the alarm clock (with the backlight set to its lowest setting), and the cordless phone cradle. Are all appliance designers afraid of the dark, or is it that LEDs are now so cheap that they're being incorporated into everything, or what?

Fortunately, I have dikes, so the alarm clock is now lightless, ditto the humidifier. And, hey, LEDs to play with. And the bedroom is nice and dark again.

I'm going to try to get more active, get the shop and house cleaned up for company, then be more social. Yeah, and while I'm wishing, I'd like a pony.

Cheers.

--doug

Arisia

2007-01-18T15:44:05Z

Well, Arisia was fun, but tiring. I had come down with a cold, and so spent far too much time at the con sleeping. Managed to hit a couple of parties on Saturday, though, and it was good seeing some old friends. Even hit a couple of panels.

One of the panels I learned a bit from was on LEDs. Those look both easy and fun. Now, how can you incorporate LEDs into a knife . . .

A friend recommended the book _The Art of Electronics_ as a good textbook to learn how to do some of the things I've been wanting to do with knives and similar, since it's still on my wish-list, I think I'll blow a gift-card and get a copy. Considering what I do for a living, I should probably know more about this sort of thing anyway. And, hey, neat electronic gizmos are cool.

I've thought of gafiating, as for quite a while I wasn't enjoying cons much; I'm thinking now that was mostly just the creeping depression I've been dealing with for several years now. Once I'm able to take paid vacation at the new job I'll probably start hitting more cons. It's good to see old friends, and I should probably look to making some new ones, too.

There are also a couple of knifemaking gatherings coming up; I think I'll check into hittting some of those. Might help serve as inspiration/goad to get back into the workshop on a regular basis.

--doug