Couple Blogs

Short post today,

just wanted to share a few other

blogs of students ive been looking at

http://www.studentoftheanvil.com/
Great blacksmithing blog done by

William Starke

http://maisie-daniels.blogspot.com/

An awesome blog full of alot of

creative ideas done by

Maisie Daniels

Grinding

I never been particularly good with a 

grinding i always seem to burn the disks out

quick doing little sections so i went 

to a college of mine about it.

The video is me getting a lesson in how to

hold it properly and such.

Setting Down

Was having alot of difficulty working out

how to get a set down into a piece of bar for a hinge

plate without distorting the rest of the bar.

I thought hammer it in the same spot but even that 

would spread it in the wrong kind of way.

 After a short discussion with Dave

he told me about using a smaller piece of bar half the 

size of the set down you want. Get the piece

hot then bring it out and place the bar over the

point you want setting down and give it a few 

heavy blows into the metal.

 I tried it out on a bit of scrap and it worked

really well, it left a really clear marking 

for a strong hinge plate on my 

utensil.

This is the results, really like this

process. Gets good results with little time

involved.

Power Hammer Techinque

We haven't yet been let loose on the power

hammers which is killing me, Captain Sellers has

been allowed to use them on this project

because of his previous experince so

i made a short video of him doing a few small pieces

just to try and get some idea on techinques.

Gas Cutting

Today in the fab shop i had to cut out a large

disk for my utensil project so obviously

i had to learn how to gas cut a circle instead

of getting it done for me.

The first process to be done was working out

the center point, i was looking for a diameter of 

140mm on the circle. Using a scribe i got

markings onto it and center popped it and we 

ready to go.

 

A little demostration of getting the right 

size of flame from my coach for this little

project, captain sellers.

 

 We were using a tool i showed eariler that 

helps cut a perfect circle with the torch, the first

part you have to do is cut a little section unguided to the 

start of the circle, then you place the tool into the 

center pop and start guiding it round cutting.

The key to cutting is to keep it flowing quickly and to keep

the torch tilted back so that the nib

isnt touching the metal. The quicker you are

the cleaner the cut will be along the side.

It was a little difficult i will admit but i

got the hang of it near the end and this was the result

a almost perfect circle.

Fullers

Today we were introduced

to Fuller tools, used two or three today and it was

really good. Ive always enjoyed using a bit

of sledge hammer work so this was

a real treat for me.

 This is the first one i was using, its a top

fuller, you place it over the top of the work

and you either use your hammer or get a 

striker. 

This is another fuller type, there is alot

of different types some on wooden handles

some just on a bit of round section.

Some bottom fullers coming tommorow

Back to Basic Knifecrafting

I have always been really intrested in

bushcraft and surviving in the wild and

i admit its a world away from blacksmithing but 

while looking around youtube i found this.

Its realy basic knife making skills with

just using the back of on axe as a hammer.

Really good techinque in my eyes

Home made Power Hammer

After checking out that last video ive been

looking around youtube at these home made

sort of retro hammers this really

is a brillitant bit of DIY

Old School Power Hammer

Someone sent me a link to this,

this really is old school power hammering

This is how my first chain link came out,

i said i would talk about the connection.

Its a fairly simply process after you have the

first two made, make a third one up but while you are about

to hammer the scarfs together before the welding

heat slip the other two on and try and

keep them out

of the fire as best you can.

Any more than 3 chain links traditional make up

another set of three then add a 7th link to combine the 

two sets of 3 then you would keep adding

one link at a time to the end.