What I did with my summer vacation
- Thread starter hso
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OP
OP
Here's the mini cutler's forge I've assembled with help from knifemaker friends. Mark Calahan made the SuperSingleBrick forge. Kim Breed gave the 28 kilo anvil to me. Larry reworked my old geologist's hand sledge for me before I left his place. I'll fill a 30 gal. drum with concrete and use it for an anvil stand and get a set of offset box tongs ASAP. With patience I should be able to make all the pieces I made at Larry's (even the big Moran-style figher sticking out of each end of the one-brick-forge). The drop point is triple oil quinched and is my second knife I hammered out.
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Valkman
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That's neat - man getting to spend a week learning from knifemaker is like hitting the lottery to us! 
OP
OP
Valkman,
A good hammer-in with cooperative makers and you could get easily get started forging.
The drop point was my second knife that I made the first day and it and the first knife were complete blades by the afternoon of the second day. "Complete" meaning that they were hammered out, normalized, descaled, ground, quinched, tangs filed and ready to be cleaned up and put guard and handle on them. Really only about 8 total hours went into the process on the first 2 knives, what with a late start on Monday and all of Larry's visitors during the day. I averaged beating out 2 knives a day.
Temps were ~90 degrees and relative humidities were >90% so it got a little warm with Larry's big forge. I forged in T-shirt and shorts with my leather apron for protection. I found that electronic ear muffs were a big help after the first day since the ring of the anvil may be music, but it can be loud music. I used a heavier glove on my left hand since the steel got to be hot even with an extra foot of steel left on to handle.
Larry charges $500 for a week and I stayed a couple of days extra on the weekend since Wes Byrd had come in for the weekend for an ABS sponsored youth event and Larry told me that I had to stay to help. Wes showed me how to draw file and stone finish (see the shortest blade in the image) so I could finish knives without power tools. While exhausting, draw file work certainly keeps you from feeding the grinder gods too much of the forge god's blade. I showed a 10 year old how to forge a basic blade while Wes worked with his dad and Larry "supervised" my instruction. "Supervised" consisted of Larry saying "Michael" with varrying inflections to remind or correct me in my instruction.
I went to Kim Breeds on Saturday to show off my first work and he gave the 28kilo anvil in the picture to me. While I had been contemplating finding a 200lb die block I realized that I've read of making knives using railway rail sections for an anvil and the little anvil is certainly a step up from that. All I need to do is get it onto a heavy non-shock absorbing base and it should do very well.
A good hammer-in with cooperative makers and you could get easily get started forging.
The drop point was my second knife that I made the first day and it and the first knife were complete blades by the afternoon of the second day. "Complete" meaning that they were hammered out, normalized, descaled, ground, quinched, tangs filed and ready to be cleaned up and put guard and handle on them. Really only about 8 total hours went into the process on the first 2 knives, what with a late start on Monday and all of Larry's visitors during the day. I averaged beating out 2 knives a day.
Temps were ~90 degrees and relative humidities were >90% so it got a little warm with Larry's big forge. I forged in T-shirt and shorts with my leather apron for protection. I found that electronic ear muffs were a big help after the first day since the ring of the anvil may be music, but it can be loud music. I used a heavier glove on my left hand since the steel got to be hot even with an extra foot of steel left on to handle.
Larry charges $500 for a week and I stayed a couple of days extra on the weekend since Wes Byrd had come in for the weekend for an ABS sponsored youth event and Larry told me that I had to stay to help. Wes showed me how to draw file and stone finish (see the shortest blade in the image) so I could finish knives without power tools. While exhausting, draw file work certainly keeps you from feeding the grinder gods too much of the forge god's blade. I showed a 10 year old how to forge a basic blade while Wes worked with his dad and Larry "supervised" my instruction. "Supervised" consisted of Larry saying "Michael" with varrying inflections to remind or correct me in my instruction.
I went to Kim Breeds on Saturday to show off my first work and he gave the 28kilo anvil in the picture to me. While I had been contemplating finding a 200lb die block I realized that I've read of making knives using railway rail sections for an anvil and the little anvil is certainly a step up from that. All I need to do is get it onto a heavy non-shock absorbing base and it should do very well.
Valkman
Member
Man that sounds like it was fun! Hot sweaty fun, but fun!
A friend in Hawaii has a chance to train with Jim Burke in Ohio for a week for free - I guess Fowler charges $3500 for this type of training and Burke is a Fowler student so this would be excellent for him. I told him he better do it or I will!
A friend in Hawaii has a chance to train with Jim Burke in Ohio for a week for free - I guess Fowler charges $3500 for this type of training and Burke is a Fowler student so this would be excellent for him. I told him he better do it or I will!
OP
OP
Save your money and get together with one of the smiths that aren't as fond of the sound of their own voice. You'll get just as much and still have enough left for equipment.
I suggested to Larry that newbie maker-wannabes would be extatic if he set of a 3 part program - A basic forging class for a week followed by a finishing class for a week followed by a damascus class for a week. Each would be seperated by about a month so that the student would be able to go home and dink around making mistakes and fixing them before the next session was offered. Considering you could do the basic forging in the spring before it gets crazy hot and do the damascus in the fall after the crazy hot is past you'd be making knives within a year. This would keep anyone out of trouble for quite a while.
I suggested to Larry that newbie maker-wannabes would be extatic if he set of a 3 part program - A basic forging class for a week followed by a finishing class for a week followed by a damascus class for a week. Each would be seperated by about a month so that the student would be able to go home and dink around making mistakes and fixing them before the next session was offered. Considering you could do the basic forging in the spring before it gets crazy hot and do the damascus in the fall after the crazy hot is past you'd be making knives within a year. This would keep anyone out of trouble for quite a while.
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