Corn Patch's 3 Day Knife Forging Seminar w/ 3 batches of photos-fini

Bookie

Bookie

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Mar 25, 2014
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Guys from around the US have traveled here to Corn Patch to learn how to forge knives and we spent Day 1 playing in the fire. Great fun!! The stock used today were old rake tines that couldn't be used for baling hay any longer. Day 2 will see some 1045 & 5120 steel stock used to forge some bigger knives. Here are a few photos to give you a flavor of what went on today. So c'mon over, there's two days remaining and it's a free seminar.
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Dang! Id head that way but yall'll be done by the time I get there! Looks like fun!
 
Here's a few more pics from today's labors. Did a little muzzle loading work this evening such as building & rifling a barrel. Ever see a 1915 Iowa plate?DSC07114 - Copy.JPG

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The seminar wound down today. The clinker pile out behind the black smith shop is a little over a foot high! We did burn some coal! Got a few knives made. One of the attendees lives and works in Brazil and so hammered out a biggie knife they use way down there. Photo shows it and what he started with. The blades were forged from some South American truck springs. Did a little rifle work, too. Rifled a barrel and cut out a Kentucky rifle stock from a piece of maple. 1 3/4 miles of steel was removed from the barrel (.45 caliber) cutting the riflings into it! Check out the little pan of swarf and hog lard. Bookie is glad it's over as Bookie be tired.

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That rifling rig is awesome in itself. What are you cutting with? Carbide? Hardened steel? Looks like way too much fun!
 
Using a piece of hacksaw blade this time around, Kamidog. I'm saving a barrel for you or Bawanna to come to Corn Patch to rifle. Last barrel I have.
 
I actually ran a rifling set up like that last year at a sportsman show. It was kind of hard since it was hauled in an not doubt not as solid as a good set up should be. It was pretty amazing and applying what I've learned from Bookie the guy didn't think I was a total idiot.

Not easy running that thing sitting down back and forth especially for a long barrel like he was doing but it worked.

Still think it's beyond incredibly cool to build your own rifle basically from scratch. Nothing cooler than that.
 
Bawanna, most guys who are using rifling machines and doing demonstrations are using copies of my bench made from one of my books. Met a fellow last year doing a demo. Told me how he built it and got it working with no training and all. I told him how he could make a couple of modifications and improve the machines function and save him some time. He thanked me for the suggestions and he'd think about them later, but did I know how difficult it was to come up with something that worked and was accurate? I just smiled and thanked him for buying one of my books anyway and that by building the rifler he had actually flattered me--since I was the one who wrote it. Oh, if you could have heard the silence from him and the others standing there. Told him I was Bookie and wished him luck. He really changed his tune while demonstrating later that day. Figured he goes around telling folks that he knows Bookie and maybe that he studied under him, too!
 
I actually asked the guys who's machine I was looking at if he knew you as the rig was a pretty exact duplicate.

He claimed he didn't but maybe he didn't remember who wrote the book.
 
Aint but one Bookie! Dang good thing too:D. 2X them voodoo dolls would not be fun! Id sure love to take you up on that rifling offer:thumbsup: Im just amazed at the skills it takes to make that barrel in the first place. Keep postin Doc! Great post!
 
Great pix and post, thank you for sharing
 
This has been a fun read.

"I just smiled and thanked him for buying one of my books anyway and that by building the rifler he had actually flattered me--since I was the one who wrote it."

HaHa! That is priceless.
 
Looking great! I'm just about to try and source some more blade steel and make another knife or two!
I've got things all heated up and I'm working on being less terrible.
 
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