Hi all,
One of the small towns around here ( Grabill ) is having a fair, and one of the guys my dad works with who is an artist blacksmith has a booth there. Somehow I got roped into doing a knife forging demo yesterday. Since I'm somewhat on the "reserved" side, I wasn't looking forward to it at all. But, it went great. Aside from a little mis-communication problem which resulted in me walking all around the town like a lost idiot trying to find the booth ( while carrying a large piece of plywood which had the different steps in making a knife, on it), I really enjoyed it. In fact, I'm looking forward to doing it again next year.
I forged two blades while I was there, one of which I gave to a guy my own age who is interested in getting into knifemaking. This guy hung around almost the whole time I was there, and he was very interesting to talk to. He was in the Army, and was in Iraq for a while. He's the first person I've met who's actually been there, so it was interesting to hear his perspective on things. (Much more accurate then the newspapers, I'm sure) He speaks Arabic fluently, also.
I was using a coal fire, which I haven't done in over a year, and I was reminded of why I switched to propane. :barf:
At one point, I left the blade I was working on in the fire while my dad was turning the crank, and the bar got melted in half.
I hardened the end and broke it off to examine the grain, and it was huge! It was bigger than any I've ever seen. If it had been yellow, I could have passed it off as pyrite. (fools gold) So I decided to turn it into a metallurgy demonstration. I took the piece that got burned off, and thermal cycled it for a grain refining demo. We borrowed a refrigerator magnet from another vendor (the forge was in full sunlight, so my color perception was way off). I heated it till it lost it's magnetism, let it cool until it attracted the magnet again, and did that 4 times. Then I quenched it, and broke it to see the grain. Silky smooth. I was very impressed. It was the first time I'd done that experiment. I'm glad it worked.
Phillip
One of the small towns around here ( Grabill ) is having a fair, and one of the guys my dad works with who is an artist blacksmith has a booth there. Somehow I got roped into doing a knife forging demo yesterday. Since I'm somewhat on the "reserved" side, I wasn't looking forward to it at all. But, it went great. Aside from a little mis-communication problem which resulted in me walking all around the town like a lost idiot trying to find the booth ( while carrying a large piece of plywood which had the different steps in making a knife, on it), I really enjoyed it. In fact, I'm looking forward to doing it again next year.
I forged two blades while I was there, one of which I gave to a guy my own age who is interested in getting into knifemaking. This guy hung around almost the whole time I was there, and he was very interesting to talk to. He was in the Army, and was in Iraq for a while. He's the first person I've met who's actually been there, so it was interesting to hear his perspective on things. (Much more accurate then the newspapers, I'm sure) He speaks Arabic fluently, also.
I was using a coal fire, which I haven't done in over a year, and I was reminded of why I switched to propane. :barf:
At one point, I left the blade I was working on in the fire while my dad was turning the crank, and the bar got melted in half.
I hardened the end and broke it off to examine the grain, and it was huge! It was bigger than any I've ever seen. If it had been yellow, I could have passed it off as pyrite. (fools gold) So I decided to turn it into a metallurgy demonstration. I took the piece that got burned off, and thermal cycled it for a grain refining demo. We borrowed a refrigerator magnet from another vendor (the forge was in full sunlight, so my color perception was way off). I heated it till it lost it's magnetism, let it cool until it attracted the magnet again, and did that 4 times. Then I quenched it, and broke it to see the grain. Silky smooth. I was very impressed. It was the first time I'd done that experiment. I'm glad it worked. Phillip
I think you have me confused with Rob Patton. 
I'm located in Fort Wayne Indiana. (I guess I need to fill out my profile. 