Weird little knife

Kevin the grey said:
Sorry Hollwdweller I,m a little dozy today . Were you referring to That pretty flower skullcap ? I think its amazing how many plants are in the mint family .
I have seeds of one called applemint . Delicious apple flavour . I don,t know if the apple part is truly from the mint family or something they bred in . Whatever, it makes great tea . I,ll have to look into Skullcap more .If its anything like other mints it likes lots of water , There are some that are supposed to be marginals . I have even heard of an aquatic mint . I can,t find out any more about it .
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Applemint is my favorite. It's great mixed with alfalfa or with chamomile. I THINK I still have some. I got like 5 or 6 difft types of mints (or more) The pennyroyal played out. The applemint grows in the bed that the echinacia and bee balm grows in and it might have gotten choked out. Stuff is just starting to come up so I'm not sure if it's still there.

Ever grow any hops? They are cool plants.:thumbup:
 
I only have room for a few plants in my backyard . I am container gardening to keep down weeds and to raise the plants up out of muttly,s way .
I quite like the applemint for the great taste . I still find peppermint the most refreshing I grow Stevia as a sweetener though I often have mint as is .
Isn,t pennyroyal more used for its medicinal properties . In fact most of my books do not recomend it as there are safer substitues . There is supposedly a Bergamot mint that is good for migraines . All the people I talked to know of bergamot as a citrus fruit . I did meet one ferching young lass at a festival who knew about it . I know I will run into her again and discuss it at greater length . I have never grown or seen hops . Does it have other uses than beer ?
 
Kevin the grey said:
I have never grown or seen hops . Does it have other uses than beer ?
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Find your local home brewing supplier, get a bunch of hops, fill a pillow case up with it and substitute it for your regular pillow. Let us know what you experience (hint, should be a deep, restful, sleep).:D

Sarge
 
I've tried all day to post to this thread and could not- browser trouble.


Sarge, You said anything that flung a lot of sparks was good, but darn it, there's so much metal here and I don't think anyone can sort it all out. There's springs laying in the ground from tractor companies that don't exist anymore- and lots of other metal: all the mining, ranching, and farming has left generations of steel debris in Montana.

I don't know where to start. I just grab what I see.
Tim has the forge set up, but he's dealing with Calving now, and that might as well mean he's on the moon, because you won't see him and the forge won't be lit until it's over.

I picked up an old small rail spike. I've got leaf springs from buggies, tractors, plows, trucks, cars....

I don't know what to say. One could find a peice of very special metal out here. Like Jim Bowie's meteor.

munk
 
Sylvrfalcn said:
Find your local home brewing supplier, get a bunch of hops, fill a pillow case up with it and substitute it for your regular pillow. Let us know what you experience (hint, should be a deep, restful, sleep).:D

Sarge
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I,m not too much up on the brewing scene . Mosr I,ve seen in home brewing was kits . I,m sure if I check around and ask my buddy who makes maple beer I might come up with some . I,ll let you know .
 
Hey Sarge!

The little hoofie knife came today:D

What a cute little handle!:thumbup: Very comfortable. I don't know if you did this but I could almost picture you holding it and then grinding it to get it right cause both the ergonomics of the handle and the angle of the cutting edge of the blade in relation to the handle seemed to be designed to allow for maximum leverage:thumbup: I worried about how far the tang went down and would I break the blade off if I pushed real hard, but just trying to move it it seems plenty stout:cool:

I was gonna try it this eve but stuck it in my pants and then changed pants before I went to the barn. I'll try to do a pictorial on it this weekend. Tending a gunshot dog that wandered in here, bottle feeding baby goats, milking big ones, making cheese just tilled my garden and of course working full time starting to go into the summer mode:eek:

Thanks again and I believe it's gonna work perfect.
 
hollowdweller said:
I was gonna try it this eve but stuck it in my pants and then changed pants before I went to the barn.
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Don't leave that thing bouncing around in your britches lest you wanna wind up with the nickname of "Shortie" :eek: :rolleyes:

I forged that blade out of a square cut masonry nail, good high carbon water hardening tool steel, use 'em for all the various bits and blades on my woodcarving tools. I'd be surprised if you bust it, but if you do, just let me know and I'll forge up a full boogie chiruwa version. After all, ain't nothing more unattractive than a durn goat with a hangnail. :p :D

Sarge
 
Sarge,

I've been not holding back on this little blade and it seems well rooted in the handle:thumbup:

When I do the bucks I do them out in their yard so I'll take some pics in action then.
 
hollowdweller said:
Sarge,

I've been not holding back on this little blade and it seems well rooted in the handle:thumbup:

When I do the bucks I do them out in their yard so I'll take some pics in action then.
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I think we're all looking forward to them pics, quite a departure from the usual tree chopping type stuff. Wish Kis, or some of the other hunters, would do a pictorial on processing large game animals, that would also be interesting.

HD, I'm glad you like that silly little knife, and if it helps, in some small way, to benefit the quality of life of your animals, then this half a$$ed blacksmith wannabee is happy. :D

Sarge
 
I gotta try pounding those masonry nails Sarge. Always looking for a cheap source of steel. I got my forge working. Two firebricks hollowed out and mortared, and held together with wire. I use a Mapp gas torch to fire it with. Works great. Been using an old sledge hammer face as an anvil. That sucks. I gotta get something better. It'll take some time though. My dad-in-law is here and we're building a storage shed out back to get those pesky lawn empliments out of my way.
 
aproy1101 said:
I gotta try pounding those masonry nails Sarge. Always looking for a cheap source of steel. I got my forge working. Two firebricks hollowed out and mortared, and held together with wire. I use a Mapp gas torch to fire it with. Works great. Been using an old sledge hammer face as an anvil. That sucks. I gotta get something better. It'll take some time though. My dad-in-law is here and we're building a storage shed out back to get those pesky lawn empliments out of my way.
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I know where there's 2 really large leaf springs I could probably mail you Andy!:thumbup:
 
How much does it cost to mail leaf spring? That sounds bad. I think if I look I can get it here too. Its BIG for a guy with a two brick forge and a friggin hammer anvil. LOL. If you wanna do me a favor keep your eye peeled for a hardened steel anvil in the 100-135lb range. I can get one off ebay, just haven't done it yet. I'd rather get an old used one with stories to tell. My great grandfather had an anvil, but an ex wife of my Uncle Jerry has it. I have to try to charm it out of her when we go to Mississippi next time. It won't be easy. She didn't like my grandmother, and don't like my mom.
 
My friend Bill has a big anvil but I think he uses it.

If yo want me to send you a pic of those springs let me know. They are flat so you wouldn't have to pound too much but they would definately inspire you to build a bigger forge.;)
 
Andy?


Here's some stills from Hood's Woods on knife making.http://www.survival.com/volume-9.htm

&

Call around to wreckers' yards for either an anvil, or more likely, a section of rail cut to size for you. You shouldn't have to convince an ex-in-law in another state.

Have fun.
 
I'm with Kis on making do. When I started smithing I searched for all the "right" tools, including a traditional London pattern anvil. In reality a "post" style anvil works better for most blade work and doesn't ring.http://www.livelyknives.com/basicsetup.htm will take you to a page with a very simple set up. Buy the tape that Tim offers and you will save yourself a lot of learning time from trial and error, or trying to interpret books and articles. Tim is one of the smiths that is listed on the page that Kis linked to in his post for Hoods Woods.

Have fun, be safe, don't set the deck on fire with flaming quench oil.:eek:
 
This anvil search is not a new thing. I've been looking around for several months. I started out looking for a cutoff I could put into a bucket of cement, but GA scrapyards don't let you out there anymore, and consequently are recycling their steel. I've called at least 30 places, and got the same answer. As for railroad track, it sounds easy to find, but its just not so. My uncle has a 16" piece of track sitting around in Louisianna, but he's old and its just too much for him to handle shipping it. I called a big steel supplier and they wanted pretty high money for a cutoff that wasn't hardened. If I'm going to pay good money why not get the real thing. A welder last week told me where to go junk shopping up north of me, and I plan to do that soon.

As for convincing the ex in-law in Mississippi, I'm going to try that regardless. Its my great grandaddy Daniels anvil. I'd feel honored to pound the same one he did when he got back from WW1. It would have family history. It would be the only thing of his that I own, and it would just mean a lot to me. Additionally that woman is just letting it rust in a shed, and I'm worried she may sell it or something.

On top of all of this is that the guys in the makers section say that its a waste a lot of time improvising an "anvil". The more mass you put behind the hammer the more steel you move on each hit. There is a noticable performance difference to a good anvil. Plus the hardie hole is frigging useful as hell, and no post vise can compare.

I've been training a little with one of the guys in the makers section. I'm not of the mindset to invest what he has on his forges, anvils, power hammer and KMG grinders, but I can see how using the best tools gives him superior results very efficiently.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions, and for listning to my anvil rant. If I find one of those cutoffs for $<.50/lb I'm certainly game, but I'm not paying more because I can get an old anvil for ~$1/lb or less if I look hard enough. One is all you need, so I don't mind being patient and finding a good quality tool.
 
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