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Long but very informative Mac Muz. You gave me some good ideas. I had a Kershaw folding fillet knife many years ago that was fantastic. I lent it to a former friend and never saw my knife or the friend again. The friend I didn't miss. I have wanted something similar to that one ever since but I have never found anything even close. Surprisingly Rapala makes a 6"(?) folding fillet knife that is damn good for the price, less than $10 at WalMart.
plain Mac works. I thought you knew that. Mac is just sort for McKay. The Muz if for muzzeloader, since it's a good part of what i do and many sites want more than 3 letters/ digits. My first name is so common that any given muzzeloading event if someone say Bill, 40 guys in unison say Huh?
More or less this is how any high carbon steel gets treated. O1 is supoosed to be a water quench, and the tool I use made of it is worn out horse shoe rasps. I find that water is a great way to crack them to bits.
I use old files and the older the better for belt hunters. I use smaller files for neck knives. A favorite fun thing for me is fancy file work on the tangs, which is trapped file work. I also like to file up the blade spine, when a design allows it. I tend to move the file tang over to one side, that cut it off.
I refuse to solder bolsters in place since the heating will affect the temper. I like to use more rivets than I really need. All my rivets are made by me, of brass rod, copper wire, and finish nails, as well as sterling silver, but the design calls for that.
I like to leave some file teeth showing which proves it is O1 steel, and was done on purpose long ago, for the proof of the same thing.
I always wondered if a coal stoker would be of any interest to those that have forges. They usually use anthracite which doesn't "klinker" because there is little volatile matter and my understanding is that it's not suitable for forging but this one here is actually a test using soft coal:
There would indeed, but where I am under the conditions as they are, I can't. My rivet forge runs on coal and or hardwood charcoal, but I can't use that indoors here.
There is the dirt problem, and what ever I have must be portable on the instant. Timing is such that with no warning I must be able to turn off a valve and with in a few moments move this tooling for some other project, of which there are many. Building a shed is out of the question unfortunatley.
I even have all the framing, roofing and sheeting to build a shed here this instant, but it's a no go.
I had planned to build the shed to house my coal forge and also run a sugar shack all in one. Nope, and I am not the land owner.
But yeah, that looks like a bang up rig.
It is true that a soft coal fire needs to be made. It is required to build a next with a hollow in it's middle, so there is fire above the work, which assist in keeping O2 out. Additional O2 will burn the work.
Fuels can vary, and at times if you are hammer welding hard wood charcoals may be used which are cleaner, and you can't build that hollow with hard woodchar either.
I have no experience with hard coal, which may allow for welding.
I have no idea what cfm is on that blower but it would need to be regulated and varriable. A decent fott pedal regulator is one of the best ways to get that, like as on a sewwing machine. The more you press down the more air is blown into the fire. Off is OFF with no pressure at all. A good unit would keep out crudlings that are sure to be there sooner or later.
It is true that a soft coal fire needs to be made. It is required to build a next with a hollow in it's middle, so there is fire above the work, which assist in keeping O2 out. Additional O2 will burn the work.
By this you mean you need it to bridge over? This is why they use anthracite because it doesn't do that.
Both the air and feed rate are adjustable on these units. They sell them as whole boilers but I'm sure they could offer just the base through a dealer if someone wanted it. I don't know what they would charge but the whole boiler is about $9K. I will tell you one thing, you only have to buy it once. EFM boilers are know to function for 50+ years and even then you can rip them down and get a few more decades out of them....
yes a sort of shallow cave is built of coked coal and slag, lesser slag when possible, so heat is around under and on top of the area of steel being heated. You want a Co2 rich atmophere, so the carbon won't get cooked out of the steel being worked. Maybe some of the C02 enteres the steel, but I am not that god of a smith or a metalurist to know that as fact.
There are as many fire types as there is smiths. Where I got rough training at my best, the smith worked at Montecello. He made several kinds of shaped fires for the many items he made. He worked like magic. He would grab a hunk or real wroght iron, and seemingly work it all backwards.
In a little while he would be done with a real nice bit of work. I have to concentrate really hard to get what I want, Hitting steel and shaping it the way you want and making it right once the first time isn't easy. Any fool can heat up steel and beat it with a hammer, but you won't get much right for the first several hundred tries. I am no expert i must work and think hard.
9 grand is a hell of a lot money! My antique forge would run over 300 bucks, unless you start counting the anvils and tongs I have.
With coal you can have a sturdy wooden forge with just a few metal parts. I never had one like this, but once these were common, and on wheels. The first time i saw one, it confused me wondering why it just didn't catch on fire and burn right up.
9 grand is a hell of a lot money! My antique forge would run over 300 bucks, unless you start counting the anvils and tongs I have.
It's lifetime investment though, you only buy it once. With proper care you won't have any issues for 50 years if not more. Keep in mind that $9K is whole boiler with ASME stamp, stainless steel augers etc.. If I had to give an estimate for just the stoker base I'd have to guess in the $3K range. The ASME stamp alone adds about $2K.
Yes, it is a nice looking rig. It might work out very well for someone young, up and coming, who can build a business around it. I can't i am 59, rent, and need portable. Forging pot hooks, blanket pins, assorted antique repro of kitchen items, and knives is a hobby to me, one that sometimes offers a sale of something.
I used to own a forge made of river rocks and a truck brake drum, aired up with a squirrel cage and a foot pedal resistor. Then I got divorced and lost my shirt, lost that forge too since it couldn't moved, and wasn't worth taking apart for a brake drum, some rocks and the squirrel cage blower I gave away. I don't own any one single item worth any 9 grand, not even my newest motorcycle is worth that much.
My coal fired Buffalo Rivet forge made in the 20's i think works fine, but is nasty dirty to run, with smokes, coal dusts, and scales and slag, and so is why I can't run it in any exisiting buildings.
It moves easily, but the anvils don't.
I am not sure why this remains a discussion. That rig is nice but isn't for me. I don't expect to live a whole lot longer, and if I had 9 grand to invest in a tool it would not be a forge, since i am not that good. Often times i will bring mine to a event and play around making pot hooks, or other assorted kitchen wares. The machine is really too new to be acceptable at pre 1840 events but iof I tuck it away in a far corner of the camp no one minds. Better smiths than me set up the real thing with a bellows double blower, on a wooden cart forge, the type which I mentioned before that don't just burn down.
I didn't deny this forge you show is nice, as it is, at least i think so. For more than that build a shed install it and call on me to come play.
What I need to know is How To build a small gas forge right down to the burner, that weighs under 30 pounds. One when I turn it off cools to the touch engough to put on a storage shelf and walk away with no risk of buring the building down, One with 0 smoke from a cold start, and no more bulky a fuel supply than a BBQ gas bottle. It also must be very inexpensive to build.
Pretty much the BBQ bottle, a regulator, a burner of some sort, a frame to hold a light weight insulation brick type. Perhaps a form of blower.
I am not familar with gas really. I can light a room heater/ floor register, but that's it.
I can weld a frame to hold bricks, or insulation type foam bricks, but am at some loss as to buying or prefered building a burner. I am not sure how to regulate air with gas in a forge of this type.
I am not sure how to run the burner getting it hotter or to idle. So far I have read up here and there lightly on the web, and all that has done so far is create new questions.
Very nice looking, but don't buy it. While the fit and finish is good, I see a few problems. The scabard/sheath is what caught my attention. It's cheaply made, which made me take a harder look.
Probably the sheath wasn't made by the blade maker, which is often the case for cheapies.
I see no makers marks anywhere, which is a problem. Anyone doing that kind of work always wants his mark on the steel.
The killer for me is the file work goes to the tip of the b lade and that should have stopped long before that distance. This is a 'for show safe queen' not a user, and for that it's fine except no marks. No marks on a safe queen is just a bad investment.
If you use it as a camp knife that tip won't be there very long.
If you use it in NYC to cut chicago black steaktips you'll git yo ass busted!
I'ld like that blade a lot better if it had marks and the file work wasn't there from the tip to about 1/3rd the way back on the blade spine.
The bone handle is fine on this sized blade since the whole knife is too small to use as a swinging tool. You won't blow the bone up in a hand.
Of course the bids at the current rate still make this an attractive deal, but I wouldn't go over 100 bucks.
I am wondering how the bolsters are applied too. I hope with pins just like the bone is, but stainless pins and filed/polished to be invisable.
I don't have my forge set up .............again this year. Too many projects ahead of it, which has been typical here. Today I think I might go get new lodge poles. Appears to be cooler and cloudy all day. Last year after Muster, they were cut up to be kindeling
That file work should have stayed in the tang only. A bit too agressive as well, smaller tighter pattern on the file work would look more balanced.
I would say it was likely made in Turkey or India by the appearance. Maybe Pakistan or China.
The seller has such a large collection it looks like QVC on late night telly. Couple knives have some nice rain drop damascus. The whole collection is eclectic for sure to the point of being gaudy.
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If I had to give an estimate for just the stoker base I'd have to guess in the $3K range. The ASME stamp alone adds about $2K.
