Visited the Old City Park in Dallas yesterday.  It was fun hanging out and watching someone else work.  I did get to see the early stages of a bowie knife being made.  Nothing new, just interesting to watch.

I may have to try and make a few quick knives or daggers for the SCA.  I would use traditional techniques as opposed to the usual SCA practice of grinding knives to shape.  Somewhere down the road, I would not mind getting into making traditional weaponry.  Doing pattern welded swords could be fun (mistakenly called Damascus by many people).

Finally feels like it's happening...

  Today, in just a few hours, I was able to make the horizontal bars for the long axis of the clocks.  This involved cutting the bars and making the tenons on the bars.  Although the shoulders on the tenons are not as clean as I wanted, they still work.  It was fun to temporarily place the bars in the corner posts.  I suddenly had something that resembles the frame of the original clock.  Here are some pictures of the frame as it looks now.  The piece of wood was to keep the frame upright while snapping the photos.





If the frame looks slightly off square its from having to angle things to get it to stand upright.  The tenons will be trimmed down later.  Eventually the ends of the tenons will be peined over to hold the frame together.  This will not be done until the clock is almost complete.  As a note, I didn't notice until after I took the pictures but it was upside down.  Not that it matters at this stage.

Really feels like this is going to happen.  I may still have another year or so to complete but it is moving forward now.

Continued working...

  I managed to get out after the rain stop.  The mortises on the top of the corner posts were cut in very short order.  There will be some final fine tuning on the mortises but that needs to wait for other parts to be completed.  This is a pic of them.



This is a picture of the vise protectors that I came up with pretty quickly earlier.



Finally, I played around with making the finials.  A few weeks ago, I made a round spring fuller.  I tried it out tonight and had some success.  I think it may work but I need to try it some more.  I will post some pictures if it works.

Rain delay...

  Taking this week off to play on the forge.  I started today by splitting the cutting saddle I made for my Russian anvil in half.  I am using the two pieces as jaw protectors for my new vise.  The vise has serrated teeth and when clamped on metal will leave a mark.  The pieces from the saddle cover the teeth and make it so the vise does not leave a mark.
  What was interesting about splitting the piece of metal was that I did it cold by clamping it in the vise and performing a shearing cut.  I use a chisel and cut as close as I can to the vise.  This acts like a beverly shear and cuts the metal pretty nicely.  You can't do it with thicker stock but on thin stock it works great.
  I then went back to work on the clock posts.  I finished up the mortises on the bottom of the corner posts.  Then I moved up to the top mortises.  I got the spots marked out but a heavy rain band chased me in before I started any real work.  Hope to get back out for at least a few hours later.

Unpacked the rest of the truck today.  While putting stuff away, I quickly fired up the forge and made some crucifixion nails for a friend.  No, not to use on her just for an SCA pilgrimage themed event.  They are just a bit over nine inches long.

Cleanup stuff today...

  While unloading the truck, I finally took care of something I've been meaning to do.  For the past few years, I've stored my steel stock on my back porch.  Keep in mind, this is probably about 1/2 ton worth of steel.  Well, I was sick of it being out there and moved it to a location on the side of the house.  Had to make quite a few trips to get it all out there.  Still, it was useful because I found that I had some sizes of steel that I didn't realize I had...

This is a picture of the tool that makes it easier to work with larger pieces.  It goes into the holes on anvil.



This is a picture of my setup.  I'm hoping over the next year to make it look more authentic.

Forgotten item...

  I will probably toss a few items out here that I forgot that I worked on but one of the items was an extension arm for the anvil.  This is to allow me to place a larger item across the anvil and not need to hold onto it.  I know I took a picture and will post it later.

Good weekend.

  I went to an SCA event this weekend and things went very well.  I got on site later than I had planned but the coleman lanterns give me more than enough light to work by.  It was also the first time (and probably last time) that I brought my wooden clock out for display since the time I entered it in a competition.  I fired up the forge for a light night smithing session and it was fun to see a crowd gather around and get social.  A friend even took the opportunity to forge a prize for a tourney.

  Started smithing the next day at sunrise and had a lot of really nice people come around and talk with me throughout the day.  It slows me down a bit while working but it is really fun to talk about the craft.  I don't mind the interruptions at all.

  I finished the cutting of the final post of the strip of metal down the side.  This is for purely decorative reasons.  Next, I started working on the punch I need for the posts.  The posts need a mortise (a hole for those non-construction types out there) that is 3/8" x 3/4" rectangle.  I used a piece of large coil spring to make the punch.  I accidentally burned the tip a bit on the first one so I discarded it.  This is because it puts some imperfections in the surface that could develop into cracks.  The second punch came out very nice.

  I then cleaned up two of the posts a bit.  Chiseling is an effective way to split the metal but it leaves a bit of a ragged edge.  I file most of it down while still hot but I still needed a bit of cleanup.  I then decided to move on to punching the holes for the bottom of the posts.  This line drawing shows what the final post will look like.



  The post is about 26" tall.  The mortises are at the top and bottom.  I used the new punch to punch the bottoms of two of the posts.  I wanted to do more but I had to get cleaned up for evening activities.  I was very happy with how the mortises came out.  They are exactly matched up with each other.  One of the areas I've been working on this year is trying to become more precise in my work.

  I also received an award.  It was the Order of the Silver Trident.  For those not in the SCA or not in Trimaris, it is a fairly high level award given for accomplishments in the arts.  Had a lot of people congratulate me.  Its nice to know that people are getting enjoyment out of something I love to do.

  I will post pictures from this weekends work when I unpack the camera from the weekend.

Few new simple toys...

  I had to wait for some stuff to finish processing at work so took a long lunch on a quest for a leather apron.  I have been smithing for 3 years now and still did not own a decent apron.  As a result, I have a lot of T-shirts dotted with burn holes.  I decided to first try out Harbor Freight.
  For those not familiar with HF, they are a hardware store that mainly carries cheap Chinese tools.  I firmly believe that if you are buying a tool, you should buy high quality.  However, if you are only going to use a tool once or twice or its a tool you don't mind if its sucks, HF is the place to go.
  Well, HF did not have any appropriate aprons.  Also, they apparently have dropped most of the anvils that they were selling (not sure if any coyotes were nearby to have anvils dropped on them.)  The only anvil they are selling is the cheap 55# Indian anvil I started with.  It is being sold under the Centaur Forge name.  Too bad...
  I did pick up an oil can (think the oil can in Wizard of Oz.)  The oil can is for lubricating my crank blower.  Also pickup up whats called something like a map measurer?  Got this tip from another blacksmith.  Its a little tool that you can use to trace curving shapes.  The tool gives you an accurate measurement.  Very useful if you have a curved design and you want to know how much metal it will take.
  Final stop was at a welding supply store.  Picked up a decent apron.  No more holy T-shirts.

Just realized I've been keeping this blog for 2 years now.  It is nice to look back and see how much I have learned.  Still have a lot to learn...

For starters, some promised pictures...

This is of the spring fuller.  First photo shows one end of the round rod forge welded onto the flat stock.  The center of the flat stock is flattened out to make the spring.  The hook on the end of the round stock goes into the hardie hole to keep it on the anvil. 



This is the fuller completed.  Little hard to make out but the two round bars are on the left.  The spring part on the right.  A piece of metal is placed between the round bars and the bars are hammered together.




Today I made a stand for my new vise.  Nothing exciting but I wanted to make it easier to move around then my last one.  So, the ability for it to break down was a big consideration.  These pictures show the vise stand.  The last picture shows what it looks like when broken down.  I might add a pin to hold the upright post in place.



For sense of size, the vise top sits at 4 feet.  Notice the hinges inside the "wings" of the stand.



The stand broken down.

Work from Friday,

  I spent most of the day working on some methods to make the finials on the top of the corner posts.  This is a close up of the finials from the British Museum website.  On the left and right the finials can be seen.



This is a quick sketch I put into TurboCad showing the finials in a line drawing.

  Anyway, I've decided on how the top part of the finial is probably made.  I'm going to start with 1" square stock.  I made a spring fuller (I will post pictures of it later) out of 1 inch round stock.  The fuller is designed to press the metal from both sides.  The idea is that the round stock will make a circular indent in the metal.  I will do this on all four sides making a half circle indent on the metal on all sides.  Then that piece is cut in half producing the rounded pyramid top shown above.

  What I'm having trouble figuring out is how to make the socket without deforming the top.  I'm thinking of making a die to put the finial in that will support the shape of the finial.  I know this is a bit complicated so I will try to post pictures if it works.

Post #3 done.

  I decided to show the stages in cutting the post.

This shows the cut area marked up.  The white is for the photos.  The line I actually used is a thin scratch mark.  Look for it next to the white.  You probably cannot make it out but trust me its there.  Clicking on the photo will show a larger version where it is a little more visible.




This shows the chisel I use to do most of the cutting.  Notice how it is flat on one side so that the cut is nice and clean.




First cut.  Using a smaller chisel to start.  Notice the cutting saddle on the anvil.  Keeps from dulling the chisels when I cut through.



After some progress



Halfway mark.




One more heat to go.



Post after straightening.