October FMP

Here's a shot Buddy took from the full moon party Saturday night. Thanks Buddy! We're working on the third billet. It will go together with the first two to form a composite damascus billet for the dagger blade. This one was the taco with the smelted black sand steel and some tiny iron meteorites. It was a bit brittle from all the carbon in the sand steel, (1.5%-2%) but by the end of the night, we seemed to have worked most of the excess carbon out and it started to shape up.


That's Todd on the left with the camera and that's Steve to my right.

Buddy might send a few more shots over. If anyone else got some good shots feel free to post them on this thread.

[hammerdownnow]

Cool pic! Looks like Steve blocked out just enough of that light to keep everything illuminated in the back and not washed out in the foreground. Very 3D.

[Buddy Thomason]

It was a fine time for sure - talking about knives, looking at knives and forging under the full moon out in the desert. You can't beat it! Thanks Tai. Here are a few more pics but I didn't get many this time. Bet Todd has a few.

Steve takes a turn at striking:


Tai heating the billet:


This time the full moon escaped my camera - but not the sunrise.

[toddhill]

Cool pics. I don't have any myself as I was out of batteries and was in a hurry to get there. I did take a few pics for Steve, of Steve, with his camera. If you had stayed a little longer Buddy, you could have caught some neat pics of the cutting tests.

Thanks for the pics Buddy. That was a fun time.

[North]

Buddy, I really like the first picture. Looks like you guys had fun. Thanks for sharing.

Bill

[metalbender]

I remember a few years back Tai you talking about skipping the middleman so to speak and using straight wood instead of charcoal.... is that what I see in the forge?! wow! could you expound on the use of straight wood?

About the only time I start with charcoal is for pattern welding, which is what we were doing. It's easier to maintain a welding heat with charcoal. For general forging and heat treating I start with wood. I cut it into about apple sized chucks and convert to charcoal in the forge as I go.

[metalbender]

thats just too cool for school lol, my hats off to ya

[Voltaire]

Boy, did we have fun! I spent a lot of time cranking the forge, and learned a cool technique: to retain the heat, Tai covered the charcoal (and billet) with a sheet of kaowool. Thus, we got the steel up to white hot. You can see that in the pix, as well as the sparklies as the carbon burnt out.
The cutting games were a hoot. Besides the traditional 1" thick rope, we slashed at dangling lengths of string, a heavy-duty packing tube used to ship steel, and at dropped sheets of typing paper.
Nothing like hanging out with my fellow grown-ups!

Yep, we beat the carbon out of the billet, and got to play knife.

[Rocket_Jason]

Tai-

How do you make charcoal in the forge as you go? Seems to me that if you are putting wood in the forge and turning the blower, you are burning the wood instead of making charcoal. I have no experience in making charcoal so I have no clue, but the info I have read on the subject states that the process of making charcoal involves little flame directly on the wood. How do you do it?

-jason

[NuViking]

Hey this is also interesting calling it a full moon party, Are you into star or moon gazing. I have a low end reflex telescope and have realy enjoyed it this summer when there was a full moon. Couldnt find the planets later this spring but I am also new to backyard astronamy. The pics made it look like even more fun. I am hoping to get my acreage cleaned up enough for next summer to pull something like this off for a hammerin. Throw in some paintballing and that would be the best sunday sleepin you could ever have.

Originally Posted by Rocket_Jason

Tai-

How do you make charcoal in the forge as you go? Seems to me that if you are putting wood in the forge and turning the blower, you are burning the wood instead of making charcoal. I have no experience in making charcoal so I have no clue, but the info I have read on the subject states that the process of making charcoal involves little flame directly on the wood. How do you do it?

-jason

First you cut the wood up to uniform sized pieces that will convert to charcoal at the rate it's being consumed, usually apple to plum sized pieces depending on what size you need for any specific task. You build a fire in the forge with the wood and let the coals cherry out, or convert to charcoal. Then you pile more fresh wood pieces around the fire as you go. As the charcoal inside the dusks nest is consumed the wood around the outside converts to charcoal and replaces the charcoal that is being consumed by the fire. You add more fresh wood around the sides of the fire as you go. This method is actual a lot more efficient than pre-making charcoal,... no waste of fuel. However, it does take more energy to pre cut the wood pieces.

Blaine stayed over for a few days and took some lessons. He just headed back to California this morning. We had a good time, went through some "advanced basics" and got down to some real critical steps.

I expect to see some great work from Blaine.