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Monday, February 23, 2009

Marshmallow from Hell

Here are some photos that I took in Dad's knife shop from this past weekend.

This first one is of a roller bearing welded to a piece of rebar, heating up in Dad's propane-powered forge. At around 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, you can understand why I dubbed this the "Marshmallow from Hell"...

Another shot of the forge. Dad is on the left and Eric Smith is on the right...

The next couple of pics are of a wood splitter that Dad built years ago, which was later converted into a machine used to press and bend the red-hot steel. It's particularly useful when working with Damascus (multi-layered) steel...

In this photo Dad is using a pneumatic-powered hammer (which he also designed and constructed) to "draw out" the steel into the more general shape of a blade...

Eric Smith holds the "finished" blade blank, after it had cooled-off enough to touch. In his left hand he holds two of the bearings, such as the one that was just forged into shape...

And even though it still has a lot of work ahead of it, here is Dad's current project: a Bowie knife with sheep-horn handle...

I'm looking at posting some video on YouTube in the near future of Dad practicing his art. 'Twould be neat to document how he takes a piece of steel from start to finish.

2 comments:

Eric H. Smith said...

I tell ya that was truly an awesome sight. When I showed the forged piece to my dad he wanted to cut it in threes and do a Rockwell Hardness test on it. I told him he was nuts and to leave it alone. I'm going to take one of the other bearings and forge it out for dad to do a test with.

Anonymous said...

Pretty cool, awesome sight indeed! Looking forward to your videos.