Steep Hollow Forgeworks Combo-Demo

Man has it been busy lately! Besides all the custom orders I'm working on, all the blades I'm finishing/refurbishing and events going on I'm up to my eyeballs!

It's all good though. Last weekend Larry House from Dragons Watch Forge & Foundry, John Perilloux from John Perilloux Metal Art, and myself attended the Steep Hollow Forge Works Combo-Demo in Bryan, TX.

Smiths and artists from several states as well as five different blacksmithing groups came to give demonstrations, show off their work, bar-b-cue, and in general have a good old time.

We camped out Friday night behind the forge and spent and evening drinking beer and chatting with our fellow smiths and it was definitely a good time. Saturday kicked off with non-stop demos all day including a live smelting and harvesting of an iron bloom straight from the furnace.

A representative from Anyang Power Hammers brought out a 55lb self-containted air hammer for us to play with and give us a few demos as well.

Our hosts Jeff and Alan Lee really went all out to not only put on an event well worth the drive, but one that we all had a great time attending. Thanks again, guys!

And now, back to the forge with me.

On going adventures in the forge! I've been so busy producing quick, simple pieces for my Etsy shop as well as all the custom orders I have that I haven't had time to finish anything for myself!

I am working on a new bearded belt axe to replace the one I made for myself last winter but sold to a very persuasive customer at the first show I was at, but that's a simple matter.

Currently I'm working on a nice damascus hunter for myself, seen on the left there.

So far I've got the blade billet forged out, 288 layers of 1075 high carbon and 15N20 tool steel, shaped, ground, filed, tempered and etched. I have the handle blank done, and I'm working on the guard and pommel.

The guard and pommel are being made of what I call "Scrap-mascus". I made so many tomahawks from railroad spike heads that I had a bunch of spike shanks laying around from cutting the excess off the tomahawks. As I was contemplating what to do with them, a friend said, "why don't you forge them into a billet?"

So I took six spike shanks, tacked a piece of 1075, then a piece of 15N20 to one side of a spike, 1075,15N20,1075, then another spike, 1075,15N20,1075, another spike, 15N20 and 1075 for the first layer. Then laid 1075 on top of each spike shank, then another set of spikes, 1075, and 15N20 on top of it so I ended up with a billet that's 13 layers wide and three layers deep. Forged it down and twised it, then forged it down again.

My project for today is to grind down the pieces I cut from that billet into my guard and pommel, once the pieces are done annealing, which they're doing right now in a bucket of vermeculite.

I've been posting pictures of it while it's in progress, you can find the album on my facebook page Wolf's Den Forge if you're interested in following my build process along.

Back to the forge with me.