BYU Logo for a Gift

Pretty simple, really... First you make templates of paper and decide what will be negative/positive and why. In this case the metal is 20" round of 30" pipe wall.Then you trace the shape onto the metal with soap stone, which is great stuff in that it's still quite visible when you've got it up hot enough to start cutting the metal.

Next you cut the metal and finish it; in this case I started by grinding it with an angle grinder, which is a marvelous tool to say the least. I liked the rough brushed shiny look but opted to polish it a bit with 80-120-220-buffing wheel abrasion in that order. I could easily see where someone might like a less polished look and go back to the flap wheel look.

The Rod of Asklepius

Finally completed after several false starts:

Anvil Stand - Quick and Easy

Here's the new anvil stand - not fireproof but I doubt it's an issue. Lots of tool storage possibilities.

Archer's Bracer with quasi-Urnes motif (WIP)

The green is brighter than I would have liked but it's what I had on hand. For about three dollars in materials I can't gripe too much.I'm going to use a wood burner to clean up and darken a lot of the lines, but other than that it's mostly done.

Ingredients:

Veggie tanned leather (fairly light)
Artificial Sinew
Cuttings from a broken arrow
Leather dye

Bone Spear

This spear came out pretty well. It's cool to me not so much because of the bone (we all know how to use a belt sander and files) but because the rest of the spear is made entirely from a locust tree sapling I cut in my back yard. The rope you see holding on the head is actually the fibrous underbark of the sapling, which I twisted together using the technique that Clay showed me last night for making bow strings. He said that it would work with any long plant fibers, and he was right.

Blacksmith's Apron Part I

Pictured: the distressed leather along side the original side. Distressing gives the leather a wrinkled, used look but it also lets it move like cloth.

Materials (so far)
1 side of 4/5s oz vegetable tanned cow hide
1 bottle of neatsfoot oil
1 spraybottle
1 ton of work

As I've mentioned, veggie tanned leather is pretty stiff stuff until you relax the fibers. Chrome tanned leather is cheaper, and softer to start with, but you chant really change it. Veggie tanned you can really soften to an almost cloth-like softness, and you can dye it, carve it, tool it, and so on.

I asked the guy at Tandy leather how I should go about softening and preserving the leather,and he showed me neatsfoot oil.

neat \ˈnēt\ noun plural neat or neats
: the common domestic bovine (Bos taurus)
Middle English neet, from Old English nēat; akin to Old High German nōz head of cattle, Old English nēotan to make use of, Lithuanian nauda use

Neatsfoot oil is literally oil squeezed out of cow's feet. Apparently the fats from the lower legs of a bovine have a very low melting temperature and are used as a treatment/preservative.

Basically I spray the oil on and work it in by hand, bending and working the leather until the fibers relax. Distressing leather to a good softness took me about two hours of work. For part of the softening I scraped the oiled leather back and forth over a corner of wood. Most of the time I just balled it up and squeezed it over and over. Next time someone tells me something is had distressed, I'll know why it costs twice as much.

Some interesting info on inlaying

This is a fascinating picture of an original Viking sword hilt that to the modern eye isn't anything impressive, but to anyone who understands the work that went into this it's stunning.

I have also included have a modern sword with some inlay. this is from our friend Mikko Moilanen, via MyArmoury:

Below is pictured my version of the type H sword from the Netherlands. I have been experimenting on pattern-welded inlays for my doctoral thesis in archaeology, and this blade is one of those experiments. The blade is 18th-century steel and the inlays are pattern-welded. Having enough bare blades at the corner of my livingroom, I have been trying to make hilts according to some finds. The hilt for this sword, as well as the measurements of the blade, were taken from the find from Netherlands.

The hilt is iron, covered with copper a complete hilt to make sure the technique really works...

The guards were forged, as well as the hollow pommel. I used a kind of resin to attach the U-shaped rivet inside the pommel. The resin was quite the same as previously talked about in this thread: mainly pitch, some beeswax and wood filings as binder. The mixture held surprisingly well, although it is very sensitive to changes in temperature.

The decorative wire between the pommel and the upper guard is beaded silver wire.

Here is the thread that he refers to:

http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=5386&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=40

It includes some very interesting dialogue on the subject of inlay, which I reccommend.