Mini gloat

[harry strasil]

I stopped at a small mall today on the way home and they had a shop for kitchen cabinets mosty with granite or stone tops, I looked a the display of different colors and styles for tops, out of curiousity, I asked what they did with the display pieces when they were obsolete. the lady says you can have one for $10 so I came home with a 1 inch thick, 12 by 12 inch piece of blue quartz to use with wet dry paper for scary sharp.

[george wilson]

Great,Harry. I wanted to ask you what you made your blacksmithing hammers out of? I just use drill rod for my little ones. I'd like to make a few nice larger hammers one of these days.

[harry strasil]

I use farm implement tool bars and old PTO shafts that I replaced, they are 1045, and I normalized them after forging and then using a rosebud, I only heated the faces 3/8 deep till the little bubbles appear then quench in water, hard face and soft body gives it a little life. and not hard enough to damage your anvil if you miss, but if you do miss and hit the anvil, you may end up eating a hammer head on the rebound.

[george wilson]

I have some truck axles. They are probably something like 1045 or 4140.

[Don C Peterson]

I can testify to the liveliness of Jr's hammers. In contrast the hammers I've used out at Old Missouri Town feel pretty dead.

Some of that might be the handles in addition to the heads. One of the things that is obviously different is handles on Jr's hammers have very thin necks.