I'm back!

Mike Jones

Google Master
After being away for two years due to a busy schedule with a job and senior year of high school, then the hectic schedule of first year of college, I will be back to playing around with steel soon. Looking back, the biggest turnoff from knifemaking for me was that I didn't have the money to invest in a kiln for proper heat treating. Members on here did offer to harden steel for me if I sent it to them, which was great, but I also never felt that I was creating good enough pieces, so I never sent any.


Fast forward to now, and at a local auction, I bought a small kiln for $50, and it will work for small metal pieces. I am very excited about it, and I hardened a couple of junk blades, and it worked really well. Now I am back in classes for a few weeks, then I have Thanksgiving break, then more classes, then Christmas break. Over Thanksgiving break, I am planning to take an 8" diameter steel chimney tube, cut it to be 18" long, and put refractory clay mixed with vermiculite as insulation inside. Then I will work on a propane burner and hopefully be able to hammer out some steel over Christmas break.

It will take me a while to get back up to speed with everything on this forum, but I will try to at least read a few recent posts every day to remember how much fun it was doing this years ago.
 
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