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Not By Numbers Alone
Going Beyond We are going to talk a lot about the technical aspects of building a sword. Trust me, there is an almost overwhelming amount of details associated with Japanese swordmaking. But I am...
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Breathing Fire Part 3-Building Fuigo 2.0
Lets Get To It Now it is time to get down to the nitty gritty and build the air box. This box does not alter the basic design but some of the details are changed. We figured out from the box tests...
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Building the Forge-Part Two
Complexity hiding within Like most all Japanese tools there is certain amount of complexity hiding in a simple design. But before we dive off into the building of a traditional side blast charcoal...
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Working Both Ends
I know I said we were going move onto making charcoal-But I changed my mind. Why? Because I can. And I have this thought nigglng at me. I spend a lot of time over at Don Fogg’s Bladesmith Forum. Great...
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Making Charcoal-Part One
I thought I had it figured out years ago. Making charcoal that is. Get a barrel. Run pipe out of it and back under it. Build a big fire under the barrel. Cook off the volatile gases until they ignite...
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Making Charcoal-Part Two
Why Make It? Back in Building The Forge-Part two I talked about my reasons for using charcoal. But why go to the time and trouble to make it? First-I like doing it. It is a bit like alchemy. Start...
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Back in The Saddle Again
Well! I can’t believe it has been six months since I posted anything. Bad blogger! No excuses but my day job got really busy, had family issues clear across the country and the worst summer in...
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Making Charcoal-Part Three
Rethinking what I know There has been a lot of water under the bridge since I last wrote about charcoal in April. In my initial test I thought I was getting good charcoal from my little retort at...
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Making Charcoal-Part Four
The Nitty Gritty We need a way to control the process and understand how we get what we get. I wanted as controlled an environment as I could get so I used a paint can, flue thermometer to 1800F, and...
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IRON
Supernova All of us are made of star stuff but it takes a special star to make iron. It takes a really big star. Much, much bigger than our Sun. The main source of energy in any star, our sun...
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