Events in the Northwest

Epilogue:

In the daily blog, I mentioned the Russian grandpa I met at the Fair, who had been a blacksmith since age 14. His name is Vasily. He came to my shop last Friday and spent a couple of hours, during which he forged and finished a knife from a piece of 5160 steel I had on hand. He had brought a piece of what was allegedly stainless steel suitable for knifemaking, but rejected it after giving it a quick test.

Here's his test: He hammered out one tiny corner of his steel to about the thickness of a razor blade, then quenched it in water after raising it to dull red heat. Set the quenched corner on the anvil and gave it a gentle whack. If it had been suitable for knifemaking, it should have broken. Instead, it simply bent. Couldn't be hardened!

Vasily loved my Rhino anvils in my shop, said they were far superior to the anvils he'd worked with. He had never seen a power hammer. He had never seen cable damascus either, and was skeptical when I told him that's what the stack of cable lengths is for ̶ until I showed him a set of pieces illustrating all the steps, then showed him a finished blade blank. Now he's eager to try making his own damascus blade.

Most of the work he did back in Russia was making and repairing farm implements, like plows. He has done a lot of forge welding, including wagon tires.

In the coming months I hope to learn a lot from him. Just meeting him would have been worth the time and effort of the 10-day Fair!

Sunday, September 19, 2010 - last entry
Sure enough, we got rained out. Got the fire going about 11:00 and those heavy clouds dumped their load at about 12:30. It seemed prudent to start packing. So Larry and I got things 90% put away in my orange trailer, and Don showed up in time to help with the last few items.