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How to get a black, shiny finish on forged items.By Bjorn Jacobsen, 20th of Nov 2020.Many times when forging bottle openers, hooks and other little gadgets I have wished for a better looking finish than the scaled, mottled apparence straight from the forge.A little while ago a recipe was posted on a blackmithing group on Facebook about "pickling" forged items in citric acid and this is our results with this recipe plus some help from Mareko Maumasi.The challenge: Get a nicer finish by removing s …

Creative Man: Meet The Maker Series - Luke Andrew ColeBy Riley Burns, 11/11/2020Luke Cole is a Brisbane based maker in his late thirties who has been a trade qualified jeweller for twenty years but his love for knifemaking began in his home town of Tamworth in northern nsw where he joined the local blacksmithing club while in high school. Luke’s interest in knives began with looking at historical knives and looking through his father's antiques collection and those of friends. He made his first …

Joe Kiss sent us a photo of his last project this week.The blade is from Finnish brand Brisa, the Trapper 95 mm in ELMAX stainless steel.ELMAX is a powder metallurgy stainless steel created by Bohler-Uddenholm. It is corrosive resistant due to its high Chromium percentage. It also has excellent edge holding capabilities. It is a fairly easy steel to sharpen and it becomes razor sharp due to the powder metallurgy process and the limited impurities.The handle scales are in Desert Ironwood with sta …

Beginner introduction to blade steelsSteel is an alloy, meaning it is a mixed element or a recipe of elements if you will. Unlike iron which is just that - iron - all the way through, steel is a mix of different elements. This is the reason there are so many different steels, each with somewhat different strengths and weaknesses. Mostly steel is iron with some added  carbon, you might say steel is like re-inforced iron, making it stronger.To further improve the steel, other components …

Bevel Jig for fast, repeatable results The bevel jig is back in stock and this version has a couple of minor upgrades:harder bottom plate in Teflon, harder to scratch and less frictionoptional second tension arm to take up any slack in the hingesAt Creative Man we believe the bevel jig we offer is one of the best on the market; all stainless steel so will not rust or stick to metal dust, incorporates our Carbide Faced File Guide for matching plunge lines and with strong, accurate angle …