1 piece bit

I have been wanting to try one of these for quite a while. It hasn't taken me as long as I thought it would. This is my first one piece bit, I know no one that has made one, but have a neighbor thats father made one when he was a kid, and he says I'm going about it like he did.

The start. I bent the low port mouth piece into a 2ft. long 1/2in. rod. Then split the bar down the middle until it will make a 5 1/4 in. wide mouth piece.

I then split the 4 ends to make my rings, and hammered them to a 90 degree angle. The hardest part of this is keeping things anywhere close to square. there is lots of things pointed in lots of different directions, and they are all hot.

Hammering the rings in. I wished I could have gotten some hot and hammering photos, but I only have 2 hands.
I like this old time looking stuff, and spend a lot of time looking for it on the rare times I venture away from the ranch. Building one of these makes me appreciate what the old timers went through before "lectricty".

more forging

I bought my forge and press from Riverside Machine in De Queen Arkansas. The forced air is the only way to go for forge welding.

Drawing the billet out with a 55 pound hammer. I will cut this billet into 3 pieces, re stack, and do all this over again, a couple of times.

Forging damascus

Back from the sheath maker. Murph did a heck of a job on it. I sent this to soldier Tom Nix's dad today, so he can send to him in Afghanistan.

I spent friday afternoon forging damascus. These are some pictures Kim took while she made one of her rare appearances at the shop. I will add more photos in future posts, all the way through the finished product.

The stack. This is either 1080/nickel, or 1080/15n20. I was working both at the same time. I stack the steels in an alternating sequence, bring to welding heat, and set the weld with a hammer and anvil.

I bring it back to welding heat, then on to the press, where I make sure everything is welded, and squared up.

I will show more in future posts. I finished these 2 billets today, and they turned out real good.