18 Days until the competition and working on the farm..

As some of you may know I’ve been invited to compete on the History Channel show Forged in Fire. I’m super excited about it, but nervous as can be. I’m confident in my abilities as a Blacksmith and a Bladesmith. I’ve got alot of really satisfied customers…but this is a competition with a time limit, and some other unknown variable thrown in.

From what I’ve noticed by watching the episodes I’ve recorded over and over is that any of the smiths can beat any of the other smiths on any given day. It all really depends on who has a good day, and who has a bad day…I’m really hoping for a good day.

Maria and I did actually get the opportunity to talk with a guy who was on Season 2 of FIF…he helped relieve a good bit of the anxiety about competing, but then made another type of anxiety appear because it made it more real…that it’s really happening. LOL

All in all, we are both excited about traveling to NYC (not our first choice for a vacation spot) because neither of us have ever been. And this should be a fantastic experience.

If you’d like to check out some of the knives I’ve made, or if you aren’t into metal work and want to see some the best hand tie-dyed items I have ever seen pop on over to our Etsy shop for a gander:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/NoHarmInFarmin

Maria has a true talent with dyes and cotton…and I’m not just saying that because she’s the love of my life. Need proof? Slide on over there and check them out…you won’t be disappointed..

Ok…enough about that and on to the farm work…

We haven’t had a ton of chances to get up there to work, but when we do we tend to get alot done. We had a guy give us a single row, 14 inch bottom plow for the tractor and that’s been a big help with removing roots and small stumps. There are just SO dang many of them. Maria has been cutting brush like a fiend with the weed wacker/saw blade combo. We’ve got 1000 feet of driveway, and about 70% of the area where we’ll build the cabin/shed, barn, and eventually house. Now to figure out how to not have the driveway turn into a muddy mess. Things tend to start getting sloppy after a while. Gravel will be necessary eventually…ALOT of gravel. but once the small trees, shrubs, and briars are all cleaned up we’ll plant some rye to have a better root mat that we should be able to drive on. As of now, we can’t burn anything we’ve cut until after April 30. I know that isn’t that far away, but it’s piling up quickly.

This past week we also ran into a slight drainage problem..not huge..but there was apparently a pretty hefty rain storm yesterday and down by the creek there was some standing water in the bottom land and the creek had risen about 2 feet. It was still well within the banks, but it was swollen and rushing pretty well.

From the time stamp, you can see this was on the 29th…nice and dry…..

Same spot, same camera…only on the 1st…alot of standing water…we’ll see how quickly it drains..hopefully fast.

It’s a good thing my boots are water proof..LOL..

We hope that everyone has a great week as things start to green up for spring. Whenever they tell me the episode of Forged in Fire will air I’ll let everyone know..I’ll probably be shouting it from the roof tops…LOL..until the next post…..take care.

Chad

A little smithing while waiting for the snow..

We are supposedly in the path of the most cataclysmic snow storm ever seen by mankind.

Just kidding, we might get a dusting of snow tomorrow, but if you watch people here on the NC coast you would think that the end of days is near.

Maria and I actually have this weekend off, and COULD go up to our new farm, but we don’t want to brave the other outstanding snow drivers to get there.

We got the e-mail and phone call earlier today that the attorneys have finished up the closing and have everything filed, so THE FARM IS OURS!!!!!

Now, if we’d known that earlier in the week we could have gotten north before the snow. Our 18.38 acres are a little rough and we need to clear a lot of briars and we’ll have to stay in a tent when we go up to stay but its ok as we don’t mind sleeping in a tent in the snow.

Since we couldn’t make it this weekend, we decided to use this time to work on some items for our Etsy shop.

Maria has been working on an order for some cloth napkins, and I’ve got two pending orders. One is for a bearded axe I made awhile back, the other is for a set of holdfasts.

If you do any woodworking or blacksmithing and you’re not using holdfasts, you are really missing out! They are the old fashioned version of a bench vise. They hold way better than any vise I’ve used. These have been a pretty good seller this year in our online shop. It’s good to see folks going back to the old ways of doing things.

I also worked on a new machete / brush knife I made from some coil spring out of an old ford truck. I had to pull some hardness out of the handle so I can drill it for handle pins.

I’m trying to get a few more hunting knives made so I can get them posted for sale. In the last couple of years I’ve really gotten into making Damascus steel (pattern welded) knives. It takes a lot longer to make, but they make better quality knife and look really cool. I think its ok if your tools look nice as well as work well.

The cool thing about making Damascus is that once you get it polished up you can’t see the pattern until you soak the steel in acid to allow the different steels to react differently. That’s a whole other post though.

This is one I’m working on just after the first heat treat. You can just see the pattern (barely). That piece of maple burl sitting with it will be for the handle. That will make it beautiful and functional.

This post has really gotten long enough. I can get a little wordy when I start talking about my smithing.

I will post some photos of the finished knife when I get it done. That steel is made from old chainsaw chains so the pattern should look really cool.

Do you have some winter crafts that you like to do? Or possibly have a shop on Etsy? If so, we’d love to hear from you about either or both.

All the best,

Chad