Summer semester is finally over for my schooling which means that I now have a more time to spend working on products, right? Sort of. Besides continuing to take care of my kids so my wife can make her business grow I also took to picking up a gig troubleshooting and repairing an old RV generator. With finals having been last week I had put forging and making things on the back burner and with this job my thought is "Cash in hand is worth more than what I might have".  So I focused on studying for my tests and trying to find the parts to fix the generator. However I have been thinking about my products and you dear readers. I have not forgotten your requests. In fact I have, when I had time, been working on bow steel armor and prototyping PVC bows.

The first PVC bow I made was for a friend who has taken it to several costumed events. She seems to really like it. I learned the basic process for making it from a cool guy named Nicholas Tomihama. He is the author of several books concerning home made archery projects. However it was not his books that I learned from. It was his Youtube channel; https://www.youtube.com/user/BackyardBowyer. 

What I learned from him was some of the basic of PVC forming. I had tried my hand at PVC forming prior to seeing his videos but that was for making scabbards for a machete for myself that 3 years later I still have not finished. I did finish the scabbard though. I think I used a gas torch, an iron, and an electric charcoal starter as my heat sources. I also used weights as my flatteners…I proved it could work but I didn't know I was reinventing the wheel... I now use a heat gun as I learned to do from Nick's videos.
Anyways, I had a bunch of 2 foot sections of PVC pipe leftover from making other stuff. I'm wanting to make some small bows for kids costumes so I wanted to see if 2 foot sections would be long enough.

In other news, I have transferred all my Ebay items over to Etsy. I get more traffic on Etsy so that is where more products will be listed for  now.

Speaking of Etsy, I honestly didn't know what it was until a few months ago. Because of that I avoided it. Thought it was like Pinterest or Myspace or something like that. I was wrong. I think. I actually don't go on either of those. Anyways, Esty is actually a pretty awesome place to sell things and see what other cool things people are making.

Well, that's about all for today. In the coming weeks I be finishing some child size and full size bows. I will put those up on Etsy as soon as they are done. Also I will be having a history lesson and tutorial coming up. Until then check out Nick's stuff on his website. He has lots of tutorials on how to make beautiful PVC bows.
http://backyardbowyer.com/

Forging on,

Stephen

And the winners are.... 







Drum roll please.....






A little louder....







Bows and armor!!

Thank you for your responses!
Bows and steel armor came in tied at 33%.
Shields and jewelry are tied at 17%.

From the results it appears that what you want to see is bows and steel armor. This week I will be working, Lord willing, on finishing my spaulders (A.K.A. shoulder armor) and will post pictures of the process along the way. These will be an example of my handiwork. As of right now all my steel armor is made on a strictly custom order basis. So as soon as you know what exactly you want let me know.

As for bows, those will soon be on the my Etsy shop as requested. Give me a little time as I will need to build up my stock. If there is anyone who knows they will buy one as soon as they are a available please let me know. I may be able to hook you up with a deal. Also, I need to know whether these bows are for strictly costume purposes or if you want to use them when you go to the range.


I know some of you showed interest in these so I want to hear more from you. Please leave a comment below or send me an email.
 

Thank you,
Stephen

Today is Sunday, the last day that I will be taking responses from this poll. I will post results tomorrow afternoon.

Earlier than that we have the bellows, a simple device easily made with two boards and an air proof (or at least resistant) material like leather or fabric. This device uses at least two separate holes to function. One is the output. The other is the intake, which has a flap that allows air in when the bellows is pulled apart and closes when the bellows are squeezed. An improvement on this design was the double bellows that was essentially two bellows attached to each other so that on both up and down strokes of the operating lever. (https://medievalfoundry.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/the-origin-and-use-of-bellows-especially-in-medieval-europe/)

Throughout the ages there were many different ways blacksmiths used to force air into their forges. The only limit they had was not creativity, but resources. I was fortunate enough to come across a hand crank blower when I did but in other places there is not as many resources as I had.  When a lot people think of sub-Saharan Africa they don't think of the expert metalwork that the peoples  from there do. Indeed blacksmithing is probably the furthest thing from one's mind when they think of Africa, even if they the weapons that are used by some of the peoples there. (https://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/minigalleries/africanaxes/intro.shtml)

Believe it or not, many of the tribal people, who have had little access to western influence in ages past have been using and mastering blacksmithing for thousands of years. (http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=3432&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html)

I first learned about these blacksmiths when I was reading through the book Practical Blacksmithing from Weathervane Books. (http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Blacksmithing-Original-Classic-Illustrations/dp/051725025X) It's a great book that is a compilation of letters and lessons from the early 1900s about various tools, tricks and techniques of the business of blacksmithing. Included are some interesting notes on the history of blacksmithing and blacksmithing in other cultures.

Anyways, I was intrigued by the ingenuity of the smiths in that they used skins as their blower by attaching the to hollow logs and pumping them. I was able to find a video of one in action. Here is the link to the video: http://www.anvilfire.com/AnvilCAM-II/index.php?video=zulu_blacksmiths

He ones in he film appear to be make from goat skins but there are cases of banana leaves being used for this purpose.

As I was doing research on African blacksmiths I found an intriguing thing about some African cultures, blacksmiths tend to be seen as outcasts and set apart from the rest of the tribe.  Olivier Gosselain of the University of Brussels took a trip to the Cameroon to investigate this. "I was questioning Dowayo informants in northern Cameroon about the reasons for segregating both blacksmiths and potters." He said in one of his articles,

• "As usual, they told me that you should avoid marrying them, entering their compounds, or eating with them, because they were ‘dirty’ and could be ‘dangerous’. Since I pressed to know more, an old man con-ceded that what farmers mostly feared was catching the ‘bad cough’ from them. ‘They cough a lot’, he said, ‘it’s their special disease.’" Gosselain  looks at the would through the lenses structuralism and said " I immediately wondered whether I was faced here with some kind of symbolic knot .A cough, I thought, must be metaphorically associated with the sound of the bellows, thus providing a symbolically relevant way of justifying the segregation of blacksmiths." 

(http://www.academia.edu/4798256/In_Pots_we_Trust_The_Processing_of_Clay_and_Symbols_In_Sub-Saharan_Africa)
He proceeded to ask if the bellows is indeed the source of this "cough" and is told the idea had not occurred to anyone in his tribe. Being more of a functionalist myself and experiencing blacksmithing, I know that here are hazards with the smoke which can cause coughing and sickness. For this it seems  the blacksmiths are not only seen as tool makers but also as bringers of illness, essentially a "necessary evil".

So to conclude this historical tour let's recap. Today we can electric blowers and gas fuel for todays metalwork. Before we had electric motors we could use hand cranked blowers and bellows. And perhaps the most important thing we talked about, blacksmithing is not a strictly medieval or European thing. It is global and there are different perceptions of the character of the smiths themselves.

As one final lesson in forced air delivery, there is also the easiest to build but not so easy to use blowpipe. All it is a pipe stuck in the fire and blow into it. It's simplicity is breathtaking.

Forging On (or at least doing household chores),

Stephen

Last time I said I was going to give you all a chance to decide what I work on next.  Well here it is. My first poll. Please let me know what you think. I take your input very seriously. So seriously that Monday morning I will post the results and run the statistics on it.

This here is the first steel shield I made for myself. This is about 6 years old. I learned quite a bit as i made this thing. For example using chemicals to remove old paint and tar, how to curve something with pipe clamps and then weld it, and that latex paint does not stick well to metal. I've used this thing for my renaissance festival costumes and I loaned it to a friend for his VBS costume. I enjoyed working on his project and learning every step of the way. Now I want to make it anew. When I get the chance I'm going to make a wood backing for it, better carrying system, framing, and probably a canvas cover to hold the paint better. 
Designing and dreaming is so much fun! If only time and energy would allow it to give forth fruit....

Other than my shield I also have pictures of my vambraces.

That indeed is my arm.

And there you have it. New pictures, new pages, and a new poll. Please enjoy clicking the shiny new buttons.

Later today I will also be uploading another post, this one on the history of forced airflow. And then I shall go make a latch with which to lock my shed.

Forging On,
Stephen

Welcome internet travels to an exciting new website; this one! I am just getting started with this whole website and store management stuff but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.
So for starters, let's talk about what I have coming up in the next few weeks... let's see... hmm... statistics test on Wednesday, need to stay up late o get used to work schedule... hmm? Oh! Yeah, that's stuff I have coming up. But I meant to talk about what you will see coming on this website.
For those of you who heard about my website a month or so ago and looked and only saw the "Website coming soon" page, thank you for bearing with me while I got everything in order over here. In the coming weeks I will be adding new pages that showcase my past custom projects as well as some  of my current ones. For example, after I finish this post I will suit up and go work of dishing out some cops for my spaulders (you know, the round parts of medieval plate shoulder armor). I will post some pictures of the process when I get the chance.

While you wait for that, please explore my site and let me know what you would like to see. Leave a comment below.
Please be sure to check out what I already have for sell on both my Ebay and Etsy stores.
etsy.com/shop/ForTheHonorForge
ebay.com/usr/forthehonorforgestore

Also, for southern California residents, if you need any events filmed, like weddings, graduations, homecomings, birthday parties or anything else that requires a videographer and a camera, please check out For the Honor Productions. I can personally attest to their professionalism, quality and service.

Until next time,

Firing Up,
              Stephen