One the only good reality tv shows I’ve seen.
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Gun-dmc with out hijacking, i used to love Historys Top Shot.
Yeah that was another good one, I wish they’d brindle that one back!
Knife making season will begin mid June this year, as i still have a bit of work ahead of me on the boat…
Get in touch if you are after something. I am limiting myself to five knives this year.
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Just picked this up from the post office, it’s beautiful and I couldn’t be happier.
If you don’t have one of @Gwion s knives you don’t know what you’re missing!
Thanks heaps mate
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And a bit more context:
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Glad you’re happy with it, mate! 
Something randomly interesting. My aunty just posted me some 170yo elephant leather. 
Will be interesting to see if it’s usable for a sheath for the weed wacker! 
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Just something she had kicking around in the cupboard?
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I didn’t even know elephants lived that long.
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I have an elephant leather belt.
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They had some antique chairs reupholstered because some of the leather couldn’t be repaired.
@Gwion hey mate do you have a forge or furnace that you could use to melt brass. I bought a crucible and tried to melt some with the oxy / Acetylene torch which works but for only very small amounts there is not enough widespread heat to melt a pot of the stuff, or I would have to wait a long time and perhaps use a full bottle. 
Yes mate, I do. It’s been on the to do list but time is extremely hard to come by in the last year or so!
Could you post a few details please? pictures price performance. I am interested in doing some brass casting. those 22LR cases can add up to some sort of project.
I’ll get onto it. All put together hillbilly style.
That’s the best style
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Ok. For a start, here is a link to the most popular place to get forge gear from for knife making hobbiests. When i made my first forge and the one below, they constantly seemed to be sold out of everything and had more consumables than forge hardware but have stepped up the game in the last couple of years as every man and his dog now wants to be a knife maker or blacksmith so there’s obviously better business in it for them.
You will also find 18 quintrillion instructables on YouTube on various ways to construct a forge or smelter, including how to assemble the kits available in the link.
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Here’s how i made my second (current) forge.
From memory it cost me about $500 to make, including a burner i already had from my first forge. I had to chase everything around online because local supply is non-existent and no-one was offering ready to go kits at the time. It was a real pain in the arse, to be honest. Ended up getting refractory cement for the lining from Melbourne Fire Brick and the ceramic wool was donated by a friend who had it lying around in the pile of “that’l come in handy even if i never use it” stuff…
Still, not as bad as my first forge, which was made from a concoction i found on the YouTubes involving making my own water glass and mixing it with vermiculite & aluminium oxide… fuck doing that again! 
Step one was to chop up a spare beer keg i had lying around:
I cut the top off for access with larger projects and a hole/door in either end to work on longer projects.
Then drilled/cut hole for burners and lined it with a double layer of ceramic wool.
Then i mortared over the wool and let it go off, then placed refractory tile for the base so that flux wouldn’t destroy it so qickly and gave it all another good mortaring. I used alfoil to help form and let it dry of natural causes for 3 days… who knew tinfoil was good for anything other than hats??? 
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