Few more years of experience gives question for lv

Re: the setup and measurement..

Brian Holcombe

It can certainly be used as a method for making dimensioned stock quickly, then do the detail work by hand. Just like woodwork, unless your doing production volume then hand work is often quicker and more appealing than complex setups. Almost everything I make on the mill gets detailed by hand. I like it and it makes it so it doesn’t feel like I have to climb a mountain every time I make something from metal.

I have a vise with pins in the jaws that act as parallel bars, so I can place them for dimensioning quickly, then setup for very precise angles also very quickly. It’s not until I do something on the rotary table that I begin to hate the setup.

So yeah, a mill is highly addictive. Especially once you have some tooling and enough experience fighting a drill press. There are a ton of manufacturers making really good end mills, so they’re pretty reasonably priced, especially in small sizes.

Re: CPM-3V Elliott irons 

E Phillip Smith

During the adventure into making plane irons my brother, Johnny became interested in knife making. So much so that he setup a home knife making shop. He started out with CMP 3V stock removal. Here is picture of the some of the knife blanks laser cut from CPM 3V stock. Slowly but surely I'm getting hooked on blacksmithing.

He's moved on from stock removal to forging and is part of a knife making guild in North Georgia. Twice a year Track Rock Campground in North Georgia holds a hammer in. Typically 10 to 15 knife makers show up with gas forges and anvils, and another 2 to 4 more show up with coal forges. It's common to have 2 to 4 Forged in Fire champions also show up. For the last several years twice a year I spend a weekend with knife makes playing with forging metal.

Here's a couple of pictures of the last knife Johnny made.

Re: CPM-3V Elliott irons

David Weaver

Kukri style?

Looks nice!

IS that sort of the slippery slope for smiths? Start with cut blanks and do stock removal and generally move on to hammering from there?