Not sure where this belongs, so I hope this forum is ok.
Last week I spent a few days with my blacksmith friends up in Altamont NY. Last year I made taphandles. This year I went with a bottle opener theme and I thought you folks might like to see some pictures.
This one is probably my favorite design. A flattened twist with a fishtail curl on the end.
This one I’m most proud of, for the type of work it involved. The two pieces are forge-welded together at the end. They were heated up just to the point the surfaces were molten, then hammered together to form one piece. Pretty cool stuff.
Very cool. My uncle is a blacksmith about 20 minutes from there (Delmar), was that some kind of festival? If so I’ll bet he was there, he traveled to Seattle a few years back for one here.
very very cool, I’d like to order the set of 3 please!
About 15 yrs agos I was at an SCA event and commissioned a utensil set (knife, fork, spoon) that had the same twist as your opener. I still have them but they are mostly decoration now. It was awesome standing there watching as they were created, the smells, the sounds and the sheer amount of craftsmanship was amazing.
Thanks for the kind words, everyone. These are a lot of fun to make, and the first two are straightforward, even for a novice smith like myself ;) The only finicky part is getting the hook right to grab the bottle cap. It helps to have a test bottle nearby while forging.
I actually just saw that the other day too :) The technique he used to weld the tool steel to the mild steel is very similar to what I did for the bottle-opener, just on a larger scale.
