Heading out to Disney World and I thought I would make a few horse head keychain fobs for our friends at Disney…well…random cast members who are awesome. Hopefully they will find these around Fort Wilderness and experience a bit of unexpected extra joy. Good job Disney people…good job!
We are getting ready to head back out into the World with the Airstream…and yes…that means it is time for s’mores. S’more driving, s’more staying over night at the Cracker Barrel, and of course s’more s’mores. But of course to do that last one you have got to have s’more sticks. So I thought I would whip up a couple in the forge. See…Airstreaming and blacksmithing go hand in hand, like free-trade chocolate, vegan marshmallows, and gluten free graham crackers.
For our upcoming annual meeting I thought I would make a few items to give away. And fish people love fishy things…and beer. Lots and lots of beer. So a fishy bottle opener seemed like a no brainer. I had been wanting to try to make this style of fish bottle opener that I had seen on Nicholas Downing’s website. And fish are like pringles…you can’t just make one…because fish like to live in schools…so you have to make more than one…because a school is a group of fish. Anyway, if you are interested in one of these you should check them out on his website at https://www.downingarts.com.
The next project is making a leaf keychain. It took me a bit to remember how to do these. It takes a bit of metal from an alloy of the purest gold, a few elves, some magic words, and the fires of Mount Doom…oh wait…that was the One Ring instructions. This just took a bit of 1/2” square bar, a little elbow grease, and the fires of my forge…not near as complicated as making a ring to rule the world.
This is a slightly different style of owl. Actually, it started out life as an attempt to make a bat; but, these things evolve….especially when the wings fall off from over working the metal. Oh well…at least I was able salvage it for another purpose. Below are a few other including a couple of Barn Owls and a Screech Owl. The Screech Owl was on just enough metal for a good sized hook…so it will live its days on the barn wall looking for small metal mice.
I am on to my next project….an owl on a stick. Why…because everyone needs an owl on a stick. Well, eventually I will turn it into something useful, but for right now, it is just an owl hanging out on top of a piece of 3/4” square stock. This style of owl was originally created by Forged in Holland at https://youtu.be/_2DHjeBYylA?si=SGZ2ABAYk7HGJ0oI if you are interested in seeing how these are made. I also made the same owl as a key fob from some 1/2 square stock.
Just a few hooks for my friends…you know, so they can hang some stuff up.
I finally got back to forging animal heads. This particular one is an adaptation of Darryl Nelson’s bison head, but on a railroad spike, which really helps with the preshape. The next step was to turn the head on a spike into something useful, like a bottle opener…one can never have too many bottle openers. Well…I guess you can because most people really only need one bottle opener, unless you are having a bottle opening party. Then, you might need a whole slew of bottle openers.
It is the start of 2025 and I am still in knife making mode. These are tiny knives made with tiny antlers. Actually, the one on the left is a brow tine from a very large set of antlers, but it was the perfect size for this tiny little knife. The other was from a small yearling. Let no antler go to waste.
Blacksmith Cottage 