nicole

Speaking of heat treating...these are mokume earrings made with 70/30 cupric nickel and copper. To get the treatment I heated them to red with a torch and then cast them into a small boiling water bath. Be careful. I boiled for 5 minutes. I finished with some wax. OK durability for earrings but not good for rings. Nicole

Very nice! How did you do the finer fullering work?

TY Jeremy and Teeny. With pieces this thin (~ 3/16) it is going to be tricky. Thinking about it I will probably just use these to make some jewelry as is, and make some bigger billets to play with

Hi All, attached is a pic of a twist billet of mokume I made. It was 11 layers of copper and nickel silver, it is shown after resawing it open. I am wondering if I was careful and got the edges flat and clean, how I would go about fusing them. I was thinking of a little jig that would basically be a clamp to hold the edges together at temperature, while keeping everything nice and flat. Is there another way to do this? Thanks for any comments

Hiya, I made one that was about 30 degrees.. a bit too sharp in my opinion for making tenons..I will make another one around 45

Yes I will keep my day job. Haiku time: I hammer the die Steel fullered moves Die fuller hammer

Thinking about it..I am going to be up north in mid-june..and was going to go to NS before..but this is very very tempting. Lots of miles from FL though

I have a little Lincoln Handi Mig that I love. Not as nice as a big one but good enough to put together the various shop carts, mobile bases and stick part A on part B I need for my shop. I have had it for about one year, use it fairly often and have had no troubles with it.

I think my HF hammer may fall into the category of dead soft; after dressing the face when I got it it did not take long for it to look really beat up..I did not think to pay attention to the sparks when I dressed it..need to take a look!

looking forward!

Hi John, Vaughn thanks for your most recent comments. I am leaning to the kiss block once I knock this dreadful flu! But anyway in reviewing the comments I think we could start a new thread entitled, " how many ways can smiths find to screw in a light bulb? " I think this is such a great part of IFI with so much experience and so many willing to share. Thanks. Nicole

For what it is worth it would be good to estimate the current draw on the heating element so you buy a big enough solid state relay..or just get a monster 40A one.. Nicole

Eddie that sounds good too- if the working end of the die holds up well enough I can probably get a good long life with the striking end replaceable...

Thanks Frosty and Biggun; I do use a HF steel beater hammer but that's to protect my forging hammer..I need to get uniformly into the habit of keeping a forging hammer for forging. I can try going to brass and the local heat treat