Problem Solving

Hello Blacksmiths. I have a problem how to punch 30 mm holes in 30 degress angel in 40 mm x 40 mm iron bars. Maybe some one out ther can help me where i can find some diskriptions ( Drawing or pictures) how to make this hole in a easy way.soon as possible!(to make straigt holes is no problem for me). thanks very much from a blacksmith from Denmark , Metalmageren/ Rickard Rother. www.metalmageren.dk

And what was the geometry of the punch? It appears I accidentally made one of the forged carabiners I'm working on out of garage spring steel that I mixed up with some 6mm round mild steel I've been using. I realised last night so I tried a poor man's anneal in ash overnight but I still can't drill it, especially because I only need about a 2mm hole through 4 or 5 mm of steel. This one might be destined to be just a hook and not a carabiner with a wire clip in it, but it got me thinking: How small can you hot punch, and what shaped punch would you need? Or maybe the more important question is what steel should the punch be made out of to withstand heat in a…

Well, I messed up installing a railing into a hardwood floor. I did not drill big enough pilot holes and two of the lag heads sheared off halfway into the hole, though of course they sheared at the wood floor line. I have a left hand drill and ez out coming from McMaster so I think I can solve this problem. However, I would like to find an alternative to lag screws. I am considering the 1/4" x 2" GRK structural screws for installing interior baseplates. Any thoughts? I am going with the 1/4" because the larger diameters only come much longer. Any suggestions. Thanks, Steven

You may have seen this on Pinterest. I try to copy what I like and I haven't experimented yet, but I am really stumped on the top twist, the next down looks like it could be done with pineapple steps and the third and fourth look like simple twists with maybe some kind of punch treatment on two edges, but I'm having a hard time imagining the punch. Or maybe all are some variation of pineapple steps. I sure would like to use them in a couple of projects. Thanks for ideas.

Hi everyone, I've been doing a few small billets of Damascus by hand and really enjoying the results. I don't have access to a power hammer or press, but I would like to go a little bigger. Does anyone here have any experience forge welding billets with a striker? Would light strikes on a flatter work effectively for forge welding larger billets? Any advice, especially from experience, would be greatly appreciated! Cheers, Jono.

I have a heap of coal coke mixed with slag, nails and rubble. I want to end up only with coke. I'd like to avoid the suicidal mundanity of picking every single individual piece of coal coke out of the heap. All soluble matter has been dissolved, all bouyant matter has been skimmed, all contaminants less than 1cm or greater than 5cm in diameter have been screened. What should my next step be?

Hello everyone, it's been a while since I've been on. Have been mostly working on remodeling our house the last few years, so not much time for forging unfortunately. I was recently given a LOT of bar stock that a friend's uncle used to use for knife making. It is all flat bar shaped, but already ground and has a bevel and is sharpened on one side as if it is a blade for something like a large jointer or planer. They are all etched with a logo "HOE" and their slogan "Experience, Technology, Innovation" as well as "Portland, OR. (503)234-9501" and "WC 120" I have found based on the phone number a likely company Pacific Hoe Saw and Knife Co. though they are…

Hello to all, my first post here. I am trying to make tool for cleaning a matchlock musket. See attachment. The problem is the needle part. Touchhole of my gun is appx 1mm in diameter: the needle must fit minimum 10mm inside to reliable clean the touchhole. If I try to form this kind of taper on the face of the anvil I am hitting more the anvil than the piece. If I try to lenghten it on the horn, I am not able to keep the taper in square crosssection, the profile is twisting etc. Is there some trick to it or it is only about my poor hammer technique (which IS NOT great to be honest)? Many thanks for help.

Has anybody made doorhandles? This type (image from internet foe illuatration purpose) How to make the square so it fits over the shaft? My idea was to drill to size and than with square drift make to size and shape. But the hole does not continue, so will that work? Thanks.

Today a potential customer came up to me at the farmers market where I vend my produce and forged stuff with a really cool old piece. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to take pictures of it. It was a swing arm made of 5/8ths square stock appoximately 30' long. The pivot ends of the arm were set down and had very small (3/16?) holes for a pivot pin. Under the two square bars was a thin 3/16ths wire that suspended from the lower bar the length of the arm. The guy called it a "swing arm banner hanger" The upper bar had a sheet metal indian head profile riveted to it and the end of the lower bar had a 3/4' faceted ball end on it. There were also two short 5/8's squa…

This is from a flagstaff holder at the Philadelphia Art Museum, made in Italy 1500-1600CE. I'm racking my brain how they would have reliably made this pearl-chain sort of thing. As best I can tell, the pearls are connected as a monolithic ring, but maybe they could be rivets with a spherical head?

Got an enquiry for possible job creating dragon themed handrail for a sweeping staircase. (Not quite spiral, large curvature) How on earth does one measure the curvature accurately? Bear in mind, math is not my strong point!! Am better at "freeform".... Hate to turn the job down because it offers creative expression, and I do like a challenge, but I can't being to think how I might approach it. Anyone got any tips, how to measure/plot it out??? Help.... :o

Well folks, I am hoping this team of experienced folks can help me think this through. So, I am going to be teaching some chasing and Repousse this year and I need to setup classroom tool sets on the cheap side. I have lol 24 kids in a class. Budgets are tight this year in my area in public education. So whatever it will have to be as cheap as possible. Here is my plan so far. I will be teaching a small 3” or less in diameter chasing/Repousse activity. This is a foundational skill activity so it will not be fancy or large at first. Maybe saw them out when finished or use them as is to make a lid or a container. We will be using copper sheet to hammer this all ou…

I’m trying to plan out how to make the center circle on this bracket. I am sure this is documented somewhere but I cannot even begin to think of the name of this shape. What’s the best way to create the round cross circle center?

Hello everyone, I'm planning on forging a large cauldron roughly based on the Oseberg cauldron for my viking re-enactment group Veðurfölnir in Akureyri and I have acquired a large sheet of 2mm hot rolled mild steel, should be right between 12 and 14 gauge according to my research, guess we'll call it 13 gauge? I've searched high and low around the internet for a cauldron pattern since I'd rather not guesstimate the shape and risk ending up with a wonky looking cauldron. I took a few measurements from a cauldron that another group has a while ago but I don't have the measurements for the curvature of the sides of each segment and I'm considering making it a bit larger th…

I have an up coming project that has pass throughs. While practicing i had one go wonky. One side of the bar went out of alignment with the other. The slot was center nicely when i cut, even swell on both sides, the flaw happened while upsetting to open the slot to get my drift in. I know where i made my mistake when upsetting, to much hot bar. I fixed using a combination of swage block, hardy hole, etc., etc. just working it a little at the time till it was acceptable, not perfect but acceptable. I see it still but most wont. The problem was it took me about 2 1/2 hours and many, many heats and spot cooling. Since i got the bar "fixed" here is an illustration of my…

Hey everyone, I’ve been experimenting with ways to make a shovel that holds its edge way better than the typical store-bought ones. I’m really focused on edge performance — specifically how to get a strong, long-lasting, sharp edge that can bite into hard or rocky ground without rolling or dulling too quickly. If you were making a digging tool like a shovel and wanted to maximize edge durability, how would you go about it?

modular removable gate for agricultural land in the countryside hello I should make a gate to close the passage in an agricultural land. for economic reasons of transport I should make it modular like Meccano or instead of welding the doors I should bolt them and then screw them into the ground, they will transport it with a small jeep the land is in an impervious terrain any ideas to make it removable without welding thanks.

Hello fellow smiths, I would like your kind help for a problem that is bugging me. For a fastening system I want to use a slot punched hole in Round bar and a wedge to hold everything together. As I need to make a few (30+) and never made any I would like to get your experience what is best. The main problem is the minimal distortion in the bar because I want to get it through a 1/2 inch hole. My ideas so far are: 1. Drilling most of it out and punch the rest hot 2. Forge the ends in a shallower half round swage, bend it over and faggot weld it to get a hole at the end. 3. Take thinner square stock and thin the hole section to compensate for the swel…

On a mildly related note, has anyone ever seen this before? To me and another smith in the shop it looks like some wrought iron was recycled into this piece of hot rolled 1" x 1/2" flat bar. What do you think? (Sorry for the mildly out of focus 2nd pic. probably too much coffee this morning.)

advice .lift heavy piece and load it on truck bed method without hydraulic crane hello sorry if every now and then I come up with these bizarre and crazy ideas. in the countryside I need to recover a heavy massive piece of an old marble machine to use as an improvised anvil. we don't have cranes or earthmoving machines to lift this massive piece and load it onto the truck, what method do you suggest. I build a large portal-type trestle and hang a hoist on it as you would do thanks. the ground is uneven and not flat on the ground.

I found this on a bench in my shop quite a while ago. I know it's an accessory for something, but for the life of me I can't remember or figure out what it went to. I've been holding onto it, though. The R looks like a trademark. Google image search said it was a xanax tablet. Any clues? I wasn't sure where to put this topic, but knowing what this goes to will solve a mystery.

Hi all, I'm wondering what would be a (somewhat simple) way to reduce the RPM on a motor. the motor is a 1/2hp or 3/4hp, and I need to bring it down to around 500 RPM for a piece of machinery I have. If I could do this internally with the motor, great, but I'm thinking I'll need to make some sort of large flywheel and reduce it from there with a ratio orientated approach. Thanks, Aaron

I recently gave myself an interesting problem - I wanted to be able to manufacture metal hand stamps, the kind hit with a hammer for marking metal, in the way they were made before CNC. Nowadays I get the impression they are hardmilled or milled and then hardened, using a vertical CNC mill. And I've seen one-offs done with an angle grinder and dremel. But looking into it online, some posts on Practical Machinist seem to indicate that before CNC they were made by hot-pressing into a master die block. So a master die block made of some heat-resistant tool steel would be engraved (maybe via pantograph) and then hardened, and then the blank stamp would have its front end…

I have an empty 100lb propane tank that I want to cut the bottom off of to make a large bell. How can I do this safely? I am thinking, remove the valve assembly, fill with water, and then cut the base off. Hopefully with something faster than a hacksaw, maybe an angle grinder with a cut off wheel, Does anyone have any thoughts or experience with this? How thick are these tanks?