Problem Solving

Hey guys, forgive me if I have asked this before and gotten an answer , I do have a horrible memory, I have an old wagon wheel that I squared up and want to forgeweld to a cable blade to use as a handle, but try as I might I cant get them to stick together. I am using a very high temp ( high yellow ) which I thought was the correct temp to get old iron to stick but I cant seem to get it to stick....

I've been asked to quote for a job to place a set of railings along an old section of highway bridge that the customer is using to span his pond. Anyone worked with these cast sections before? I have attached a quick sketch of the cross section. My real question and main concern is, where the posts will be placed there is only about 2-3 inches of concrete below, will that take being drilled without crumbling or breaking off or is it worth fixing the post to the side and coming up and around that bit? There is probably a good foot overhang. Not sure where the reenforcements are in these large slabs. How would you go about doing this?

I imagine this information is somewhere on this site, but as usual, I'm unable to locate it. I'm attempting to forge a series of non 90 degree angles in square and or rectangular stock. I know the process for making 90 degree angles, but in my mind, it doesn't apply once you go above or below the right angle. My brain immediately thinks that a top and bottom swage is the way to go, but with a dozen or more different angles, that would be a lot of tooling and as far as I know, an adjustable angle swage doesn't exist. So, I'm posing the question, how does one go about forging clean, sharp angles without changing the dimension of the parent stock? I'm hoping my pea sized bra…

I use a Hickory stump for my dishing activities. I've been through several Oak & Hickory stumps over the past year, usually have to replace them once cracks start forming in the bowl area due to the wood checking. I finally found the "right" stump that is the perfect size and height for me. I took extra precautions to apply Anchorseal on both ends to minimize checking, but it's slowly starting to show up. Once the cracks form in the bowl it makes sinking not as easy since it accelerates the wrinkles in the metal. The last stump I had I tried to fill the cracks in with some liquid metal filler compound, which didn't hold up to all the pounding for very long. S…

I purchased this pyrometer mdl, #at-100 kln from auberine.com. I wanted to measure what kind of heat my habenero from chile forge was putting out. I am not a tech guy, i am having a hard time setting this thing up, can anyone give me a heads up in plain english, your input would be greatly appreciated, i inserted the heat probe between the burners at about one inch in the forge, this is what david from chile forge recommended. Thanks all. Sean.

so i have a design for a chair that deals with branch-like-vines and wrapping, i would post pics of the drawings but i can't currently due to very restricted internet at the moment. Regardless of that, the legs runs up into both the armrest and the back support, the support from the middle of the armrest runs down to the middle of leg, but i want that support to be wrapped around both the arm rest and leg. i'm hoping that is descriptive enough to get the real problem figured out though! here it is: using a gas forge (metalsmithing from diamondback ironworks) how can you wrap one side to the arm rest (which is built into the legs mind you) back down to the leg? the back…

Having trouble spliting and drifting 16mm square bar. I drill a 6mm hole, heat and start with a tapered round drift then open up with a 16mm square drift made from the same stock. My walls end up too thin and keep on tearing when I work the piece. I thought that maybe I should use a thin hot cut chisel to split and then only open up instead of doing the above. If the chisel is slightly wider than the stock say by one third then I should get the same thickness in the walls that would be half of the stock used - ie: 16mm stock would end up 8mm wall. What I am trying to do is thread the 16mm bar through a square eye. Thanks Tim

Help! I've got a cool idea for a touchmark, but can't make a straight line with a ruler. After redrawing this is the best I can do. Can anybody do a quick touchup to something that's reproducable on a punch? The YBF is for Yardbird Forge. (yes, I know yardbird is one word, just like the look of the letters this way, but wouldn't mind YF either if it looks right.) And now the darn things sideways.....sigh.

I want to forge a chalice, for a traveling religious service. I have a few ideas, I would like expert opinions! My first thought is to take a piece of pipe, of 1" or larger ID, and flare the edge, fuller the middle for a stem and weld it shut. Then I would flare the base of it. Is this a good way to go about this? My research has proven to be fruitless. Has anyone tried this previously?

Steel finally came in so I can start building the stand for my 32" grindstone. Have a feeling that the arm I made for it could be quite a bit shorter. Guess the shorter it is the faster the stone goes but less torque. For reference the squared end of the shaft is 7/8" sq. The other thing I have been hemming and hawing on is small gussets in the corners. I know it won't make a lot of difference strength and racking wise with the 2" tubing, but it does give it a little more finished look. What are your thought on it. Guess that's about it for now.

hello i heed some replacement blower handles for some blower that i just bought is there any where i can buy them or should i just make them out of some dowel i dont know where to find info on this topic thanks eco

Hello all. While making some integrated collars for a grille and gate I'm doing, I'm having a minor issue that may not even be an issue. What I'm trying to do is split the end of a 1/2 X 1 1/2" bar on the flat about 2"+ a bit, spread the split and forge into a "T" shape, with each arm of the T wrapping around a piece of 1" square forming a collar, with the 1" centered on the 1 1/2" flat. What seems to happen is a thinning of the material at the end of the split when I forge the "T". I've tried a number of test pieces trying splitting the stock with a hot cut, band saw, and drilling a 1/8" hole at the end of the split, and all stretch at the junction. I can push …

Does anybody have a good idea for using or disposing of oxide/scale? The stuff I am talking about is what collects around the powerhammer anvil, especially when using a gas furnace. I have done a bit of a search and could not find anything apart from possibly giving it to a potter to use in a glaze or adding it to the ballast in concrete.

Greetings- I have a small quandry. I am setting up a cast iton t-slot set-up table in the shop. It is 4 tables bolted and keyed, ground flat, 12' by 19', set into the floor with 72 anchors, into a slab that is joined to 6 30' deep pilons into the ground. Heavy stuff. I am in the process of truing and leveling this table using a Hammar Laser Level. This table had been re-worked several years ago, and set up in its present position by an installer. After several people have re-leveled it, and about a year since its last check, it has gone a bit out of whack. We use it to set up machine frames for building to get them as true as we can before moving them to the cons…

Hello all! I hope you don't mind the rage in my topic box. Okay, so I have been in and out of practice with forge welding, and most of the time now I can weld the piece of steel I am using when I am practicing forge welding. So what works in practice works in real life right? Wrong. EVERY time I try to forge weld on the real thing it never sticks! Not even a little bit!! I brush and flux with Borax at a bright red heat, put it back into the fire until it's that beautiful temperature right before it starts sparkling, tap it lightly then woopdeedoo! It doesn't even start to stick. What am I doing wrong? I am attempting to forge weld the eye of small tomahawks just to g…

I have a need to grind the inside of some 3/16 x 8 flat steel that I had a buddy plasma cut letters out of. Sadly his cutting left a less than straight profile on the letters and I find myself needing to grind the sides flat. The letters are about 3 inches tall over all so I cannot really get an angle grinder into them. I tried a carbide burr tool in a drill but it cannot spin it fast enough. I have a smaller burr tool that I can fit in a dremel that I can spin much faster but the size limits my optimism about it being able to remove enough metal. Any suggestions other things to try?

I've got a design I'd like to make but it requires bending C 3 X 4.1 with around 3 inch inside radius to a 45 degree angle. For tools, I've got a good propane forge and a #2 Hossfeld with 6 feet of leverage arm. Today with a scrap piece for trial and error, heat was not a problem but twisting was. I figure, if I fabricate a hold down to prevent the twist, it just might work. Has anyone tried such a bend? If so, what problems were encountered? My questions are in effort to prevent waste. Thanks for any suggestions. Arlo

I ran into a problem this weekend. I was trying to forge the ball on the end of the handle for a vise. I'm not an expert forge welder by any means but I can normally do better than this. I saw the demo on "I-Forge How To" and it looked simple enough however it was not for me. Welding of the ring together wasn't a problem. Getting the ring to weld to the rod proved to be impossible for me. No matter what I tried I could not even get it to stick a little. I brought both pieces (ring and rod) up to heat several times, wire brushed, back into the forge to bring to welding heat. Slow air, Borax added to the ring and rod while in the fire, got the melted butter look, out o…

Hi, yesterday I began to forge a new pair of tongs. I started with 3/8" x 1" mils steel and I fullered it with my flypress. When I was drawing the handle, I noticed there was a lot of cracks on it. I never forged it colder than orange color, it was always yellow and I stopped when orange. One rein was correct but the other was definitely ruined by these cracks. What happened? My dies for the flypress is 2 pieces of 3/4 round that act as a fuller so there is no cold shuts... The first pic is the 2 reins when I stopped working on them because of the cracks. The second is the one that is fine and the others ares the cracks in detail of the other tong. What can cause tha…

So I have been told that jump welding mild steel is near impossible by people who really know their stuff. I made it even harder on myself by tiring to jump weld a mild steel shank on a W1 stake top. I have done this in wrought iron in the past and it works just fine. I got the weld to take and twice it let go wile I did some reshaping at a lower of the heat. I used borax with wrought iron chips as flux. Let me reiterate I got it to weld twice on the first try but the weld had no strength. It just let go after when went to forge the rest of the tool. I don't have to do the job this way I just really want to.

I've got what was a really nice Witherby framing chisel that delaminated on me and I'm wondering if I can weld it back together. I've talked to a friend of mine who says he tried it on one of his, but couldn't get it to stick. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.

A local vegetable farmer came to me in need of some help, he's retired and farms only 25 or so acres. His chisel plow broke a shank and he needs a new one made, I told him to buy one but the problem is that due to the age and manufacture of this plow no one makes them for it anymore and replacement parts are impossible to find. For those not familiar with a chisel plow I've included a video of one in use below. Luckily there isn't a lot of work in this, other than getting the curve right and heat treating it. I'm just not sure what would be a good grade of steel for this project as I don't want him to have another problem with it. I've recommended him to call plac…

Hi folks, I have a cheap "anvil" (cast steel block that is vaugly anvil shaped) that I picked up a while back, and I've been trying to make some improvments. I've spent some time putting a point on the horn, but I still have a big problem with the hardie. It's supposed to be 1", but its a very poor casting, and I can't get any of my hardie tools into it. This is an anvil I use with my tiny home made gas forge, so I can't make new hardies to match, and I really dont want to have to remake all of my other hardies (all at 1"). So, my question is, is there any good way to open up a hardie hole? I can't really get files down into it, and even if I could I'd be filling …

I recently bought a nice champion forge blower. It runs smooth, throws a lot of air and cleaned up pretty nice. The only problem is when you let go of the crank, and the fan slows down, it sounds like the blades are hitting the inside of the housing. It is only when you let go. When you crank it its squared up and doesn't make contact. The crank does have some play. There does seem to be some sort of spacer where the crank enters the housing, but its pretty thin and worn out. Should that be there or did the previous owner add that? Any idea how to fix this wobble or what might be causing it? I'd hate to keep running it this way and destroy the blades. Any idea what mode…

Any idea what this thing is for? I'm not even sure it's a tool. The guy that showed me this said the white material looks & feels like wax. It looks old, like a lot of the Iforge members do, so I thought this would be a good place to ask B)