Problem Solving

is there a reasonably fast way to cut railroad track without using an angle grinder or bandsaw? i highly doubt taking a chisel on the perimeter until it has a line all the way around, then placing a rock or something on one side of the line sledging the other side would cause it to break, but thats all my tiny brain can come up with at the moment. any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated! -kegan

Hello! I am trying to make a large batch of hearts (seen on the anvil below) and would like to make the process as efficient as possible. I can taper the ends and bend the middles quite well at this point but I am still struggling to get consistent results bending the ends around into the middle. I have made 2 tools (shown in the pictures) but the tool on the anvil causes the ends of the bar stock to twist when I hit it with the hammer, and the tool in the vice loses grip of the tapered end of the stock. Is there a better/faster way I can bend the ends of the stock?

I'm forging a 4' paella pan from 1/8" mild and as is expected, I'm getting some warping. I'm thinking the low spots are where I need to work to get more of the wrinkles out, what do you think?

Hello, just found this forum on the internet. I work with closed die forgings and there is an issue we keep running into. Small titanium forgings getting stuck inside dies. Unfortunately, due to corporate, we cannot use hammers to release the forgings. We can only use pry bars, and only if forgings are stuck on bottom half of die, or manipulators. We use water-based lubricants to lubricate dies. Temperature of forgings are around 1400-1800°F (titanium) and 1900-2100°F for steels. All of our dies use 7° draft angles. What methods can be used, given some of the limitations listed, to free forgings? Appreciate the responses!

This component serves as a plate in space structures and is crafted through a single forging process. It is constructed from ST37 steel. My inquiry concerns the method for creating the cone and the rear step, as depicted in the accompanying image.

I'm in the process of remodeling a small house. It will have a pretty big hearth and fireplace. On one side of the fireplace I'm building a place to store 3 rifles. I want to be able to lock the rifles into the hearth. The plan is to imbed some type of a chain that can be ran through the trigger guards and locked with a big antique lock of some sort. I'm looking for ideas, or possibly just a hand forged chain that I can you. If this question is not allowed here, sorry, I'm looking for a solution.

I am about to do some repairs on an old ornamental iron fence that has a number of missing brackets where the top rail connects to posts. It is missing about half of these (20 or so). I want to find something just similar to what remains on the fence, NOT simply use a bent metal tab. These -- or anything like them -- appear to be impossible to find. These cast iron brackets are very common to see on old iron fences, but zero luck finding replacements. Apologies for no photo, but here is a couple of images. I can make these, but surely someone offers these -- ANY help is appreciated! THANKS!

I’m new to forging and living on a farm, I have a nearly endless supply of random metal. Of that metal, I have 20 or more cylinder bars and I was wondering what I could do with them. I’m trying to make knives using rasps and I’ve been told that cylinder bars are good steel so I was hoping to be able to make knives from them, but what is doable with them and what kind of metal are they? Thank you

Hello all. Hope all is well with you all Got a few quickies today. It was suggested on a previous submission, a learned smith was able to smith with something other than hammer. That prompts me to want to tap my steel butter colored cable on floor to weld ends. Any thoughts. I'm confident I have the strike to weld, equally confident I don't know what it is. Should a forge that is layered with butter covered by kastolite then a heavy coat of butter topped with matrikote turn dark colors on the floor of the forge with use or does it maintain a white color? If there anything that would weld the ends of steel cable while it cuts it or is there a cheap fuel torch I…

Looking for input on design and forging of a bale or hay hook. Its a pretty simple tool that has many uses for handling heavy bulky items such as logs or hay bales, of materials you can sink a hook into. There are a few geometric nuances that affect its effectiveness, such as pitch of the hook, shaft length, weight/diameter of shaft, point taper etc. What I am mainly interested in though, is how to forge the thing with a design that both works well yet is not overdone and time-consuming to forge. . I made one that works ok, but I don’t like the feel of the shaft between my fingers, even though I flattened it to about 4 or 5 sixteenths. I need to improve t…

Im a very new smith, just started forging pieces a few weeks ago, having a blast etc. I was in the process of working a large piece of H13 slowly but surely into a hot cut hardy tool. I had done some research on it and saw it was an air hardening steel that was shock resistant and made for hot work. I thought it was a great alloy for my purposes if not a pain in the butt to work, but hey one swing of the hammer at a time. I was drawing it down into the tenon for the hardy hole and all of a sudden it just split in 2 pieces when I struck it... never worked with this alloy before so im curious as what happened and what I can do better since I have a bunch of this stuff.…

Hi, I am restoring a 1930 buick and observed the front axel has a slight bend. I can build a jig to bend it back, however, how to I verify if the metal is bendable and wont crack. It is a king-pin style ibeam/h-bean axel. Front right wheel.

I have a railing job that requires I do a fair amount of field bending of 1.25 pipe (2-3 foot sections have to get curved to match the natural landscape) I decided it was too hard to make a jig so I think field bending is my best option. I have a lightweight gas forge that is easy to move. I am trying to decide if it would be easier to use that on site or weld one end of the rail in place and use a torch to heat and the bend the rail to line up with the in posts. The customer wants an organic feel so not needing to make perfect radii. Any suggestions and how big a rose bud is available to do this? Wondering if the 500K BTU propane torches could work. Thanks

hi i was after some help. i have to put up a lot of gates ( both metal & wooden ) and sometimes come up against the age old problem of gates having to rise up a slope as they open but be close to the ground when shut i know how to achieve this by offseting the bottome hinge. \what im after the help with is how to calculate the offset was thinking of maybe doing something on excel to calculate for different width gates and amount of rise needed i done a bit of a search before posting and come across the self rising gate hinge thread . where i see a reply from john b said Distance to offset centres of the hinge pins can be calculated by measuri…

Everything is finnihed i mean about heat treat. Knife made from leaf spring i think its is too hard to be drilled, can i skip again anealing or normalisation (i think i get good quality on blade) and doing that again heat treat might ruin it. Well question is how to drill that i tried and drilled 90 percent of one small hole and dril bitt wont come anymore deeper. And one question two how does temper travel trough blades. iam not still sure how it does horizontaly or verticaly, and what efect it, does it effect how you dip your blade in liquid (oil water) how will temper appear for example this screwdriver "chisel" or this knife well thats two ques…

Hello all, I was hoping the collective expertise here may be able to help. I have been asked by a medieval reenactor if I could forge a waffle iron in the style of the manuscript attached. Essentially tongs with a waffle iron on one end but I'm stumped trying to think up a way to make the irons so they seal, allow a 'honeycomb' waffle shape that historical records describe and doesn't weight a ton. All thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

I have 1/2" copper tubing between the pump and my tank on my compressor. I replaced it recently with all new fittings and the copper tubing broke within a few weeks. The point of failure was just outside the compression nut just where the pipe goes into the nut. I replaced and it broke again in the same spot in a week. Any suggestions. I thought to replace with a flexible hydraulic hose but there is a compression fitting on the tank that cannot be replaced with a npt fitting. Any thoughts? Thanks

Hi, I'm forging a cooking tripod and I need to find a way of suspending the fire plate from the legs. I saw these silver things. Does anyone know whet they are called and where I could get some. Thanks :-)

Hi All, Made my first canister Damascus today using some 1090 powder with added nickel content and an old motorcycle chain. i soacked the chain in varsol for 2 days and cleaned it with a brush. I then dried it with the air compresser and then cleaned it with some Methyl hydrate. I put whiteout on the inside of the can and then once that was dry I filled it welded it and through it in the forge. I brought it up to 2200F and let it sit for about 15 - 20 mins at that temp. I then pressed it on the diagonal rotated it 90 degrees and pressed it in the other direction. I then through it back in the forge and repeated the process. When I cut the can off, everything loo…

Hi - I have couple of questions I wanted to ask to make sure my reinstated cast iron railings & gate have the best chance at long-term survival... 1. My gate currently swings open and bashes my (weak sandstone, relatively small) side wall, causing the side spindles to shake on impact. I'm sure I shouldn't leave it like this. Which of these options is best (if either)? a) install rubber buffers (pix attached) on the sandstone side wall to dampen the impact , using a threaded bar held in with epoxy putty (I don't think anchor bolts are a good idea for sandstone?) b) ask my blacksmith to weld metal squares onto the hinges of the gate, thereby restricting its ope…

What if everything were perfect and went as planned? We would all be fat, lazy and crazy... "To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces." - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 'The Devil’s Foot'.

It has been quite a long time since I have been on the forum and my search-fu skills are a bit rusty, so if this has been asked before I apologize in advance. I have been asked to make a "prototype" ice saw for fishing. Having never made something like this I have a question about what type of steel to use. I have mild steel, 1045, and 4140 readily available. I also have access to smaller sizes of 1084, 1095, 15n20. While stainless steel is generally preferable it os currently not an option. The design is based on an old Scandinavian ice and snow saw. The blade will be 22" long with half inch teeth that have a half inch space between them. My initial thoug…

I just got a good deal on a fair quantity of S7 steel, which I plan to use for tooling and possibly as tailgating/trading stock. However, it's coming to me in 1/2" x 2-1/2" x 36" flat bar, so I'll need to cut it up to make it usable. My options are: Big cutoff saw. This is not running great right now; I think I need to get a new blade. Cutoff wheel in angle grinder. Probably not as precise as the big saw, but leaving an acceptable cut finish. Probably kind of slow. Horizontal bandsaw. Not sure if the steel is coming to me hardened, in which case this would not be a good option. Acceptable finish, much less flying grit. Cut hot with hardy and/or a…

I have access to broken grooming clipper blades and it seems a waste to toss them. There are 4 separate pieces to each of them. Could they be used for tooling? Ax bits? Welded together to make chisels and punches?

hi, sorry if I disturb surfing the net I found a rake suitable for both digging stones from the ground and potatoes. I think it could come in handy, but the cost would be a bit high. could you kindly suggest me and help me to make a similar one perhaps more effective using maybe pieces of round iron or other materials suitable for the realization of the artifact, the tool looks like a kitchen spaghetti ladle. let me know, thanks. [Commercial link removed] Any gardener who is plagued with stones, large or small, will appreciate this rake. In designing it, we spent a lot of time getting the right tine shape and spacing so that rocks as small as 3…